11 Plus Exams Forum

Speed - and problems relating to speed, distance, time? When is this generally taught in school? Where does it appear in those year by year maths planning things that used to be on the DfE website but have now been archived?

Year 8.

It does puzzle me. It appears quite early on in Schofield and Sims practice books. It's also mentioned in the Bucks forum yesterday by a mother whose year 6 child has just taken the CEM trial 11plus paper.

I'd have thought it would be earlier too until I looked it up. I used to use this website with ds1 for 11+ practice and it didn't seem unfamiliar to him. The actual maths isn't complicated even if the interpretation of the question might not be what they're used to though, so it could be regarded as a good indicator of the ability to apply mathematical reasoning.

The year 5 requirements do include "solve problems involving addition, subtraction, multiplication and division and a combination of these" which you could argue applies to time speed distance calculations. "Starting at 10.30 am, and travelling 460km at an average of 80 km/h, when will you arrive?" is just a simple division question really, with the resultant fraction then converted to get minutes, and the elapsed time added on to the starting time. Nothing there which isn't ks2 standard calculations, it just needs a little interpretation to find the sums required, and a couple of steps to get to the answer.

I agree. But the child that has met it before will find it easier rather than facing something completely novel in an exam. Another case of tutoring helping? There isn't that much in maths that couldn't be worked out with a bit more application, logic and brain once you've done level 4/5 stuff ... but to do it under the time pressure of an exam is another thing entirely. Also, this question has several steps in it so scope for slips along the way, but no credit in a multi-choice exam for having got the thinking right as the working can't be seen.

Maybe in Bucks they are trialling the questions that will be useful to sort out the top end for the superselectives in Kent (if they win the Kent contract that is of course!!) or at some other schools requiring high cut-off levels?!!!

Perhaps "a bit more application, logic and brain" is exactly what they're trying to test for?

Perhaps - but they only need to pass in Bucks - and if this is what they are looking for the question could be better designed not to give advantage to those who have marched further on in Schofield and Simms books beyond what is covered in the NC curriculum for year 5, or browsed on the internet for practice questions, or gone to a tutor. I understand that the parents in Bucks have been told the test will cover "year 5 work".

Almost anything could come under that year 5 problem solving phrase that you quote!