How to DIY my child for the 11 plus

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Minicooper
Posts: 18
Joined: Sun Oct 21, 2012 10:23 am

How to DIY my child for the 11 plus

Post by Minicooper »

Hi all,

I'm trying my best to support and tutor my child for the 11 plus test in sep 2013. Although she is already having tutoring I thought I'd give abit of extra help from home.
However, having tried for many weeks now, I'm finding that I'm the one whos constantly reminding her that she has to do her work, I try my best to explain to her and just end up losing my patience. Is this just me getting stressed and frustrated or are many parents having to push their child to work hard for this test. She clearly emphasises how much she really wants to do the grammar test but has a funny way of showing it.

I don't want to push her too much and end up demotivating her, hence, I feel that I need some guidance or support how to do this without feeling frustrated.

I need some advice please

Thanks !
Paramjeet
Posts: 228
Joined: Sun Mar 18, 2012 6:30 pm

Re: How to DIY my child for the 11 plus

Post by Paramjeet »

If you don't mind the question but how much external tutoring is your child having time wise and do you notice any benefits to this tutoring?
Minicooper
Posts: 18
Joined: Sun Oct 21, 2012 10:23 am

Re: How to DIY my child for the 11 plus

Post by Minicooper »

Hi paramjeet,

Thank you very much for your reply, my daughter is only having afew hours of tutoring a week and I feel she is benefitting. Although, tutoring is helping she still needs to be doing extra work at home. Im finding it hard to constantly tell her, it's upsetting me and the rest of the household aswell.
Amarstone
Posts: 124
Joined: Tue Oct 16, 2012 1:29 pm

Re: How to DIY my child for the 11 plus

Post by Amarstone »

Hello,

Only! A couple of hours sounds like a lot in my opinion. My daughter attended a tutor for an hour a week from the February before the exam. The tutor set her about an hour and a half of work to do at home which she completed before the next session. In the last few weeks of the Summer holiday Dd completed a couple of practice papers most days, and we focused on exam technique and timings. I don't think any more than this is helpful or necessary. Some children burn out from doing too much and starting too early and feel under great pressure on the exam day as the exam has been looming for so long!
muminbrum
Posts: 362
Joined: Mon Oct 22, 2012 12:14 pm

Re: How to DIY my child for the 11 plus

Post by muminbrum »

I diy-ed my son for about 18 months before the exam but we only did 30-60 min per week and some weeks nothing if we were busy. He also had 6 one hour sessions with a tutor over the summer holidays. If your DC is not keen and she is already doing a few hours a week with a tutor I would either leave it to the tutor for now or cut down on the tutor and replace some of that time yourself. Does she not get work to do from the tutor that you could help her with? We liked the Practice and Pass books as they are full of 10-20 min exercises and we also used Bond but I tended to get DS to do half a test from one book and half from another e.g. a bit of VR and a bit of NVR. There are also lots of exercises available online e.g. cloze that you could do together. Is your DC reading plenty? this is important for vocab so maybe she could do that instead? I think I was lucky as having seen the schools DS was keen to go and that motivated him to put the effort in.
nicolajane1971
Posts: 156
Joined: Wed Aug 01, 2012 4:55 pm

Re: How to DIY my child for the 11 plus

Post by nicolajane1971 »

Hiya,

You might also find that in terms of maturity, your child really comes on in leaps and bounds between the end of year 4 and the end of year 5, I would certainly just leave it to the tutor at this stage (keeping a careful eye on progress of course), then review things in the Spring.

All the best.
Pumpkin Pie
Posts: 661
Joined: Tue Sep 04, 2012 7:27 pm

Re: How to DIY my child for the 11 plus

Post by Pumpkin Pie »

Perhaps you need to get into a routine with your DD. Don't forget she will have tutor's homework, school homework and then 'your' homework. Perhaps she is feeling the pressure. If she is being tutored a couple of times a week, then surely that is enough at the moment. Perhaps you could do a little something with her on a Saturday or Sunday if you feel you need to, when she might be feeling more relaxed, and not tired after school. You don't want to burden her too much. Don't forget that you can make learning fun too, with word games, scrabble, do crosswords together, read together. Some of the 11+ apps for the IPod etc are fun to use. Good luck and enjoy the journey together! :D
Last edited by Pumpkin Pie on Wed Oct 31, 2012 1:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.
justamum
Posts: 15
Joined: Wed Sep 05, 2012 12:41 pm

Re: How to DIY my child for the 11 plus

Post by justamum »

muminbrum wrote:There are also lots of exercises available online e.g. cloze that you could do together.
hi muminbrum.

What good cloze exercises did you find online?
Paramjeet
Posts: 228
Joined: Sun Mar 18, 2012 6:30 pm

Re: How to DIY my child for the 11 plus

Post by Paramjeet »

what marks is your child getting on the practice papers? I did DID route with my child, very stressful at times. My partner would know when walking in the door that a tough paper had been attempted. But there were lots of ephippany type moments when certain topics just clicked into place such as codes in NVR or VR number pattern etc...Its those that we remember as well as the odd flyong out of my pants stuff. There is no right or wrong way, its horses for courses really.
3b1g
Posts: 403
Joined: Sun Oct 14, 2012 3:11 pm

Re: How to DIY my child for the 11 plus

Post by 3b1g »

Paramjeet wrote:as well as the odd flying out of my pants stuff.
This made me smile :D I prepared my eldest two children myself; thankfully for all concerned I didn't fly out of my pants either time.
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