Non verbal reasoning for 11 plus

[Bloss71]

I am a complete novice to the UK education system and would love some advice. My 10 yr old is keen to sit grammar school exams and has been having some tutoring. He does very well in the literacy, maths, and verbal reasoning papers. However the non verbal reasoning is his stumbling block, usually gets about 50%. What are his chances if he aces all other parts of the exam, but continues to be average in this one area?

Cheers....

In kent we have a system where children must score a certain mark over 3 papers. The total score is out of 420 and kent decide on the pass mark after the tests have been marked. However, there is a minimum pass mark per paper for children to pass.

I haven't explained it very well but if you google Kent test, they have all the info on the council website.

In essence, your sons weakness in nvr could well prevent him passing, yes. But there is still time, and he can practise.

Different LEA here but works in a similar way to what PP has described for Kent. There is a minimum pass mark for each paper, and then an overall score. I don't think 50% is high enough (it isn't here anyway) so it wouldn't matter if your son aced all the other papers, if he didn't get the minimum pass mark on the NVR. Only children who have achieved the minimum score on each paper go through to the next stage, which is working out whether they got the required overall mark.

Check what is needed for the exams in your area - different schools/councils set different papers. My DD only had maths and English papers for 11+ papers this year. VR was for private school 11+. None din NVR. If the NVR is required, I would have thought a score that low would bring down his total mark too far to be successful.

Get some Bond papers and work through them. Start with maybe the 8-9 or 9-10 aged ones for him to get the feel for them, then work up. Bond also produce a 'How to...' books for parents and I'm sure there is a Verbal/Non verbal reasoning papers.

Bloss which area or particular school are you hoping for? There's plenty of info about test content for individual schools and the pass marks required. Have you had a look on the eleven plus forum? There'll be more in depth info there.

How is your son doing with the tutor? Is the tutor covering much NVR with him?

Thanks all. We will do more papers with him and see if he gets any better. We are in Birmingham. The tutor thinks it is a confidence problem rather than intelligence as he isn't familiar with the papers and gets himself into a right state! Thanks again....

Also check out the Manchester grammar school site for their past papers.

The Non Verbal Reasoning papers are so different from anything else done in school, that it can be very confusing for a child not used to them.

There is perhaps almost a 'formula' to these NVR tasks, so they will fall into different categories. The only way I think is to get as many different samples as possible, and practise for as long as he can put up with!

Birmingham sit the CEM 11+ so make sure that you get the Bond CEM books, we use CGP books and as a previous poster said start with the younger aged ones.

My DS has just done the 11+ and got into a grammar.

I would say think very carefully about going down this route. If you go to all this effort and he doesn't get a place he'll feel like a failure.

I didn't really appreciate how that would feel till last week. DS got his place. But if he hadn't we would have been gutted. And it would have tarnished his start at the perfectly fine local school.

So knowing what I know now I would say don't go for it if you're not confident he'll pass.

Not all children can raise their NVR score through tutoring.

my advice is visit 11+ forum (just type it in on your search engine) and then go to your local region for more information.

With non-verbal reasoning - which oddly family seems very good at and we weirdly rather enjoy (grandpa even doing some with grand DDs) - it's about visual alertness:

Shape - what are the shapes in the figures - do the remain constant or change

Position - what is the arrangement - all facing up/ all directions/ etc...

Shading - does this stay constant or gradually change

Rotation - does the image turn as it goes through a sequence

Addition - does something get added into the image as it progresses through a sequences (and conversely does something get removed).

Bond has workbooks specifically for improving performance at NVR but in general it is a small element of most 11+ entrance exams. I think most entrance exams won't penalise weakness in one area - strengths in other areas tend to compensate.

HTH