11 Plus Exams Forum

Hi there
Dd is in year 5 and is working hard doing Bond practice papers (9-10yrs). She's doing well on English, verbal and non-verbal reasoning (around 90% - is this about on track?) - but I'm a bit worried about her maths. It's erratic and she sometimes scores about 65%. Sometimes she gets about 80%, but I'm worried. Can anyone give me a sense of how well she needs to be doing at this stage? I would like to be prepared if she's unlikely to get an offer!
Thanks.

I suggest you start working through the maths papers for the consortium and identify weak areas. Bond is not really challenging enough and it would be better to start working with the past papers for both English and Maths. For VR I would recommend Athey and Bright Sparks, again the Bond papers are really designed for areas like Bucks and Kent where most sit and there are lots of places and so the past mark is low. You will not get into the band one consortium schools with maths marks in the 60's but perhaps into the lower band schools which many parents use as backup and then turn down when they get a band one offer. DG

Does she know her tables really well? Not knowing them can cause a lot of silly mistakes.

DAO wrote


I suggest you start working through the maths papers for the consortium and identify weak areas





My dd's also in yr 5 and have heard from few people that Bonds a bit too easy if a childs sitting 11+ super selective schools.


could you please explain whats Maths papers for the consortium if you dont mind.




Thanks in anticipation

Channing is in group 2 of the North London consortium - check out past papers for maths. You will begin to see that the paper is quite formulaic with types of questions coming up each year. Work through them to expose weak topic areas and problem-solving typed questions. Don't worry about timing them to start with but go for accuracy and concentrate on the methods. Mental maths practice will also help and being 100% with times tables , all the operations , fractions, decimals, reading scales and time tables etc we will all help. There are always questions about doubling, halving recipe ingredients etc too. Start early and do loads of practice so that once against the clock you can just rattle through the easy questions, leaving thinking time for the tricky ones. Some algebra always comes up too. Good luck!

You can download past papers from Channing's website: http://www.channing.co.uk/admissions/se ... dmissions/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Wow, amazing advice. Thank you. At the moment DD is working with a tutor who is setting her Bond papers. I am beginning to worry about this approach now.

planma wrote:Wow, amazing advice. Thank you. At the moment DD is working with a tutor who is setting her Bond papers. I am beginning to worry about this approach now.

I agree that those targeting North London Consortium schools need to move beyond Bond to do well. However, if your DD is getting between 65% - 80% on Bond maths practice papers, then there may still be some fundamental topics that she is yet to grasp fully. I would suggest investigating whether she is consistently getting certain types of questions wrong and fixing those first (IMO, Bond is helpful for building fundamental knowledge).

Last year, my DD (who is now in Y6) used Bond until mid to late April, at which time she switched to Schofield & Sims mental maths and started practicing with prior-year indie exams (including those from the North London Consortium).

forget about bond levels, they are o.k for building confidence and the 12+ are actually quite advanced, beyond level 5 (primary levels)

any child at 5a at the being of yr 6 has a reasonable chance of getting into any Indie in the U.K

private tutors and tutoring centers have have their own agenda!

If Channing is your goal I suggest you find a tutor who focuses on the North London Consortium schools and has a proven track record of getting girls into Channing. As has been said these papers are very specific. Ask your tutor for a reference from a parent who had a daughter sit this month. All the interviews are now out so they will know how well they did in the exam. I would quit the Bond papers and do a Consortium Maths paper. Then ask your tutor to identify weak areas and focus on those. The Consortium papers follow the same format every year and you need to know that format inside out. DG