11 plus tutoring when to begin?

[user1478188491]

I’ve put my sons name down for a highly recommended 11 tutor a while again she’s now emailed asking if I want to start him this September which will be the beginning of Year 4 twice weekly.
Or to start next September which will be the beginning of year 5.
When do you normally start 11 plus tutoring from your experiences?

Part of me thinks it would be beneficial to get started as soon as possible but then the other part of me thinks that there is a risk of the child becoming bored and stale losing interest and it becoming a chore if we start at year 4….

any advice and thoughts greatly appreciated thank you ☺️

start in grade 3 using online resources.

We're in a selective but not super selective area. The tutor DD went to is very highly regarded (teams of teachers, not one person set up) only takes kids for year 5. 90 minutes, 3 subject rotation, once a week.
A friend put her child with a smaller set up, weekly lessons from year 4.
Another friend did no tutoring - just some past papers at home. Got in easily.
My DD was offered a place, yr 4 tutoring missed the cut off score by a few points.
Ultimately it depends on your child, and to a large extent the area you're in.
11+ tutoring also very good for more general improvements and support in maths and English.
I don't quite buy into the idea that heavily tutoring kids means they will struggle at grammar - as long as they are learning to understand and not regugitate information.

We started in October of year 5. The tutoring company we used doesn’t take children until the previous year group has sat the exam (this is for group classes, once a week). DD and DS both passed this way. We also did work at home, but again not until year 5 and mainly during the summer before the exam.

6 months before the exam

Hi @user1478188491 ! Which schools are you considering? The work needed depends a lot on the extent of the competition and the level required. This varies greatly from area to area and from school to school.

And better to be bored and over-prepared than apprehensive and under-prepared.(Our daughter was bored but kept working at 11 plus prep. Same happened with GCSEs and also with A Levels!)

I didn’t have a tutor, dd teacher recommended she sat it at parents evening.

I do find it "funny how 90% of people on here say how absolutely awful private schools are but they'll chuck ££££ at private tutoring to get their mini me into a grammar or splash ££££££ on a house by an Ofsted Outstanding school.

@ouch321 100%

Two years of tutoring is too much in my opinion. The child will get bored out of his mind by the time it’s exam time. Our daughter just started prep from September (Year 5) - no homework or academics at home before that (she is at a state school which doesn’t believe in homework). She was already bored by June. And we didn’t do much prep - like 30 mins on average 5 days a week. You don’t want burnout. The tuitions she joined had kids who had been coaching since year 4 and they all did a baseline test at the start of September when she joined and she scored over 80% so much higher than most kids who had been tutoring for an year or more. We knew she was capable, if we thought that she wasn’t we wouldn’t have made her sit the grammar school exam.
I also know kids who were heavily tutored to get into grammar schools and now they are tutoring all through secondary school just to keep up with the rest of the class. Be careful about that happening as well.

@Blabmum you're fortunate that your child is naturally academic. My daughter has had 2 years and in that time she has moved from middling grades to top grades. She enjoys her school work more and she has made a great set of new friends. She never enjoyed studying before (mildly dyslexic and ADHD) and she struggled. You know everyone is different. It's all about context. She's not bored at all in fact she is thriving and enjoys new challenges as it has shown her she is capable. For her and me it has built life skills of resilience and tenacity. The best of luck to all your children.

My son is in year 4 and has recently started some practice papers with my mum (she used to be a teacher).

But, the competition is really high here, and the state schools are fucking dreadful, so we are really pushing him.