Advice on 11+ preparation materials, mocks and past papers

[Hullopalloo]

Hi all,

We are going to try and see whether we can attempt the 11+/some of the local indies. It's such a long shot i know - no finances to tutor - currently working through Atom plus some CGP books.

Target schools - NLCS, South Hampstead, Habs (Elstree) and HBS

Questions for any seasoned parents :

1. which boards should i be aiming for here when im purchasing books. It's not clear on the website whether its GL or CEM
2. should i be booking into doing timed mocks? - another cost
3. where can i purchase past exam papers for any of the above

bump!

There are a lot of second hand but either unused or largely-unused 11+ books on Vinted. For brand new, Amazon or somewhere like TG Jones.

PM me

Habs now uses Quest for its assessments, which is the assessment arm of Atom. So Atom should be your main focus for their test.

We used the South West Herts Consortium test as our “mock” (though we did plan on including one of the schools on our state application form). However it is a paper based non adaptive test so not entirely a dry run for the indies.

We used a tutor and asked if we should do a paid mock and she didn’t think it was necessary and just said to do lots of times tests at home.

@BarqsHasBite much appreciated, did you feel it was useful having a tutor? I've been told mixed things, some say they have access to more past exam papers, others saying im too late anyway so its money down the drain as good ones will all be booked up.

I find all this bizarre I'm not going to lie.

I did the 11+ when I was younger. They gave one practice paper to me the day before, no prep at the school I was at because I was moving from a non grammar school area (across the whole country) so my primary just didn't do it.

I was baffled to find out when I started that some of my peers had received tutoring to prepare. There were some who felt themselves they'd only got in because of the tutoring and it was them who struggled and weren't suited to the really academic atmosphere. Not sure where you live but it wasn't like a complete hard cut off where we were, there was still a very academic "non grammar" which kids were assigned to next. Just rather than taking 11 GCSEs (not kidding) it was more like 9.

With kindness, just a thought, fair enough to give them some chances to practice in a book but if they need tutoring or a lot of support, this might not be the school for them?

If you want a steer on exam boards, it is safest to assume GL style. That will cover most of what they are likely to face, especially for the schools you’ve listed. A practical way to check is to try a few mock papers yourself. You will quickly get a feel for the style and level.

Timed mocks are useful, but you do not have to rely on paid ones. Booking in for grammar school entrance tests can give good exam practice under pressure, and those are often free. It helps children get used to the environment without adding extra cost.

South Hampstead is part of the London 11+ Consortium. The child sits one test, and the results are shared across the group of schools, which simplifies the process a bit.

For North London Collegiate, the focus is on Maths and English only, so preparation can be more targeted there.

@Lemonthyme i find it strange as well but it does seem like everyone is tutoring in North London.

@schoolprepper very helpful, thank you

Honestly, I found it invaluable. For the NVR and the VR you do need to be taught how to tackle these questions. I showed some of the NVR questions to my DSis, DBiL and uncle - between us we have four Oxbridge degrees (including engineering and physics) and my uncle is a retired physics professor. There were questions none of us could do, but my DCs could having been taught how to do them! They’re like cryptic crosswords - you need to understand the rules of how to tackle them.

An experienced tutor can also teach wider exam technique which is invaluable. Eg for adaptive online tests it’s really important to spend time getting the first 10 questions right as this affects the adaptive algorithm which then determines the highest score you can achieve. This is more important than trying to complete the test.

Whereas for an old school paper test it’s important to try to complete the test, and you can skip harder questions and go back to those at the end.

Also, my son was awarded an academic scholarship and while he’s bright and capable I doubt that would have been the case without our tutor.

There will always be people who say “well if you need to tutor lots then it’s not the right school for your child” but that’s just not true for many. Frustratingly most kids are tutored which must drive the overall standard up. So it’s a gamble for your child to be one of the few who isn’t.

And the schools you are targeting are amongst the most competitive/hardest to get in (sorry!).

However, there are families who get offers from good schools without formal tutoring so I’m not saying it’s an absolute necessity, just that I do think it’s a good idea. If you’re not using a tutor then as a parent you’re going to have to do a certain amount of tutoring yourself so you’ll need to understand how to tackle the tricky questions and exam technique for the different tests.

I don’t think you’ve left it too late at all. The Atom platform offers tutoring so that would be one option or there are crammers that run during the summer holidays and probably May half term.

If you pm me I can send details of our tutor if you don’t mind remote tutoring. I don’t know if she has any availability though.

Good luck!

PS I don’t think access to past papers is a biggie. I’m pretty sure schools don’t generally make their own past papers available. So all you can do is practice on the commercially available test papers.

Exam boards: South Hampstead and Habs are both Quest Assessments (not GL/CEM). They’re all based on KS2 though so coverage is similar. HBS is GL. NLCS use their own papers, maths and English only (samples are available on their website).

Timed mocks: Definitely useful, either timed tests at home or in-person mocks if you want to emulate the real thing. Speed can make a big difference on the day and often the challenge is completing the tests as much as knowing the answer.

Bear in mind Quest is adaptive so it’s more about the difficulty level you reach rather than having a set number of questions to answer. So it’s worth practising adaptive tests too, as there’s a technique to learn here.

Past papers: There are some available from the schools, and lots of free ones available online. (If you add .com to my username and check out the resources – there are 453 there that you can filter by subject etc.)

In addition to the above, it’s worth focusing on VR and NVR practice specifically. These take time to learn the approach, and are a lot more straightforward when you’ve got that experience.

Good luck!