anyone have a child revising for eleven plus exams?

[cylon]

i do, and i want him to stop.
his entire holidays are being taken up. but the thing is, it's not as if he is actuallydoing anything. he spends two hours doing a ten minute piece of work.
but if i make him stop, then i feel more guilty because i may be lessening his chances of getting into a grammar school because of my personal feelings.

I did this last year or should I say I didn't do this last year! Most of the 11+ is about intellegence and you can't teach it or revise it! Yes, theres an English and Maths paper, but in all honesty, what is the point of pushing to get a grammar place on the strength of 1 test? How would you feel if he passed, by the skin of his teeth and then couldn't cope? If he is meant to be at grammar, he will already be showing signs of that.
My advice, should you chose to accept it! Is to tell him see what the papers look like, so he's familiar with the lay out. Maybe do one test under test conditions so that he can get a feel for timing AND get him to fill in a few lottery tickets! The multiple choice answer sheet is the same format and there's an art to filling it in so that the computer reads the answers.
Don't stress - what will be, will be!
Here endeth the lesson!

Organise other things for him to do. Invite his mates round/take him out and generally get him away from his books. A kid can't successfully revise for more than 20-30 mins at a stretch anyway.

Is he stressing about getting into grammar school? Is he more likely to than not? If he's bright and doing well and his teachers are fairly confident he's grammar school material then there's no need to worry anyway and if he's not then grammar school may not be the best place for him. (Is 11+ compulsory?) My brother only just scraped in and went through 7 years of feeling a dunce 'cos he was in the bottom stream and it did nothing for his feelings of self worth.

Btw our local grammar school's 11+ entrance exam is all verbal and non verbal reasoning tests to calculate IQ and therefore you can't really revise for it?

lord, i totally agree with you guys. but unfortunately that doesnt help me in the least bit.
he is intelligent. as everyone eeps telling me. but he isnt grammar school material. as my dh refuses to listen to. so he is insistent he tries. and is teh one sending him to tutors and setting him the extra work to do. i have had allthe conversations about htis with him i can. but he isnt interested in following my advice, which is the same as yours.
ds is very lazy if he can get away with it. he hates sitting down and working, and never ever reads. timed work and him just dont get on. however he is working hard at the work the tutors set him, and seems to be quite keen, assuming we dont stress at him. i tell myself that the extra work he is doing willstand him in good stead next year in school, regardless of entry into grammar or not.
i just wish he wouldnt take so long to do a single piece of work

Well, if your DH is so keen it's probably best not to make too big a deal out of it as any conflict between you will only make your DS feel guilty as it's all about him.

Is your DH out during the day and are you at home? In which case make sure he gets out and about while dad's at work and let him do an hour or so in the evening.

You're right that the work will stand him in good stead but honestly, more than 30 mins at a stretch will only be counterproductive.

Could you show your DH some research to the effect that your son needs some physical activity to boost his test performance? Persuade him of that, and you can send your son down to the park with a clear conscience .

Or you could try putting a firm time limit on how much time he spends each day doing preparation - on the "passing the test" side it's practice at coping with timed conditions, and on the "enjoying the holidays" side, he then has the rest of the day free.

Anybody who tells you that you can't improve your 11+ score by practising is wrong. It is a myth perpetuated by schools in an attempt to discourage people from practising. Verbal reasoning isn't a great measure of intelligence unfortunately. If you study the question types which tend to come up there are often many variations of each that can occur. If your child doesn't think of one of those variations on the day then that doesn't make them less intelligent. It just means they weren't on the same wavelength as the person who created the question.

The key is to be exposed to as many of the question types as possible. My son and I found the 11+ Method and Technique videos on chuckra extremely useful. They are free to watch. I wasn't aware of some of the question variations such as 'mirror type' questions until I watched them.

my niece has hers tomorrow - she has been having tutoring and like others have said practising the techniques and the question types has improved her scores immensely. She is very borderline so I've got everything crossed that she'll pass. The area she lives in has fantastic grammar schools but the non grammar alternatives are awful.