11 Plus Exams Forum

My DD is nine (year 5, birthday in July). She's never been academic really, and has been in the "needs a bit of help" group in primary school to help with her Maths. On the other hand, she's not in the category where we thought the 11+ would be a waste of time for her. We had a look around West Kirby as well as Pensby last year, and I came away feeling that she would be really happy in West Kirby, if she could get in.

Knowing that she would need a lot of help, I have been self tutoring her since Christmas year 4, using the Bond and Letts books, starting with 7-8, then 8-9 and 9-10. She's now working through the GL Assessment practice packs and managed 82% recently with a 50 minute time limit (her 4th attempt, and the first one against the clock). There's plenty of room for improvement of course, as she ended up guessing the last 5 questions due to running out of time, but I'm really surprised and delighted with how well she's doing. She seems to be better at VR than she is at her actual school work!

My one fear though, is that her teachers seem to see her as a bit of a 'nice but dim' type of person (she can be a bit of a daydreamer TBH), so if she doesn't get a straight pass in the test, I doubt they will vouch for her in an appeal. With that in mind, I want to get her to a level where I'm as certain as possible that she will pass. There are a few things I'm uncertain about though:

1. How much will her low age (late July birthday) affect the pass mark (I understand they do take it into account)?
2. What is the passmark before and after this weighting?
3. Is the actual exam similar in difficulty to the test papers (in other words, if she's averaging 90% on the test papers, will she get the same on the real exam)?

Thanks

Hi we have recently been through the 11+ and will find out what school my dd has been allocated this friday
It sounds like your dd is doing well and is on the right track. My dd only started working at the 11+ last july and sat it in september. Her main problem was speed at 1st but after a couple of weeks her speed increased and she would finish with about 15 minutes to spare.
However when it came to the real thing she ran out of time and missed a couple of questions. Luckily she still passed. I asked her at the time if she found them harder and she said no not really. So I think nerves must of kicked in making her slower.
You need 236 to pass. The papers are standardised so it is impossible to work out what % is needed to pass. the wirral release no information on standarised scoring, so no idea how much of when a child is born effects their score
Hope this helps

After all that she got 239

Thanks everybody on here for all the info and support.

Congrats