Supporting my YR5 DS towards his 11+

[Dingle]

Please help, some of you may know that my DD (nearly 7) has Down Syndrome and I am constantly fighting the system to get her supported at a relevant level in her MS school. I time has come where I need to either step up my fight or send her to a SN school, not because she isn't progressing but the system sheer ignorance and unwillingness to differentiate a few P levels between her and some her of peers.

While my fight for her goes on I am becoming more and more aware that I SHOULD also be supporting my DS, who 9 and is the baby of Y5.

We are in Medway. Kent, with an 11+ now being sat at the beginning of Y6. I am not 100% sure of his most recent levels but during the summer parents evening he had the reading age of 13.3 and numeracy of the average Y6 pupils and it was suggested we look towards the 11+ for him.

ASking at this terms's parents evening, the advice about how exactly to support him towards the 11+ wasn't exactly forthcoming shall we say and now I feel I need to source this out myself!

Have you any recommendations to books, websites,practice papers ect that aren't going to cost us a fortune.

Sorry for the waffle, my head is in turmoil at the moment!

This is a good forum.

You can get practice papers from WHSmiths (need to find out if he is doing Multi Choice or Standard Answers), and other threads on here have linked to free papers/other sites etc.

My DS was an August Birthday, so also sat 11+ at 10.2 years! He loves his Grammar school though

The Bond series are really good (you can also get those in WH Smiths.) Are there no 11+ clubs in your area. There are some good ones round here where we live in Essex.(one is at the DDs school and does not cost the earth)

You need to find out what sorts of tests your local grammar school consortium do. Here it's english, maths and verbal reasoning but I know in some areas they do non-verbal reasoning too.

Dingle - do you have CAT? Or do you still have my email address knocking around somewhere? My subs has run out and I haven't got round to renewing it.
I have a stack of stuff which we no longer need - long story will explain in an email.

Including a short book about taking the stress out of the 11+ process or some such snappy title.

I would be delighted to bung it all in a jiffy bag and send it to a good home.

Ha! I've found your email, will drop you a line.

Thank you roisin, have emailed back!

RubyR what do you mean by "Plus as a summer baby he should get extra credit (bummer for us). "

LOL...he is 30th August, should have tried to hold on for a few days shouldn't I?

11+ results are generally judged using age-standardisation. This means children who are nearly a year younger do get credit for their age. It doesn't make a huge difference, but is certainly worth a couple of marks.

I will sort out the parcel for you :-)

There is a site called Chuckra that has free print outs/online testing and REALLY useful advice if you do not get how to answer the questions yourself and have no chance of teaching your child to do it!
Good Luck. Remember a full mark is about 75% of the test correct. You have plenty of time to get him up to scratch.
FWIW my dd has just passed and I COULD NOT get her to do any practice through the summer holidays. She answered maybe 60 questions over the whole summer, and wouldnt sit and do the papers for longer than 10 min, even though I was telling her that on the day she would have 2 FULL papers, not just 8-9 questions.
But she passed anyway. So dont stress too much.

roisin- A HUGE thank you for the books. Sorry I haven't been on here earlier to thank you. I am still having major issues with DD's school and support!

DS has already started on some of the 10 minute tests!

You are an absolute star and I cannot thank you enough!

Dingle.xx

I'd completely forgotten about them Dingle!
I'm glad they've arrived safely and are being put to good use