Has anybody successfully tutored for the 11+ completely by themselves(need reassurance)

[Blueskiesandbuttercups]

DS year 4 desperately wants to go but we can't afford tutoring.He is bright,driven and I was a teacher so in theory it shouldn't be too hard.

His friend is also going for it but they're well off so tutoring and have already started.Ds is nagging me to get started.

Sooo went on the 11+ forum typed in the school to order books and I'm already in a pickle.They cost £££££ so need to get it right. We like CPG but loads are listed we haven't heard off. Would it be ok to just go with Bond and CPG or should we go with exactly those listed?

Is it possible to do this ourselves or am I deluding myself? If I screw this up I'll feel like shit- forever! Need lots of reassurance.

I'd like to add my name to the list of parents who successfully tutored two DC for places in very selective GS. We started in year 5 with Bond books (having checked past papers from the 11+ exam board to find out the test format) and worked on maths, english and VR at home. We started with the 10 minute tests then worked our way up to the full length ones.

We did pay for 4 sessions at a local 11+ club where they sat two full length tests in exam conditions in a hall with about 30 other children as this 'atmosphere' was the one thing we couldn't provide at home. This was really useful as both had been scoring really highly at home but did really badly in the first 'exam conditions' tests. Their nerves settled after a couple of sessions so that on the 11+ day they were relatively relaxed.

I wondered if I was doing the right thing and sometimes felt worried that I might be letting them down as everyone else seemed to be using tutors. As time went on, I realised that I was doing a better job for our DCs as I knew them better, could work at a time that suited us and could give incentives for their work that I knew would motivate them.

We also didn't make a big deal of it. We said from the start that we'd help them and that they should try their best but if they didn't get in it would be fine. We rewarded each of them with little presents right after the 11+, before the results were published as we were rewarding their effort and not their results. I think this helped as they were nowhere near as stressed as some other kids whose parents had spent a fortune on tutors.

I'd be happy to help more if you'd like to PM me.

piggy makes the very good point that there are a lot of people struggling financially who nevertheless don't qualify for FSM.

True, but other things being equal, we can also assume that schools with high FSM also have a large proportion of children at just above the FSM level. The reverse is also the case and and schools with low FSM uptake tend to have relatively few children just slightly above the FSM level.

At DS's school they are forever sending round forms asking if people are eligible for FSM - I actually think they would prefer it if there were more boys on them! Every term we get one....His school has about 2% on FSM.

gazzalw FSM children = Pupil Premium money for each child!

Of course schools want to make sure all families that are eligible are claiming.

Oh just to add to the disadvantaged families pov. I prepared ds2 (& he got in) despite having 2 siblings - one very severely autistic (so no chance of quiet space for homework) while working late myself each night. And we couldn't study in his bedroom because there's no space around the buckets catching the water com

So even in less than ideal circumstances it can be done if you so wish.

*coming in through the ceiling :violins:

And of course if you have the cash & want to you can buy in a tutor if you want. Personally I was fed up of paying people (had therapists for years with ds1) and preferred spare money to go into our roof fund.

@ seeker:

""Agree - almost any parent who's not half-witted can tutor their own dc better than a tutor"

Provided they have the knowledge,the education, the confidence, the leisure, the language, the time, the space, the inclination......"

I wasn't debating whether or not the system is fair - that is matter for a different thread, not this one, and has been done to death by you and others on other threads previously. The OP, who is a teacher, so presumably not uneducated, and who obviously does have the inclination, asked if she could tutor as well as a 'professional' tutor.

I said yes - to give her that one element I agree she was lacking - confidence.

Please stick to the topic - which is if it is possible for ordinary people with the inclination to tutor their own children successfully, to do so.

Not whether it is possible for any bright child to get in if they have a parent with no inclination and/or brains.

Different topic, should be on a different thread. Go start one, so I can ignore it.

I too would second that Bond Online is a good way to start and not too onerous an introduction for DCs. It was quite basic when we took out a year's subscription but had an overhaul a couple of months before DS started taking his 11+ exams - very helpful!

And I was serious when I recommended the Nintendo Brain Training. Stealth practice........l!

Agree with breadandbutterfly - the question was can I do this? The answer - yes you can. And contrary to the suggestion on this thread - even when circumstances are less than ideal. You don't have to be living out some middle class life of perfection to manage it. It can be done in leaky, cluttered houses with severely disabled siblings and parents who have to spend too much time on paid work. BTDTGTTS.

