Help with 11plus - where do I start?

[Ironfloor269]

DD is 9 (in year 4 now, going to year 5 in September). She wants to do the 11+ exams in the hope of getting into a Grammar School.

Please could you advise me re:

• do I start her on doing past papers now?
• do I get her to CPG style practice books?
• do I send her for tuition?
• which subjects? She is strong in maths.
• are there different exam bodies of which past papers I should seek?

It's just that there are friends of ours who are already getting extra tutoring for their 9 year olds but I also hear it's too early to do that at this stage unless the child actually needs extra help?

Really appreciate the advice of those who have been there and done that.

Thank you for reading.

Is this for state grammar school or private school?

Are they selective or super selective?

If you want to give the area, people will be able to give more specific advice.

You need to find out the type of exam set - Maths? English? VR? NVR? etc

Thanks, @Seeline. It's for state grammar. It is a selective school in the Reading area. I'll find out the type of exam set.

There is lots of info about 11 plus prep, and tailored info about different areas, at www.elevenplusexams.co.uk

Advice I've seen is to leave the practice test papers until all areas are covered. Getting them to do it now would be disheartening.

I plan to introduce VR and NVR in year 5, and then work through some of the books. Little and often, and if maths is her strong point work on turning her from good to great and make her stand out in this area.

Thank you, @LetItGoToRuin. I'll have a look at that website.

@Happysummer - thank you so much, that's exactly the kind of advice I was after.

Please could you tell me, do they cover all the areas in school? Are there any books that I could buy and get DD to have a look?

My dd is 9 and in year 4 too. We have just been to the schools open day and that was really useful to know exactly what the school does as they can be different. Can you check if yours has one coming up or if you can book to look around. The website may have useful information too. We plan to get a tutor for the summer term next year and work on books from the start of the summer holidays

Actual practice tests don't need doing till later. However, now is high time to make sure your daughter is on top of the curriculum and has no gaps. With Maths, it helps to practise problem solving and working quickly.

I don't know your school specifically but 11+ is no different to other challenging exams - to succeed, you need to have a very good knowledge and understanding + work quickly and accurately under pressure.

If you can get a tutor, then I'd recommend an experienced teacher. Next year, make sure she does some practice exams (large groups, time pressure etc). Tuition centres often offer those and grammar schools often run 1 or 2 of those too.

Schools vary so make sure that you check what exactly the exam entails, e.g. verbal/non-verbal/creative writing etc.

do they cover all the areas in school?

Are you in a grammar area (where all/most children sit the 11+)?

We were not in a grammar area, could choose to sit 11+ for grammars in neighbouring London Boroughs. Our state primaries did nothing towards exam preparation at all - too busy preparing for SATS (which are nearly a year too late for the 11+ tests). My own primary wouldn't even say whether my DCs were of a standard that meant giving the 11+ a go was reasonable!

Schools we visited said strictly, nothing in the exams wouldn't be covered by the KS2 curriculum, although exams were at the beginning of Y6, with the curriculum not finished until the end of Y6.

DD is starting at grammar this September. One thing I found very helpful was going to a "familiarisation" session which the school she was interested in ran in Year 5. The school talked us through what to expect about the exam.

We didn't use a tutor and didn't do any of the mock exams etc.

We did get some of the CGP books (the 10 minute quiz style ones) and had a bit of a practice with those during the summer holidays between Year 5 and Year 6. The non-verbal reasoning is something that is definitely not taught at her state primary and I do think she needed to be familiar with the style of questions before the exam! She was also not familiar with the style of the maths questions so the books helped there too. But we did try to keep it all low key - and we did keep it all to the couple of months before the exam.

Also, despite my best attempts, it was a stressful experience... fingers crossed that it's worthwhile once she starts at the school. (She had her heart set on this school so...)

Thank you for your very helpful replies.

Going to see the school is a great idea! It would never have occurred to me to do it if not for your advice. Thank you. I'll look into ant open days this school is doing.

Get some age appropriate VR, NVR and maths books from WH Smith - they are pre-11+ prep. The NVR are really good fun at that age - pictures and puzzles. DC used to ask to do them.
Read to her and with her. After you've read a page or so, pause and ask a question or two: why do you think Harry/Hermione did that? Ask her to guess what unusual words mean from the context and then if she's wrong or neither of you know, look them up. A wide vocab and critical thinking/comprehension skills are so valuable.

Encourage her to write little stories and to keep a holiday journal that uses descriptive writing to remember what she did on any outings or fun days.

I agree to keeping it low key. My DC did an hour a week. In the run up to the exam itself, they also did 10 mins maths a day as that was their weakest subject. But 10 mins a day is nothing.

OMG OP... how could you send your daughter to a school you've never seen? Like taking a job in a place you've never been to...

I'm in a super selective grammar area (don't know what your school is like but around here grammars achieve 80%+ A*-A at GCSE and thousands of children compete for places) and 1h a week or 10mins a day just wouldn't cut it. Even the very able children need to spend a few h a week preparing.

If it is a girls grammar in the Reading area then I presume you are referring to Kendrick unless you are referring to the Slough grammars. Kendrick is super selective and competition is fierce. You will find that some girls will have been tutored for years in an attempt to get in. I suspect all bar a few girls will have had tutoring in some form or another - even if they are super bright, then tutoring gives an advantage over the style of questions and speed.

Just googled Kendrick. Definitely a lot of work required.

An idea from another thread about exam technique. It's not just being bright, it's being fast and accurate. I don't plan on doing exams under summer term of Yr5 when hopefully all the material is understood and it's exam technique that needs practice.

"When doing a practice paper (initially not timed) I would give him a 1 min timer and if he came to a question he couldn't answer quickly I told him to turn on the timer and if it wasn't finished when the timer went off he should move on to the next question. So the timer wasn't used for every question however it got him used to understanding how quick he needed to be and realising when he was spending too much time on a question.

After a while of practicing this we would reduce the timer from 1 min to 30 secs."

Thank you @Happysummer, for that tip. Very helpful.