I think I need a plan..

Eleven Plus (11+) in Gloucestershire (Glos)

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MountainDweller
Posts: 60
Joined: Mon Oct 21, 2013 4:31 pm

I think I need a plan..

Post by MountainDweller »

No need to comment, just thinking 'out loud' really. :D

We've spent the last month or so just doing a bit of extra Maths, English and reading, but now I feel a plan may need to be put in place :D

The school seems to have increased the amount of homework, which is not helping us at all!

Time to dig some basic 11+ books out and start thinking of buying any extra books/guides/pencils/rubbers we may need for the next 9 months.

I'm not quite sure how 'The Plan' will look, but we need to find time within the week to fit everything in...while still letting DS enjoy some of his childhood!
MedievalBabe
Posts: 1191
Joined: Wed Oct 16, 2013 9:56 pm

Re: I think I need a plan..

Post by MedievalBabe »

I would love to come up with a plan for the next 9 months for Dd. Every time I think I have an idea something else gets in the way. It also relies on hubby being up for it and doing the extra work when I can't, which is all good in thought but maybe not so in practise. So far Dd gets on hour a week of shared DIY tutoring and extra work set, which she has to do on her own.

Think we all need to support one another in our 'plans' :D
bananabrain
Posts: 47
Joined: Sun Sep 30, 2012 9:10 pm

Re: I think I need a plan..

Post by bananabrain »

I am feeling exactly the same. Been cruising along doing some Maths/vocab work and decided to try one of our precious few CEM style test this morn; big shock!! 49% and when I went through the paper I wasn't surprised! The jumbled sentences were rock hard and 16 qu's in 8 minutes. The spellings were not too bad but DS struggled to guess the word they were wanting. Yikes; please inform me if you organise said PLAN!!! :shock:
Alice in Underland
Posts: 159
Joined: Mon Mar 15, 2010 4:19 pm

Re: I think I need a plan..

Post by Alice in Underland »

A few thoughts.
Although you do need a plan it is also important to be flexible.

I worked with my own DS for eleven plus, four years ago now. We were working on the old VR papers, so did have the benefit of a lot of other peoples experience and tried and tested practice papers.

We started preparing in a casual way in the spring of year 5, had a focused chunk of time in the summer holidays, and then put a lot more effort in during August and September. We did a full paper during the summer, just to give us a baseline for speed and timing really, but then did not do a full paper again until September.

After he visited the school, he was very motivated to try for it, which is a big advantage.

Started off by going through past papers and practice papers to assess his strengths and weaknesses.
Then focused on the weak points, but did it in small chunks. Practice, practice and practice. Use lots of different resources.

Make sure you have a quiet and comfortable space for studying.
Send other children out of the room. Ideally out of the house !
Be prepared to sit quietly with him and only intervene if necessary.
Make this a priority for You. Mobile off. Do not chat or wander round and be distracting.
Discuss time in advance... "lets spend 20 mins going through this and then we will stop and have a chocolate biscuit" etc

Have contingency plans. If they are tired and grumpy play a game instead. Give lots of praise for good effort or a job well done. If it is all falling to bits stop and take a break.

If you are doing this jointly with a partner, make sure you both have an agreed stance on techniques, awards, style of working so you don't give conflicting messages.

Keep up with reading anything they are willing to read. Play Scrabble. Do crosswords, Soduko, have maths quizzes, learn times tables, do basic geometry.

We discussed exam technique in advance, before moving on to timed sections and then whole papers.
Emphasised the importance of moving on, not getting stressed over questions he couldn't do. Going back to check the answers. Disregard obviously wrong answers so you increase the odds of a good guess if you do not know the answer at all.

I had never done anything like this before, and found it very rewarding to see my son develop his learning and problem solving abilities.

Good Luck.
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