Hi Dear Parents,

Please shed some light on right books for The Folkestone School for Girls 11+ test.


Thanks in advance.

Best Regards,
Rama

There are recommendations in this section, as well as here.

Rama, I sent you a PM (private message). To retrieve it, click where it says that you have one new message (next to where you would click to log out, top left of your screen).

Good morning.

I thought I would share my experience as I have a daughter who has just started at the FSG this year and another daughter currently in year 5 hoping to also go to that school.

I generally followed the advice about books on this site and used Bond, CGP and Letts. Make sure you buy the ones for GL assessment as the Kent Test is set by GL. I used the assessment paper books from Bond for age 9-10 years in the early part of year 5 and then moved onto 10-11 years from Easter. I also used 10 minute practice books as top-up practice through the summer when my daughter was less inclined to do lots of work. It was nice and quick and kept her brain ticking over. I also purchased the exam practice papers from GL to do some mock tests at home from July onwards.

Are you thinking of also taking the Shepway Test? This is in 2 parts - a creative writing part (marked by the school itself) and a computerised test set by CEM. We didn't do any specific additional work for the Shepway test. I figured that it would be testing the same curriculum as the Kent test so additional work would be overkill. It also took the pressure off my daughter. She actually performed very well in the Shepway test without specific focus or practice at creative writing (a gamble on my part, admittedly). I would focus on the Kent test as priority.

In hindsight I may have gone overboard on the preparation for the Kent test but as it was our first time going through the process and doing it ourselves I wanted to make sure my daughter was as best prepared as possible. My biggest tip to you would be to work on timings. Once your child has the knowledge, do timed tests. It's this aspect that catches out a lot of children. We worked on timing tests through the summer holidays with both the full practice papers and with 10 minute tests. I'm glad we did that as my daughter was able to comfortably answer all but a few NVR questions in the time given. She passed the Kent test comfortably.

I hope that is of some help.