Grammar School Journey

[BellaEl]

Can someone please write about their experiences with Grammar School - the journey and how they time allocated the study sessions.

My daughter has expressed interest in attending the school close to our house but I do not know where to begin to prepare her.

Any tips from your past experiences? Thank you x

I think many for grammer start year 4 and use tutor/workbooks. Look at the grammar school you are interested in and find targeted prep for it. Sometimes they post past papers or other schools similar will post past papers. And you can find 11+ workbooks to do.

Which area are you in? Different areas have slightly different processes.

Thought this was going to be about the travel to a grammar school, ie, how long is reasonable.

elevenplusexams.co.uk

This is a superb website and has all things 11+. When we went through it many moons ago, I found the forums particularly useful, especially the ones for your area.

For Kent, the norm is to study through year 5, either using a tutor or buying the books and working through them yourself.

HI @BellaEl !

Hi! I can only echo what @SamPoodle123 has already advised.

And to add that the best thing we did was to get a Tutor! He helped us to understand, to plan and to do everything we needed to do, one small step at a time. Really did make a big difference. Offered calm reassurance, too!

Also definitely depends on which one - ours (Sutton) is just maths and English

Make sure you find out what type of grammar it is. E.g.

-a superselective (thousands of entrants for 200 places) only taking in 1-3% of applications

-a grammar as part of a larger grammar area, taking top 20-25% of applications

Bear in mind that many grammars age adjust their tests so if your child is a winter baby they will need to score higher than a summer baby.

I wish I had known this. So many people downplay the need to do targeted and intensive prep but for some grammars this really is necessary.

I found a tutor I really liked in year 3 and reserved places for my dtwins. They started with her in October of year 5. Initially an hour a week with about 2 hours homework a week. This gradually increased so by Easter they were seeing her 2 hours a week with about 4 hours homework. They sat 4 mocks. Both passed in a super selective area.

This sounds easy but it wasn’t. I didn’t have the finances to pay for tutoring. I made a lot of sacrifices and worked 7 days a week for 14 months to finance this. Many say it’s the wealthy who send their kids to grammar schools, this isn’t always the case. We had no family holiday that year, cut down on food shopping and went without a lot to pay for tuition. It was a very difficult 14 months and I was exhausted at the end of it. Our catchment schools are two grammars and a dire secondary. I wish we had had the choice of a good secondary but we didn’t and can’t afford to move so I chose the grammar route.

They love their schools and are thriving.