When to start preparing for 11+ / entry to secondary?

[Realdeal1]

Hi, i am thinking of trying to get my summer born child (currently 8 and in year 3) into a better secondary school. We are in north london. Finances mean i want to avoid the tutoring route but would like to start her on some additional books at home/bond books to ease her in rather than home doing nothing. It wont be the end of the world if she doesnt get in - its just at the current school, the more able children seem to be being left to their own devices a bit.

When would people advise prepping for these entrance exams?

I’d say most people start tutors 2 years before

So they start tutoring for 11+ in yr 1?? I am doubtful this is the case although of course I may be wrong.

I don't know the answer OP but I hope someone comes along that can provide some useful guidance. Everyone I know tutors. GL

Two years before the test, not 2 years before year 3!
For very competitive schools people seems to start in year 4, for most year 5 seems to be enough.

Depends on whether your current school is a prep school or not, for our prep most started Y5 (some def year 3 and 4 though) but the school had already been doing work before. For grammars the people I know were def in year 4 - but they were moving from state. I highly recommend Atom for little and often to consolidate learning - our school used this from year 3 I think and we ended up purchasing itself and it’s been v good.

In my area people start in year 4. bond online has some good online packages. We have the Bond books as well.

It looks like it depends on your area. In Trafford tutoring is normally during Year 5 for the 11+ at the start of Year 6.

Finding the tutor is trickier as the good ones get booked years in advance.

We did no 11+ work with DC until yr 5 as I wanted to see how well they were doing at school on their own and judge their potential suitability for a grammar. It was one hour a week in a group of four with a tutor, term time only. We had some practice books we bought from Waterstones and they would do an hour of that on a weekend. We did nothing during the summer holiday as they were 10 and needed to have fun. The week before we did some refresher stuff but lowkey. This approach worked for us.

Anecdotally, the children I saw who started in yr 4 or earlier were sick to death of it by the end of yr 5 and seemed to rebel against it (for want of a better word).

Thank you. Clearly read that wrong!

Depends which secondary school and how selective they are.

I was thinking South Hamsptead, NLCS - anything in Northish London

Having done this twice I think find a tutor and line up to start for the start of year 5. I think any earlier and it's too long and a slog for kids and any later is not enough time. You can basically say to your DC, you have 3/4 terms of extra input and work, and that's finite enough to encourage them, rather than being a two year push. You can read loads and do extra curricular stuff with them throughout year 4.

I think you need to look at the admission criteria of the school your interested in and know if they are super selective and the catchments of the schools. I hear so many stories of DC going through the 11+ process, pass but then have little to no chance of getting in due to their score &/or location.

We live near Bucks and Slough. We decided very early on that we would not participate in Slough Grammars as they are super selective and a different board so would mean extra work.

Most DC start tutoring in Y5. See which exam board they take, we use CGP books, haven't used bond.

Tutoring starts in Yr 4/5. Check out Explore Learning - they cover the course in a year. So starts in Sept and they take the exam the next September (at the very start of year 6).
Prepare for a lot of homework, practice tests etc. It’s a really strange exam and not things that your child has likely come across at school before. My child enjoys leaning and has got on well - best of luck ☺️

We started from y4 to ensure that dd was really solid in all areas taught at school. I might not have done this if I was confident in her school, but there is a lot of low level behaviour disruption that I think impacts on her learning. The official 11+ focused tutoring starts (for us) this weekend which is the beginning of year 5

11+? Start at the beginning of Year 4 or Year 5.

Buy a set of books like these:

www.examninja.co.uk/gl-11-plus-10-minute-tests-pack-ages-7-8-exam-ninja/

For a child that's academically capable, is motivated and has good concentration, this is all you'll need for the time being. There's no need to complicate things, just get experience of Verbal/Non-Verbal Reasoning questions go at their pace. Good luck!

It's not just about getting into selective schools, it is also about whether your child will thrive there.
Kids in my sons' school tutor from Y4 and by Y5 some are doing an hour a night plus up to 3 hours a day over the summer.
If they are bright enough to get in this level of tutoring is unnecessary, if they need this to get in then they may struggle to keep up without extra support.
Some tutoring (either paid for or at home with books or online like Atom) is essential as they don't always cover everything in school and the questions are written in strange ways until you get used to them.
DS has had a hour a week with a tutor (I could do this myself but really not the best for DS) and we've done 10minute tests over the summer. He's a borderline pass. Maybe we should have pushed him more but he's motivated and I'd rather he was a top set in a comp than a bottom set in grammar.

Mine is about to start tutoring and she is just about to start Y5. Last year (Y4) we got some 11+ books and did those with her for 10 minutes a day about 2-4 times a week from Jan. We have done nothing over the summer. We are certainly not going down the hour a night/ 3 hours over the summer route. Surely if they need that much tutoring the school is not going to be right for them? She is doing small group tutoring for 1.5 hrs once a week + whatever homework they set.

@sherbsy they are starting year 4 so would these suit or should i go the next level up.

There’s a forum for 11 plus information that has sections both about preparing for and passing the exams (some folk tutor for 1-2 years but some do “DIY” prep at home with books and online resources instead).
It has area based topics too, and there’s a London GS section. See if it is useful?
(DIY’d our three children and found it helpful, though not for a super selective grammar)

eleven plus exams forum

Yes, go for the Year 4 pack:

https://www.examninja.co.uk/gl-11-plus-workbook-pack-ages-8-9/

Atom Learning as a minimum if you’re in London. Anything else is pointless

Sorry, don't want to spam people (just posted this in another thread) but I have a 20% off code for Atom for anyone that fancies a spin. The code is EXAMNINJA20.

Atom is very good indeed, but we found with our DC that it works really well in a summative way, i.e. as a way to test where one is at, compared to the cohort, and to practice (for the schools that have a computer-based exam) closer to the exam (end of year 5/start of year 6). Good old-fashioned paper-based learning however (i.e. sitting down with a parent/or tutor and talking through questions) may be a more efficient way of making progress. There is some evidence that computer screens are not an optimal method of learning. This might partly explain why, in my experience, pupils who seriously prepare for the Grammar schools (whose exams are paper-based), tend to do better when they sit the indies exams.

Yes. This applies to Kumon too. Paper based learning works better at making concepts stick in your brain