Also agree with those who have mentioned that it gives you a good understanding of your child's problem areas. Had ds2 not passed I would have known immediately why that was (too many careless silly mistakes for a multiple choice paper). That in itself meant I could work on this & give him tips on accuracy & how to check answers.

Can't tell you how useful all this advice,reassurance and experiences are. Thank you.

One further question. On the 11+forum for our school when it lists books it says start with 9-10 and work upwards however many of the books have earlier books say at 8-9. Is it worth starting with the younger books?He'll be 10 going into year 5 in Sep and we won't be starting until these hols if we haven't got any holes to fill first iykwim.

It would obviously save quite a bit of money if I started on the 9-10 books but if there is any benefit starting with the book before I don't mind stumping up for the extra cost.

I would go with your gut instinct. If it's NVR/VR I would probably start at the 9 - 10 ones and see how you go. If he is having difficulty you could always see if you could borrow ones for the younger age-group from the library/friends/family etc.... (we found that DD, 5 at the time, was rather good with some of the NVR ones - she hates to be outdone - because they involved recognising patterns and at that young age she wasn't looking to over-complicate the rationale for the odd ones out!).

With Maths and English I would use your knowledge of your son's latent abilities to determine what level you start him off on...(our son was much better at maths than English so I think we pitched him on 9-10 age English initially, whereas we started on 10-11 age Maths - if that makes sense?). FWIW, by the time it came to the 11+ exams time in early Year 6, DS was doing age 11-12 books in all four disciplines, although I am not sure that much of the more advanced maths actually featured in any of his 11+ exams.

The Bond Parent's Guide to the 11+ ( tried to link but for some reason couldn't) has tests you can do to see where your child is before you start.

I would always start easier rather than harder- confidence is really important, and starting with stuff that's easy helps.

Don't forget there are loads of papers you can download for free. And ebay is good for second hand.

Yes, I would second what Seeker says about finding free papers on-line....there are quite a lot out there.

Good luck!

Oh, and be very careful with the 11+ forum. There are some lovely and helpful people on there- the mods are wonderful. But there are also a lot of mentalists. And sometimes it's hard to tell the difference. And you can very easily start doubting yourself.

I know nothing at all about the 11+ sites but it's probably worth saying that things are changing pretty much nationwide and the focus of the exams is shifting, though in some places faster than others.

Personally, we found that doing online tests was very very different than the actual pencil & paper tests and not very useful. It is easy to keep focused on a computer screen, what they need to manage is to focus on the paper. They are usually seeing one question at a time so it doesn't train them to avoid making silly mistakes because their eyes don't have to scan the whole page to find the question number, etc. It doesn't teach them to manage time by jumping certain questions and going back to them as they are being served one after another and they progress by answering them. Maybe there are some online tests that don´t work like that, but we didn't find them.

I would use my money to buy books and tests. You can also print lots of free samples from internet.

I wouldn't ever advocate online only but I do think it has a place, as a mix and match approach with papers - but every family will approach prep slightly differently. We certainly found that it was good for DS in the early days of his prep (so around March/April/May of Year 5) - it was more about familiarisation than fine-tuning the technique.

Bottom line, Blueskies..., there's no definitive way but it's of trial and error approach which will produce a prep programme that is idiosyncratic to the DC - as I said we rather ignored doing much essay-writing practice with DS just because it was too much of a nightmare. He got in without it but ideally it should have formed a greater part of his prep than we failed to make it (if that makes sense).

Good luck and you know where we are if you need us!

All this is really good advice. I would also say, as you are starting in plenty of time, that you may find puzzle books help if he finds papers of VR/NVR daunting at first. I remember we found a little WH Smiths book of puzzles quite handy for train journeys etc, without it seeming to be anything to do with exam practice. You'd have to pick the puzzle book carefully I(ours was down the back of a car seat......) and it is not a substitute for the real thing, just a bit of fun that can start you off gently. Good brain exercise anyway!

Good luck OP - glad you got some useful tips out of this thread.

gazzalw I think the English paper is becoming more important nationally in the brave new world of 11+. You may well have had a lucky escape.

For essays I got ds2 to do a past one - it was dreadful. Pointed out all the problems with it & made him rewrite - far better. His next one was great. So we did one more - great. Then I put together a big list of potential titles and made him choose some to plan, then talked through ideas for the rest. Ds2 used to struggle when there was no right or wt

Wrong answer so chatting through potential titles was helpful.

I did hear some horror stories about the essay paper as it didn't lend itself to descriptions (& no choice of question) - which many children has been tutored to produce.