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!

Didn't find that website as easy to navigate and talk to others whereas Mumsnet is nice

Hi. I am worried I have started my sons preparation late for the 11+ as he will be doing the exam in September (14 weeks) 🙈

He originally wanted to go to the local school but it’s become really bad with bullying, teachers leaving etc

I look forward to reading everyone’s posts. Thank you.

Hi @Torvi1211 . I've got to be honest these days it's so competitive to get into grammar I personally don't think it's enough time but if your child is naturally very clever in terms of thinking on the spot and harder questions that aren't even in key stage 3 (my experience only) then you can go for it with sites such as Atom learning (I haven't used myself but someone upthread suggested it), tutors at this late a stage are normally booked. You could even look into a summer intensive course but for me I think we won't be doing it now due to his mental health and mine! good luck !

He’s getting 80% in tests at the moment and started 2 weeks ago. He has got a tutor once a week. The tutor said it isn’t late and she believes he will be ok.

I was fortunate they had a space open up.

That's great @Torvi1211 you said in your original post you were worried what are your worries if he's doing well and the tutor said it's not too late?

80% without any help in the tests is amazing! My son would have got maybe 20-30% without any tutoring so that's a really good starting point.

@Torvi1211 - if it's any consolation, we didn't start prep until around this time (and he's just finishing y7). I will add though, we aren't in a super selective area, and from my understanding that may make a difference; but having said that it looks as though your son is doing really well so definitely think he should be fine. Best of luck

Just the normal worries I guess. I don’t want him to feel pressure but aware not a lot of time. Others I know have been tutored for at least a year. Thankfully he seems to have landed on his feet with a lovely tutor. I’m sure we all worry for our Dd Ds sound exams :)

I’m not sure how you know if it’s super selective. I tried to find out how many applied last year etc but could find the information online. It just states it’s done in order of results.

I assume they will have a lot of applications purely on the fact all the 11+ tutors were booked up at the beginning of the year when I enquired 🙈

Well done to your ds :)

I think some of it does depend on the natural ability of the child; if you're having to introduce new concepts they may struggle with now then it's probably quite late, if you have a naturally very high achiever and you mostly need to practice speed and exam technique, and perhaps build on already established knowledge then it might be ok. We've left it quite late too, but we're in a lucky position in that we have an excellent comprehensive locally - this would just be an added bonus (plus DD1 wants to go single sex for some reason). We'll see I suppose!

Good your comprehensive nearby is a excellent school.

He is top of his class and the third youngest. The exam will however be a very different format than anything he has done before so I’m going to arrange Mocks with some local tutors. I thought it would be worthwhile doing them with people he isn’t familiar with to build his confidence. He doesn’t normally mind tests but it will be different to school based assessments.

Selective schools are the ones that have catchment areas. The schools local to me, for example, keep approx 70-80% of their places for children living in catchment. The remaining out of catchment places go to the highest scoring children. You always find that the in catchment children, on average, score slightly lower than the out of catchment children.

Super selective schools have no catchment area and simply give out all of their places to those who rank highest.

@Jellycats4life

Thanks for that description. I didn't know the difference myself. We're going for a super selective one then.

My DD only decided this time last year that she wanted to do the test because she changed her mind about which school she wanted. So that gave us roughly 10 weeks tuition by the time we found a tutor - ended up doing Explore Learning online. Just wanted to give some reassurance to anyone being told it's too late - it's not. Bright kids will get it to some degree anyway but I do believe the 11+ is so old fashioned they need a steer to understand some of it.
Other tips - vocab. Read as many different types of books as you can including classics and have a "word of the day."

Neither did I until recently, but have noticed people on MN always have to say their child is at a super selective school, instead of just saying grammar 😅

Ah yes super selective then. Or just grammar @Jellycats4life 😅Thank you

To be fair, it can help to know the difference. Where I live your child could score the all-time highest raw score ever recorded in the 11+ but they still won't get a place at one of the grammar schools if they live a mile out of the catchment area. Every year this comes up.

What a lot of people don't realise is that you can put your child in for the 11+ anywhere in the country – for a 'super selective' you can move nearer the school once you know your DC has passed; for a 'normal' grammar school you usually have to be already living in the catchment area, you can't move after the event.

Our local one does it the other way around - 110 places for the highest scorers in order (wherever they live), then up to 25 for pupil premium, then the remainder (another 100ish, depending) for the top scores in catchment. From what I could see the in catchment scores were definitely lower than the out of catchment - as someone suggested above, have a look at the 11+ exams forum as that does have some useful info relating to marks.

It's amazing how different they all are. The one we are aiming for has accepted someone for next year who lives 26 miles away! Their parent was on a local Facebook group asking about public transport as they couldn't work out how they were going to get them there every day! It takes an hour and a quarter to drive so longer by train and bus! I must admit it made me a little annoyed as didn't they think about that when looking at schools!

The worst bit for me though is the large town near them has a brilliant grammar school and some excellent other schools too.

@TVandwine poor child! I don't understand why anyone would thing more then one hour commute door to door is okay. They should move closer to the school.

From what I could see the in catchment scores were definitely lower than the out of catchment

That would be logical, I guess @LBOCS2 . In-catchment pupils are by definition going to come from a relatively small area, whereas for the out of catchment cohort, anyone can enter so the school will be hoovering up kids from a wider geographical region.

Their parent was on a local Facebook group asking about public transport as they couldn't work out how they were going to get them there every day!

Why on earth wouldn't a parent look into this before putting a child in for a test? You are right to be annoyed @TVandwine because it's not good for the child – even if they can get to the school every day they are likely to live a long way from their friends and it will be harder to engage in after-school activities. I mean, you can live in Newcastle and put your DC in for a Kent super-selective 11+, but why would you? (unless of course you were planning to move to the area anyway).

The most hilarious bit was the parents had rung the school to berate them over the lack of school bus from their area. @SamPoodle123 they apparently can't move due to their jobs. By my calculations you would have to take a bus, train, change trains, walk to the bus station and then catch another bus!
@thing47 I find it insane that any parent would put a child through that! Like you say do you're research beforehand! Lord knows what time they would have to set off in the morning!
And there's me feeling guilty my dd would have to get on a bus as 7.30am.

How's everyone getting on with things? The main thing that concerns me is that they have to do 20 NVR questions in 10 mins. Dd isn't too bad at them but takes far longer than 10 mins.

@thing47 in the popular super selective grammar area, for example QE boys or HBS in north London, every year there will be children from everywhere in the country to attend the test - from south London, Reading, Kent, Essex to as far as Basingstoke, Birmingham and even Scotland.

For some other selective school in London you will see a super wide range of catchment area (for example Latymer or Tiffins or Sutton schools), even within the catchment area more than an hour commuting one way is very normal phenomenon.

Super selective schools have no catchment area and simply give out all of their places to those who rank highest.

This isn't the case for all grammars eg Tiffin Girls (which is just about the definition of a "superselective" if anyone is using that term!) Since introducing their catchment areas ("inner" and "designated") in 2014 - from which they start filling their 180 places from the top 350 candidates in the catchment area - they've not once given a place to a child outside catchment ie there have been enough candidates in the top 350 scores who live within catchment to fill all the places. So someone could score the highest mark by miles, but if they're not in the catchment area, they won't get a place. And you can't move after you get the place - your location is determined at the point of application.

For Tiffin Girls it has a very wide designate area, normally attracts 1500 applicants for the first stage, then around 500 second stage and finally 180 place, with waiting list typically won't go as far as 30.