11 Plus Exams Forum

Hello there - I thought I'd post my thoughts about the odd week we had in the run up to the 11+ exam for the King Edward VI grammar schools in Birmingham in 2015. I stress this is just our experience and have no way of knowing if this was normal....

So small fry had spent a quiet summer in the run up to returning to her state primary school and starting year 6. She did a little something for the 11+ each day (we DIYed it) and read tons over the summer. We saw friends, visited grand parents and tried to keep the summer as normal as possible.

Then she returned to school and that week before the exam made her very nervous. Lots of kids bragged about how they were sure to pass. Several kids said openly to her she had no chance of passing because she wasn't tutored.

My advice to parents in the gap between returning to school and taking the 11+ is to forwarn your child that there will be talk about the 11+ and some kids may even show off a bit and make bold claims about how they're sure to pass. Try to laugh it off but let your child come home and discuss what they're hearing/ worried about.

The good news is that once the test is taken and the initial frenzy of discussion between kids about how it went passes you can go back to life as normal. The bad news for parents is the wait for results in October seems to take ages and is distracting.

I genuinely wish your kids well on the 11+ and whatever the result be proud. It's quite a daunting thing taking the 11+.

My advice is plan a post exam treat and then put it out of your mind until results day.

OT

Great advice that is applicable to all areas too.
I'd add that once the results have come out there can also be issues. The only issue we had was one girl stopped talking to my DD and a couple of others when they qualified and she hadn't, but I've heard of parents and children behaving badly towards others, either because they passed and the other didn't or vice versa.

Sad I know, but worth remembering that it can happen.

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistic ... rovisional" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Contains some useful info graphics. See the distribution of scaled scores in section 3 in particular.

For us there are four big lessons learned from 11+ Birmingham September 15

1) Speed is used ruthlessly in this exam
2) Any one with fast reading ability and a wide vocabulary (has a huge advantage, due to the 50% weighting) - DD scored much stronger on Walsall CEM 11+ due to strong maths, less speed pressure and equal weighting.
3) You can still succeed in many comprehensives (so relax, took me a while).
4) To use an old English saying, you can take a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink.

I have two kids. One has to be cajoled, the other doesn't. That is likely to be a far bigger factor in success, than the environment, school or tests taken. If I could bottle motivation!!!!!

Thank you for the advice.

I would add that although we advised DS to think about timing on the exam e.g. Make a note of Half way through sections and make sure you have progressed sufficiently etc.. He admitted after the exam that he didn't bother and just steamed through as there was no time for anything else- a big lesson to instil into DS2!