Some advice from all you experienced 11 plus parents please

[mystery]

Ah, now that is a good piece of advice. Have you heard yet about your appeal? Sorry if it's not good news.

[Blue Peter]

Hi, To be honest. I've had diametrically opposed experiences. My eldest son took 11 plus 2 years ago and sailed in to Skinners on first allocation with 410 - so absolutely no stress, just celebrations. My second son took it this year, and narrowly missed out and so now we are going through this hideous ordeal of a 2 1/2 week wait and so far no news. It's unbearable.

[Blue Peter]

by that I mean a 2 1/2 wait for the results of the appeal

[doodles]

We have used Bond, amongst other things for both DS's. DS2 takes the dratted exam this year so we have now moved onto the tutor who provides the material. But for Year 4 we did Bond and also Schofield and Sims and various online bits and pieces just to work on confidence. We also played loads of games like scrabble, cribbage and rummikub just to give them the confidence to manipulate numbers and we worked fun into everything.

My top tip is to ensure that there are no "gaps" in your DC's maths - speaking from experience here - you have plenty of time to plug any gaps, we didn't and it was all a bit stressful.

[mystery]

Thanks everyone. Going back to my original question, do you think if you are using "Bond" (and what do you mean by that, they publish lots of different things) you should get to the point where child is able to do all the age 10-11 assessment papers in NVR, VR and maths?

Several years back I remember a tutor saying that it was sufficient to get to the 9-10 assessment papers .... but I wasn't entirely convinced. A tutor I spoke to recently (I'm going to DIY) said get to 10-11 in all subjects. What do you think all you people who have done it?

[neurotic kent mum]

10 - 11 years in NVR and Maths by 11 +. Bear in mind that the 11 plus VR is different to bond. But still good for building vocabulary. Also I believe that the nets in the bond NVR do not apppear in the 11 plus papers( I do hope this remains the case!)

I agree with Doodles, use Year 4 to plug the gaps in maths unless your DD is at an independent school.

[doodles]

NKM, we are; my advice would be just make sure whatever the school.

DS is currently using 10-11+ years Bond for NVR, VR and Maths plus S&S Mental Arithmetic Book 4 and as I said we take the test this September (about 14 weeks time ).

[mystery]

Ah thanks - it's tough isn't it to get to the 10-11 books when the test is at the start of year 6?

We do so much during term-time I'm hoping to get 8-9 done during the summer holiday, 9-10 during year 4, and 10-11 during year 5. Sounds impossible!!

How can one be sure about the no HIKNOS thing in Kent when one is just relying on what the children say when they come out of the test? Or will KCC confirm no HIKNOS? They always refer to the GL assessment practice papers don't they, and they include HIKNOS? Is it worth the risk not doing them?

[MadHatter]

My DS is a 2013 taker. I have found the Bond papers perfect for this year - with some bribery DS can usually be persuaded to sit through one of the 10-minute papers a couple of times a week - they're fairly bite-sized but sufficient for us to see where the gaps are. We started on the 8-9 year papers at the beginning of the year - initially I was tearing my hair out at how much DS didn't know but we worked through them all eventually. We then decided to go back a set to the 7-8 series to build DS's confidence but he complained they were too easy which was heartening. Then after a break we've recently picked up on the 9-10 batch which seem about right now for where he's at in school - I hope this means he's on track to step it up a bit in Y5 but guess we'll need to keep it up over the holidays. We've done a little bit of VR and NVR too from the Bond books - I gather we will need to look at alternatives next year to really prepare him for the Kent exams but as a no-pressure Y4 study tool I've found Bond fine. Haven't got my head around this HIKNOS business yet though...

[yoyo123]

HIKNOS very occasionally come up, so I covered them briefly, although Kent usually just has questions from 1st 15 types.

maths, - tables, primes,squares,angles, perimeter, area problem solving , pie charts