2023 Eleven Plus support thread

[elevenduck]

I thought it might be useful for parents of 2023 children taking the 11+ test next school year to have a space to talk everything 11+ - tips on managing stress, approaches to the different papers, ways of relaxing etc.

Let's try and keep it positive and supportive!

Hello I will join. Have a year 5 boy who will apply for Kent and bexley and possibly St Olaves... but I have only started prep yesterday.

His school is not very high performing and he has a poor teacher (after having brilliant teachers). He used to be so keen on learning but a poor teacher has impacted him quite badly.

His older brother did well, and we started prep 10 months out from the exam but did not have any expectations that he would pass 11 plus.

I am finding the workload for a secondary school grammar child and 11 plus prep plus everything I need to do on a day to day hard to juggle. 11 plus prep is always left until last and often not done.

Trying to remain positive.

I also know people who do absolutely crazy amounts of tutoring.

I also have bizarre anxiety about the test day and worry that my child would get sick on the day of the test.

Also not helped by my understanding the Bexley test may now be GL type test.

I used to be quite calm and shield this from my children but the non grammar options near me are schools I can't entertain. This is because I know pupils at the who have left due to violence and other really terrible events.

That sounds really hard. We're in Bucks rather than Kent, but same thing of the schools that aren't grammars really suffering from having the majority of aspirational children pulled out of them.

The area of Bucks we are in is not affluent, so the local grammars in our town are full of very well-to-do children from the affluent surrounding villages rather than the town we actually live in. Where 30% of children who take the exam go to grammars, in our district it's nearer 10%, which is really hard.

I know Bucks has a system in place for sickness on the day - you're advised not to take the exam and to take it on an alternative date? Maybe worth looking at what the Kent rules are, just to reassure yourself?

Hi. I was about to start my own thread but found this one.

My DS is year 5 and we're looking at Bexley grammar schools. We're not tutoring as we're fairly relaxed about him going but I would like.him.to have options. Specifically Bexley Grammar which is quite near us.

I've only just started considering what we need to do for prep and was looking at a website to get some practice papers. For a full set of all the practice papers it's working out around £450!! @Testpreo if you have any good links for Bexley resources it would be great to have them.

I also don't know how we'll fit it in between football, scouts, swimming... And DS is somewhat resistant to homework in general. He's very bright and top of his class/greater depth in everything but hates homework. Not sure how to motivate him for these. He hates getting anything wrong so it'll be a tough year ahead!

How's everyone holding up? Lots of preparation or no preparation yet?

DD is doing fine with the exception of Spatial Reasoning, which is a whole paper where we live. I tried to help her with it and was genuinely baffled myself so had to get DH to help. It just be genetic. I cannot spin imaginary shapes in my head or find shapes within other shapes!

Any tips gratefully received to help DD (except Lego and jigsaws which she hates!).

Hello from SW London, where I’ll be navigating this challenge for my DD - she’s at a kind, nurturing prep which has suddenly gone scary with homework and exam prep in Y5 - we are ALL feeling the pressure. DD is probably dyslexic (assessment coming next month) and neither me nor DH have not come from the Indy sector ourselves, so I am pretty much dreading the entire process. Glad to have some other hands to hold on this ride!

@elevenduck Berks here, good to have a support network

Have just been through the process just come on here to mention that I found atom learning helpful. The fullest package is eyewatering in cost but you can literally toggle between packages just doing the higher one for a few days to do a practice test then when you toggle back down the credit is added. I don't have shares honestly but it helped as DS was very reluctant but he likes computers.

We're doing ok so far.

DS loves the non verbal reasoning so is doing great. Also good at comprehension. Fairly good with verbal reasoning so far. Surprisingly he's finding maths hard. He aces maths in school, always working at greater depth but the Bexley maths test covers a lot he hasn't learned in school so he's having to really work at it and it's knocking his confidence a bit. We'll get there though.

