11+ Campaign costs / hybridised approach

[MSD]

As promised here's mine PP

English/Literacy tuition started early Year 4 - Once a week (1 hours in Year 4 and 1.5 hours in Year 5) - approx £1,500
Maths/NVR tuition started middle/end of Year 4 - Once a week for 1 hour 1-to-1 and 1 hour independent testing - approx £1,700
Fuel expenses - 60 miles up and down per week for above tuition's - £700
2 Maths/NVR mocks - £100
15 Literacy holiday clubs - £300
1 K**L mock - £50
11+ books - approx £400
Reading books - approx £1,000

Grand total - £5,750

So that will give us approx £15 per SD point for Walsall

Was this amount necessary to gain a place?

Probably not but I will choose to do it again as it was for a larger cause rather than just pass 11+ entrance.

[MSD]

Just wanted to add that he went to a fairly average state school and no prep schools involved. This year I am not aware of any boy who applied for a GS place in his school.

[Happy dad]

Private tuition centre £3,000 (DS1 started in April of exam after visit to QMGS, DS2 from October in Y5. generally couple of hours per week plus holiday courses. Weekly mocks from 1 July)
Travel £500
Treats during £250
Treat at end of tutoring £500
Stress relief for DW and me (Alcohol and drugs) £2500 Only kidding

All the above times two

Both offered places at school they wanted to go to. Mission accomplished

[MSD]

Private tuition centre £3,000 (DS1 started in April of exam after visit to QMGS, DS2 from October in Y5. generally couple of hours per week plus holiday courses. Weekly mocks from 1 July)
Travel £500
Treats during £250
Treat at end of tutoring £500
Stress relief for DW and me (Alcohol and drugs) £2500 Only kidding

All the above times two

Both offered places at school they wanted to go to. Mission accomplished

Forgot to mention our times 2 as well, but first time just one tutor for all subjects.

[jojob]

It can be very expensive getting a dc through the 11+ I personally think they should level the playing field a bit, by making past papers free and widely available at all primary schools.
Here's what it's cost me:
Bond 10 min test books in year 4 to get ds used to tests esp nvr £60
Tutoring with a close friend who happens to be a primary school teacher from September in year five until I took over the tutoring in May (£25 a week bargain) approx £700 as missed some weeks
Practice exams cgp and bond £40
Nvr and maths study guide £20
K### mock £50
Analysis of mock by k### £15
Vocab flash cards £15
Total approx £900 and that's probably doing it on the cheap.
It's cost prohibitive for a lot of ordinary families.
So far ds 333 Walsall, so paid off so far

[MSD]

From the limited feedback we have here it does appear the final score achieved is directly proportional to the amount of resources/professional help received.

So is CEM test tutor proof?

[enema]

These expenses are rather terrifying. We've done DIY with lots of parental planning. Have bought books, virtually entirely 'nearly new' via Amazon or ebay, or in one instance, for 20p from a charity shop (2 excellent old-school style maths books). Used loads of free test papers downloaded from the internet from UK indies and some Australian schools which have similar VR tests. Have a ragged copy of the New First Aid in English from 30 years ago. We have worked a lot though, I'd say about an hour a day for the past year. I made my own cloze tests (using extracts from classics, newspaper articles and factual text found online), and copied and pasted lots of words from a well known vocab book that can be viewed as a pdf online for vocab practice. Downloaded a sudoku app, old school tetris game and the King of Maths app onto dd's android tablet. Practised jigsaws (really). Other than books, printing ink and basic mono laser printer has been bought which has been invaluable.

[MSD]

These expenses are rather terrifying. We've done DIY with lots of parental planning. Have bought books, virtually entirely 'nearly new' via Amazon or ebay, or in one instance, for 20p from a charity shop (2 excellent old-school style maths books). Used loads of free test papers downloaded from the internet from UK indies and some Australian schools which have similar VR tests. Have a ragged copy of the New First Aid in English from 30 years ago. We have worked a lot though, I'd say about an hour a day for the past year. I made my own cloze tests (using extracts from classics, newspaper articles and factual text found online), and copied and pasted lots of words from a well known vocab book that can be viewed as a pdf online for vocab practice. Downloaded a sudoku app, old school tetris game and the King of Maths app onto dd's android tablet. Practised jigsaws (really). Other than books, printing ink and basic mono laser printer has been bought which has been invaluable.

Enema - You are doing all the right things and are bound to succeed. Unfortunately, some parents don't have the time or knowledge to do the great work you are doing with your child. We are just trying to be open and honest with future 11+ parents in terms of what we did for our children.

You can also start looking at some vocab building sites like Freerice.com which are absolutely free.

[MSD]

As promised here's mine PP

English/Literacy tuition started early Year 4 - Once a week (1 hours in Year 4 and 1.5 hours in Year 5) - approx £1,500
Maths/NVR tuition started middle/end of Year 4 - Once a week for 1 hour 1-to-1 and 1 hour independent testing - approx £1,700
Fuel expenses - 60 miles up and down per week for above tuition's - £700
2 Maths/NVR mocks - £100
15 Literacy holiday clubs - £300
1 K**L mock - £50
11+ books - approx £400
Reading books - approx £1,000

Grand total - £5,750

So that will give us approx £15 per SD point for Walsall

Was this amount necessary to gain a place?

Probably not but I will choose to do it again as it was for a larger cause rather than just pass 11+ entrance.

The above X 35 children approx spending the same sort of money as us.

PP - How many did you have in your tuition center?

[Hopeful34]

We spent around £45 on cgp books; one month before the test.
My daughter used these for familiarisation for approximately 2 hrs per week until the day of the test.
In hindsight it was probably not the best approach. Can't help but feel that she would have achieved a stronger score than 317, if we had helped her to prepare better.

We have definitely learnt from this experience and have already began preparations with our 8 year old.

Fingers crossed for March 1st.