11+ DIY Route - Selective private schools for state school child

[BeccaBean]

Please can you critique my DIY prep plan for 11+ for West London selective private schools? DD is doing very well in Y5 of a local state school and we are targeting Wimbledon High School, Putney High School and Godolphin and Latymer with state secondaries as back-ups. She is a huge reader with a large vocabulary.

We know that WHS stage 1 will be VR and non-VR paper-based tests and PHS and G&L adaptive on-line.

We started prep in Y4 with working through Bond maths practice books to make sure we have covered content and some VR and non-VR practice tests. We haven't done much English prep outside of school work (just 10 minutes tests on comprehension now and again). Her spelling and grammar are good and she writes stories for fun. We may do a creative writing course over Easter or summer school holidays (don't think we need this for these schools but she enjoys writing and we think this could be useful generally).

At the moment, she is finishing Bond maths practice books for 10-11, she regularly does CGP 10 minute tests for VR and non-VR (10-11) and does very well in both. Plan is to start some full length practice tests then and then bring an Atom subscription into the mix for 6 months from beginning of June.

Does this approach sound reasonable? I haven't picked up any problem areas with her so far and she is happy to practice only she does quite a few activities outside of school which we are fitting round (hence the time she spends on 10 minute tests to be able to fit round these but make sure she is continually practising). She also gets 1.5 hours of school homework each week (3 sets of 30 mins) which she always seems to find very straight forward).

Thanks for any tips.

Check out website https://exampapersplus.co.uk they cover those schools and give the latest information. They have courses, practice papers etc.

I wrote our experience elsewhere so forgive me for repeating myself.
My son attends an underperforming state primary school. He’s been consistently been performing 2+ years ahead of his peers. His year 5 teacher gently suggested we apply for a selective private school as well as state options.

He sat the Wandsworth 11+ but don’t realise the test wasn’t curriculum based. So you’re already ahead of us with the verbal and non verbal prep. After that we paid for the month of basic Atom to prepare for the private school admission. That (and the school application fee) was a huge expense for us. So we have done no other tutoring.

He was invited to interview. To prep for that I bought the Charlotte Badenoch interview prep workbook.

He was successful and offered a place at Dulwich.

So in short I don’t think all these years and months of prep are required. And I also know my son wouldn’t have put up with it for that long and probably would have lost interest in completing the process.

fwiw I thought the Badenoch book was excellent as a general workbook because it got him to think about himself and his interests and achievements. Better for his self confidence and self image.

Thank you @HawaiiWake . I will take a look. Think DD almost ready to start practising some full papers and this sounds like a good source.

Thanks @Elembeeee . Really interesting to read and congrats to your DS on his Dulwich offer. It's really difficult to gauge how much is needed, especially when you regularly read about families starting prep early with tutors even when children are at prep schools. I'd say DD's home 11+ prep is little and often which suits us with her with her other activities (and also giving her some downtime). She doesn't seem to find any of it too challenging at the moment but has only done a small number of assessment papers in Bond and CGP books. She hasn't done any past papers yet (other than trying an Emmanuel 10+ maths paper last summer holiday which she did well in).

Hadn't heard of the Charlotte Badenoch interview skills book and have just ordered. Had been thinking of using a company like Yellowbird for interview prep nearer the time but love the idea of her working on discussing her skills and interests in activities at home. She has many but is quite reserved so aware she we'll need to work on this.

I know exactly how you feel. I got very disheartened when I started popping on here and reading all the posts about the breadth and depth of tutoring going on. But I have to remind myself that it’s a very self selecting group of people posting.

it sounds like everyone is doing intense tutoring and getting multiple offers with scholarships. But I imagine the silent majority is far more mixed. Perhaps the tutoring comes into play for academic scholarships that rely on the top 5% 11+ scores. But it also sounds like schools are on to this tutoring for the tests and increasingly using interviews to assess real ability.

I was terrified of the interview. My son can be very quiet and reserved and shy. With typical 1-2 word answers with tween shrugs. 🤦‍♀️ And he hates talking about himself. He fought me for a week about doing the workbook exercises. I got my mum to do it with him over the Christmas break. The focus of the exercise are all about developing a growth mindset. And that is a fabulous life skill outside of whole school application process.

Apparently at the actual interview he was asked very (if any) of the typical interview questions. It was much more of an oral exam with mental maths and reasoning questions - but conversational if that makes sense. But I think the prep gave him confidence because he had learned a lot about his strengths and abilities through the exercises.

Bond might not be enough I'm afraid

atom is amazing but i would sign up now tbh, and id take the higher version with unlimited tests including ISEB ones

I think you need to look at the schools you are targeting and the resources you are using. Dd came from state and goes to G&L and also got into Putney (did not apply to WHS). I think when prepping you need to do what is similar to the exam you are taking. Although, the cpg and bond might be good as a little practice, I do not think it will be that useful for putney and G&L. Those exams are more similar to Atom, so you should def check that out, at least for a couple months prior to. Dd started her prep end of May in year 5 and used mainly Atom. But we did get a tutor that was online in group sessions that she also started end of year 5. But most of her exams were online and similar to Atom. For WHS, I believe those are paper, so you want to find something similar to prep. But we did not apply so not too sure.

We were prepping mostly for grammar but I did find the Bond books were on the easy side compared to CGP especially on NVR so I'd do more of a mix. Our tests included GL so we bought a big pack of papers from GL. She had one private school interview she did very well in. We just told her to be herself and don't answer anything with "I don't know" or just "no". But she is very outspoken generally.

Thanks for comments. We're only using Bond No-Nonsense for Maths as a simple way to cover content that she needs that she hasn't done yet half way through Y5 of a state school. We're using CGP for VR, non-VR, maths 10 minute tests and English.

I don't want to start Atom too early as I want to make sure she's covered all the content, especially for maths, first. Also wanted to mix it up a bit. But may start Atom a little earlier than June.