Does anyone have any tips on time management? DD can be painfully slow and I'm not sure if it's "faffing" (which won't be a problem in the real thing as adrenaline will kick in) or if we've got a bigger issue on our hands.

I would say unlikely she is "faffing". Most DCs start naturally slow, partly because they have not worked under time pressure before, but also because they aren't familiar with many techniques of doing things fast (especially in maths).

Lot and lot of practice will help, plus teaching faster techniques of doing things - mental maths, eliminating obviously wrong answer choices to narrow down options instead of plunging into a possibly long calculation right away etc.

Is she slow in particular area(s) or slow in general? If in specific areas, then it will be useful to understand how she is solving these and see if better techniques can be applied.

If her technique is fine, then I am afraid it's going to be a lot of practice. Nothing wrong with that though, you have caught it early enough and have plenty of time!

She's particularly slow at non verbal but even in her stronger subjects like comprehensions, she rarely finishes the 10 min test in less than 15 mins.

She has recently been set a couple of 30 minute tests that have taken her well over an hour each.

We definitely do a lot of practice but I'm also conscious that she needs downtime too, particularly if she doesn't qualify for grammar, I don't want her thinking she wasted a whole year studying.

Hi trying to get DD into nonsuch cheam. She started maths tuitions and has been improving but sometimes gets intimated by the questions when we are practising on our own. I have ordered cgp gL books too to help. Unfortunately I’m not good at maths myself to help her where she gets stuck but still trying my best to support her. She is good with easy questions but problem solving type questions scare her. Currently spending 30 mins weekdays and around 1-2 hours weekends. Have also registered her for mock tests in may. Searching for past papers now so we can start practising those. Any help in the forum will be really good. I’ve been reading orders posts on another forum but any new information is a plus. Hope this forum gets us all through till the exam. 😊

Anyone targeting the London Consortium schools for their DD? Just wanted to say hi and that I’ll be following this thread for the next year. DD is currently at a state primary so feels like we have a looong way to go…

Great idea for a group. Would be lovely to chat to people in the same situation.
DD will be sitting the 11+ this year. I think we're doing ok on most things but inference is a tricky area and NVR too. There is no official pass mark for us so need to get as many points as she can.
How's everyone getting on?

My dd just did the London Consortium exam for G&L and FHSS. She got offers to both and will go to G&L. She is at a state primary. Let me know if you have any questions. Has your school been helpful at all? Our school was not able to give any guidance at all. My ds is year 4, but wanted to join this thread in case some people have good tips for the boy schools.

@SamPoodle123 Well done to your daughter, that must have been a big effort on both your parts - and she must be thrilled to have a place at G&L! Unfortunately we have zero interest or support from our state primary, they’re unlikely to even provide a report when asked so it does feel like a solo journey. Is there anything you’ll do differently with your son second time around?

Thanks, she is super happy. It was not too much effort because we only decided to do the 11+ end of May year 5. She prepped using atom learning and got a tutor once a week. The tutor was a group zoom session, but she felt it helped a lot. Atom helped us figure out what schools to target by looking at her mock scores. We were lucky in that our head did write a letter of recommendation. Perhaps if you ask, the head might do the same? You would have to let the head know what extra curricular activities your dc does and the teacher will probably have to let the head know more about how your dd is doing academically. What I am doing differently is prepping my son way earlier lol. I would have done this with my dd if I knew she was doing the 11+ She got good results in the end, so I am happy about that.

For my ds we are starting off slowly with a little atom learning for English and math to make sure he covers the curriculum in good time. Private schools finish the curriculum usually by mid year 5 and then focus on 11+ prep. State schools finish end of year 6. So it is important if coming from a state school to make sure you cover everything. My advice would be to keep on top of what your dc is doing. If she does not know something, go over it with her. Even if you have a tutor. Or make sure the tutor goes over it. When she did a mock exam, I either had her go over what she got wrong by herself or I would sit with her sometimes. Good luck!

Just checking in with everyone preparing for September's exams. How is it going?

