11 Plus question

[Bomper]

Is it true that the National Curriculum doesn't cover all areas of the 11 plus exam? I was looking at a site called 11plus swot for ds and it basically said as much, and I know for a fact that ds's school does not teach algebra and yet on past test papers I have seen there have been at least 2 or 3 algebra questions. And if not, why not?! Are schools only interested in pupils SATs results?

basically yes it is all about SATS for priamry schools

Its true there is more to the 11+ than the NC, but that's becasue the 11+ still maintains most of the standards they always had, whereas the NC is dumbed down year after year thereby widening the private/state gap. And unfortunately these days we only teach children how to get through the SATs we no longer educate them.

yes deffo algebra in 11+ 2 years ago

Unless the school are a direct feeder into an 11+ school, then some additional work will need to be done on the maths. Also practice the English & verbal reasoning since they are in a format that he's likely not to have seen before.

if you have no help from the school you will need to either tutor your DC yourself or do as a lot of people do and get a private tutor in to bridge the gap. Its one of the things a lot of private tutors are used to doing.

That's appalling!! We have been shelling out money we don't really have to send DS to extra tuition courses, buying ruddy expensive practice books in WHSmiths etc. But what about people who just can't afford to do that? It's terrible!!

Thus the widening gap between those who can pay and those who can't. I was educated in the private sector and have worked in it too but i will never be able to afford to send my DC to private schools. The best i can do at least is teach them Maths myself and hope that they'll muddle through with the rest.

And unfortunately Maths is his weakest subject - poor soul takes after me in that department!! Dh is good at Maths, but it's one thing knowing what to do and quite another to explain it to a 10 year old.

I'd help out but i see you're in London and I'm about 200 miles away , I'd have to charge travel expenses

I'll send my private jet to collect you!!

You just have to look at the curriculum and compare it to when we studied Maths. Venn diagrams, matrices, binary, calculus are all 'out'. And AS maths had to be 'adjusted' as the leap from GCSE was too great, and university Maths course offer catch up classes for new entrants on their courses.

For the 11+ it used to be just a bit practice to improve exam technique but now there are subject knowledge gaps too.