kent maths paper this year

[ashfordmum]

Mmm, getting a bit concerned now. Will be appealing for a grammar school place on basis of daughter's high NVR score but perhaps this won't hold any water with the panel - even if we sign in blood that no coaching was involved! I was quite chuffed that the score indicated she was naturally brilliant (get's it from her Mum!).

[Guest55]

http://www.nfer.ac.uk/nfer/index.cfm?20 ... F32480C310


Might be useful -

[Bexley Mum 2]

They are indeed excellent scores for an uncoached child and I wish you every success at appeal. Some children do seem to have a natural knack with NVR - my youngest for example when he was 7 would pick up his older brother's practice papers and rattle off the right answers much to everyone's amazement (and, infuriatingly, Bexley has done away with the NVR before he got a chance to do it!) I don't think a coached child can beat a naturally talented child in NVR, but the coaching can significantly improve a child's performance in that it helps them improve their speed and technique.

[ashfordmum]

Thanks for the support. I had seen the link before. We can but try... Night y'all.

[KentMumofOne]

From my own experience with the 11+, I believe that a little bit of revision / knowing what to expect goes a long way. I took advice from my sister who has three children at Grammar school and she advised that you need to do some preparation work beforehand.

I decided to go through some 11+ practice papers with my daughter during the Christmas holidays. We used the 10 minute tests for each of the subjects and at the end of the holidays did a complete paper for each one. My daughter felt far more confident as to what was expected of her and wasn't so nervous when taking the exam.

We were incredibly pleased to find out last week that she had passed her 11+ with scores of VR 139, NVR 131 and Maths 128 and I don't believe that she would have achieved such scores without the revision that we did.

[perplexed]

That sounds like very efficient preparation. What were the 10 minute papers and full papers to which you refer?

[KentMumofOne]

The books / papers that we used were from Bond. We did the 10 mins tests for each subject - which stopped my daughter getting bored with doing extra work. I also referred to the Bond How to do ... books to ensure that we had covered all subjects. Hope this is helpful.

[kentmum1]

I can't agree more with the Bond - How to Do books - they are brilliant. I did the maths one with my son, together with the 10-minute test books. He did have whole test papers, but with tutor only. We did the How to Do 11+ Maths during the last month and it really consolidated the subject. He got a maths score of 127 (Oct birthday) but the raw score was 33/50, compared to his school practice test of 49/50. These raw scores can be very surprising, compared to practice scores but obviously take into account the extreme pressure rather than just pure ability. His yr 7 maths progress has been very good.. Last year, most children I know got very high VR and NVR scores and a lower maths score. I think this is a very typical pattern and not reflective of a harder maths paper.

As far as tutoring is concerned, I don't believe that any child can be coached through the 11+. All the reputable tutors I know will only teach those with natural ability, who they feel will cope and be happy within a grammar environment. They are simply there to give a nudge in the right direction, especially as schools do not devote much, if any, time to this. I have found, from personal experience, that my yr 5 son has not responded at all to 11+ tutoring. He is of average ability, recently diagnosed as dylslexic and one of the 75% who will be more comfortable in a non-selective school.

[nomatterwhat]

I have to confess to being fairly anti tutoring up until it was my own ten year old and I came to understand the playing field wasn't exactly equal when it came to the eleven plus! I teach in KS1 and perhaps naively thought the the eleven plus would be much lower key (like in my day) and a fairish test of children's academic potential, all be it at one specific point in thier education. I resorted to a maths tutor in the last six weeks because my DD desperately wanted to go to the all girls grammar having visited it, and her english teacher from year 5 was adamant a grammar school was the right place for her, even though her maths was considerably weaker.
I was amazed to learn from her tutor that the eleven plus paper would test her on areas that she had not been taught in KS2 set 2 maths. He gave her confidence and strategies to cope with all the 11 plus papers. Her scores went from 101 in the CATs which is average, to 122 in the actual maths paper (her VR was 140 and NVR 138 - I think her teacher was right!) Cosequently I have no problem to admitting we used a tutor (and this site!) at the last minute.
As for this year's maths paper... a year 6 teacher at my school said it was harder than usual. Apparently it usually gets harder with the last few questions being more lengthy and difficult. This year there were questions which may have 'thrown' some children right from the outset. However, if all the children found it difficult then, because of standardisation, every child should, in theory, stand the same chance in passing...