Bond Fifth papers
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Bexley Mum 2
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Bond Fifth papers
Anybody know how the Bond Fifth papers in Maths compare to 11+ standard? They're described as being for 11+ to 12+ years and I thought they would be suitable for my DS who is very good at maths. However, he's struggled on a few on the first couple of pages and, as I don't want to undermine his confidence, I'm wondering if they are appropriate.
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deontological
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- Location: Caversham
Bond Fifth Papers in Maths
Like with most academic publishers, Bond gradually build up their materials over the years and you'd notice that they favour certain topics than others, which may or may not fully reflect the 11+ exams that your DS will be sitting.
A sound approach is to go for balance and variety: be selective in what you want to get out of the Bond papers and then identify areas or topics that your DS might find interesting or difficult and source different materials to help your DS to practise them.
Personally, I find Bond papers very clear and well laid out, though sometimes a bit predictable .. you should always allow for a bit of "unpredictability" from the actual 11+ exams
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You'd need to be careful with the 11+ exam type (standard versus MC) for your DS. Exam techniques are quite different for these two different types of exams.
Once your DS has gained enough confidence working with Bond papers, you might like to continue working with More Fifth papers or even Sixth papers. They are quite challenging but can also test your DS's deeper topic understanding. Again, you should try to be selective.
A sound approach is to go for balance and variety: be selective in what you want to get out of the Bond papers and then identify areas or topics that your DS might find interesting or difficult and source different materials to help your DS to practise them.
Personally, I find Bond papers very clear and well laid out, though sometimes a bit predictable .. you should always allow for a bit of "unpredictability" from the actual 11+ exams
!You'd need to be careful with the 11+ exam type (standard versus MC) for your DS. Exam techniques are quite different for these two different types of exams.
Once your DS has gained enough confidence working with Bond papers, you might like to continue working with More Fifth papers or even Sixth papers. They are quite challenging but can also test your DS's deeper topic understanding. Again, you should try to be selective.
There's no better time than now.
I like the Bond as extra work for my weaker pupils or those that like extra work. Not sure about your standard, but in Essex 5th/more 5th are great. I've also used the first few in the 6th with some of the very hard working children. They are good for angles, conversions and decimals. The algebra goes beyond where they need so you can take that out when it involves x^2 etc. When papers are in short supply the huge volume produced by Bond can be useful.
They are, however, repetitive and children can learn how to do them.
They are, however, repetitive and children can learn how to do them.
I like Peter Robson as he sorts out the problems by type. The only issue is that Peter Robson books do have extra work that is not relevant to the Elevenplus, like vectors and matrices, but I am sure these will be handy as soon as Ds moves on to Year 7. Peter Robson books also lack the data handling, navigation and bus time tables type of problems.
The problems in Peter Robson are not tricky enough though (although with big numbers) and are repetitive, which is good because once your child understands the concept, you can then move on to Bond papers (Mixed trickier problems in test paper format) and IPS tests or Daily practice 10 minutes tests.
Very good value for money, those 5 Peter Robson books I bought. I am thinking of trying AE books. If anyone has tried them, your feedback would be great. I did use one AE book on percentages but found it too messy, so never returned to it again. This was quite some time back, before they brought out the new 6 book set which I read simiilar in format to Peter Robson's. If it is anything as good as Peter Robson's I might well get it.
The problems in Peter Robson are not tricky enough though (although with big numbers) and are repetitive, which is good because once your child understands the concept, you can then move on to Bond papers (Mixed trickier problems in test paper format) and IPS tests or Daily practice 10 minutes tests.
Very good value for money, those 5 Peter Robson books I bought. I am thinking of trying AE books. If anyone has tried them, your feedback would be great. I did use one AE book on percentages but found it too messy, so never returned to it again. This was quite some time back, before they brought out the new 6 book set which I read simiilar in format to Peter Robson's. If it is anything as good as Peter Robson's I might well get it.