Things are going so so over here. We've found out more about the exam and the only thing that concerns me is 20 NVR questions in 10 mins. It's quite a tall order.
My preferred school also has a new head who appears to be extremely strict so we'll have to see what the school is like now.
How are you getting on?

Which area are you going for? We're in Bucks but I admit I haven't yet looked closely at the number of questions and the timing.

DD finds NVR (particularly spatial) challenging. She can mostly do them but she's SLOW. Not sure how to speed her up other than practice, which we're doing plenty of.

Other than that, her VR and English are strong. Her maths is hit and miss, but on track.

We're in West Yorkshire so aiming for the Calderdale grammar schools. Two schools but you sit the same exam and then put your preference down on the form. I'm not familiar with Bucks at all. Are you aiming for one school or several?

Its speed with NVR here too. She's getting a reasonable number right but we're still a way off doing 20 in 10 mins. I think it's really going to stress her out. Like you I don't know how to speed her up either.

VR and Maths are very strong and I don't worry about them. English is reasonably good but inference lets her down occasionally. I think she's reading it too fast and not getting the detail.

How much are you doing a week? Do you have a tutor. I'm not overwhelming her here but it would be nice to hear how much prep others are doing.

@TVandwine In Bucks you just need to reach the "qualifying mark" and then you're able to apply for a grammar, then usual admission criteria apply (e.g. looked after children, EHCP, siblings, catchment, distance).

We live comfortably in catchment for two grammars (one single sex, one mixed sex) so would have the luxury of choice if DD qualifies. Is it different in West Yorks?

DD is doing one of those dreadful exam factory tutoring companies with literally hours of tutoring each week. This was - and I cannot stress this enough - her choice because her best friend is doing this particular tutoring.

They just had a mock test. They needed about 60% to be "on track" - DD got 70%, which is great, but apparently on her Spatial section she only scored 25% 😮. So some work to be done.

@elevenduck

That sounds like a very different system to ours. After you reach the qualifying mark do you know if you've got in or do you have a horribly long wait until March?

So with ours there is no catchment area at all. I've heard of people living 25 miles away being offered a place. It's crazy. There is no set pass mark instead there are 360 places between both schools. You're given your ranking at the end of October then you have to work out if to put it on the form or not. So one year 72% could get you in but the next year it could be 83%!

We're also doing the exam factory but they all are very nice and the groups are small. Same as you dds friend is also there so they enjoy going there every week.

I think the majority of kids struggle with NVR as I was amazed how low the average scores were for their last test. I think it was around 35% but I thought there would be a wider range of marks. My dd got 75% and he said that was a really high score!

@TVandwine That's not so dissimilar to where we are. People get offered up to about 10 miles away, so the "pass mark" is basically arbitrary and marked on a bell curve (although they don't say it in so many words). In order to get the magical qualifying mark of 121, some years you need to do much better than others, if that makes sense? They rig the score of 121 to admit a certain number of children (although they aren't ranked - it's a simple pass/fail.)

We find out in October if she's qualified (passed). Technically we have to wait until March to find out if she's got into her school of choice, but because we are only a mile or so from both grammars, and they usually admit to a distance of 9 miles, it's not something I'll lose sleep over, if she qualifies.

The ranking thing is brutal! I bet kids discuss with each other / gloat about who's the highest ranked child. I know they shouldn't (and a wise parent probably wouldn't divulge the ranking to the child), but you can imagine the boasting if you're a top 10 competitive kid!

It's reassuring to hear others struggle with the spatial - I have to admit, I can't help her with them, as often I can't do them either!

Brutal is definitely the right word. The worst bit is I suspect at least 6 of the kids in her year are going in for it and there's only 8 of them! Like you say I can see ranking being discussed especially by one very competitive child!

You're lucky being only a mile away. Distance only matters to us if there's a borderline ranking and we're 5 miles away so could be worse.

The NVR tutor said the scores were ok for halfway through the year and said he wasn't stressing over them as he knew the scores would improve after they'd done a few more.