2023 11+ LATE start (independent or grammar)

[MyBoiledEggIsTooSoft]

Everyone seems to be so incredibly well prepared and/or tutoring their children….

I am belatedly starting to prepare DD for sitting the 11+ this autumn. We have atom learning (need to make it work) and I have ordered verbal /non verbal reasoning bond books, a set of 11+ maths papers, some vocabulary flash cards and some comprehension papers.

DD and I have also shaken hands on starting to prepare and to do a good job…

any tips at all?

or anyone keen to join in on a late start?

support, tips, comments all welcome !

@HighRopes someone clearly actively try to advocate your "relatively minimalist approach" in many MN threads. I wonder if the advocator do the same for her child.

@SuttonMums your experience is very similar to the other thread describe. Think It is very common in that area, last year we did a Sutton Mock in a sunny day end of May and we can still remember the number of parents and kids vividly.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/secondary/4804140-could-any-child-get-into-sw-london-grammars-with-tutoring?reply=126194709&utm_campaign=thread&utm_medium=share

Hi my son is starting late prep and started with a tutor. Can I ask do different areas do the verbal reasoning/different tests?

It was my understanding that this year verbal reasoning was not included. It would be comprehension, maths and SPAG. I could have misunderstood though 🙈

I think the first thing is to understand your target schools and exam formats etc. Most of the info available at the school website.

It says English and Maths. I assumed all schools had the same exam. Incorrectly it seems :) So much to learn! :)

For grammar can try look high level info below, some area the registration is closing this month.

https://atomlearning.com/blog/category/grammar-schools

That’s helpful thank you. It’s a shame the Atom programme is so expensive. With tuition it would really add up. I’m not sure how children could do these tests without some support.

The school we are going for is just English and Maths. They don’t have a pass rate it’s done based on the top scorers at the time so 🤞

@Torvi1211 you can try elevenplusexams forum to find your area and school, it normally contains info on historical pass rates.

Same here. I find trying to discuss anything along these lines with Preplex involved at best ends up in people talking at cross purposes.

Like @HighRopes, we did a little prep - we used a tutor but only for about 6 months for an hour a week and mainly focusing on exam technique, nothing in school holidays. This was because the sorts of common sense approaches that adults will employ faced with difficult questions and time-pressured situations are not always obvious to ten year olds. I also wanted the prep to be confined to just that short time every week and leave plenty of time for DD to just be a kid, watch television, play, do her extra-curricular stuff etc. Using a tutor meant it was easy to switch off from it when the session was over. We tried to make it a low stakes process and DD mostly quite enjoyed it all. It all worked out fine and DD got into the schools she was interested in and ended up somewhere that she is very happy with.

If you have specific questions, I'd be very happy to try and answer, though as others say it's hard to comment without knowing specific schools because they can vary a lot in what they are looking for, academically and otherwise.

I don't know anything about Atom scores because we didn't use anything like that.

Best of luck, and hope your daughter enjoys the process.

Atom learning is well worth it. Do the 5 day trial and you will see. When you do the trial, do the one with mocks.

It is important to realise how of representative of each case and how one would correlate to their situation to the reported one. We keep hearing a handlful of mums (repeatedly) saying little prep was required when they did the 11+ 5-6 years ago. I found any discussion with this will end up nowhere, but I have collected some fresh prep efforts reported by last year (2022, 2023 intake, London selective schools mainly last year) hoping that more sample size is a better representation of the norm and help parents to make more informed decisions.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/secondary/4723610-sw-london-private-grammar-applying-for-year-7-in-2023?reply=123329581&utm_campaign=thread&utm_medium=share

Yup, it depends on each individual case. I know dc who had a tutor and still did not get in schools. In these cases, I think a little parent input or using an additional source such as Atom learning to make sure they are covering all their bases. Or in some cases when the dc were in private, the parents thought this was enough and did not do much out of school. If you want to ensure your dc has the best chance to get in a school, you must be involved (unless you are certain you have a very experienced 11+ tutor). My dd started her prep late, but she had a tutor once a week and did Atom. I used Atom to keep track of her progress. If I felt she was doing really well in one area, but lagging slightly in another, I made sure she focused a little more on the challenging area.

I genuinely believe there will be case that a child only do 11+ prep one hour per week for 6 month in total ( tutor, practice, school focus exercise time etc all inclusive) can get in the top superselective school in London last year or this year.

It is just not my child, not any children of the peer parents of my acquaintances IRL (it is a large sample size) . Maybe it could be your child by any chance, the mum knows the child best and it is for them to decide.

This is normally the point in any Preplex thread where another poster with a strangely similar set of verbal tells shows up to agree with her very strongly and possibly go one better.

I’ll have a look at the trial thank you. My son likes doing online tests. He has been given homework by the tutor as well which is good.

Im also wary of overloading him as don’t want him to get stressed. He isn’t at the moment. It’s hard to get the balance isn’t it. I wish they covered 11+ in mainstream school,

Someone just try to deny what other people says. It is normally when my post appear then the handful of little prep mum appear.

Use my referral code HHaD50Bg and save £30 on Atom Learning! https://atomlearning.com/p/HHaD50Bg

delete if not allowed. Thought it may help others and gives a discount to both :) Set up the learning and he’s done maths and English so far and liked the format. Shame the main test isn’t online. Thanks so much for the suggestion! Will work well with the 1-2-1 tutor!