11 Plus Exams Forum

My first post , DS has passed for 2009 entry. Very strong NVR, passed Maths and VR but not as strong as the NVR. Overall score of 378. This is really a message for other lurkers. It is possible to pass, my son is not the super bright top of the class. He has a logical mind but struggles with spelling and basic maths at times, which left me doubtful of his ability. HT told me in the summer that DS would pass if there was a 13+ as his improvement was always rapid, just questionable if he would catch up in time for 11+. (Moved to the UK when DS was in Year 3). Much soul searching we didn't do any tutoring. Our approach was giving him a couple of ten minute tests a day for three weeks over the summer, I followed up after I got home with marking and going through questions that were wrong. On Fridays he would do a full paper on one subject, to get timing right (another weakness, DS wants to spend ten minutes on each q and find at least three methods to confirm correct ans b4 moving on). Weekend off then back to the ten minute exam approach on Monday. This approach worked I think because I assumed the school had done their job and taught him the curriculum (and it seems that was correct). If particular questions were complete gobldie gook I ignored them and told him to guess (1 in 5 chance right). I think this helped his confidence rather that spending 20 minutes telling him where he had gone wrong on one question. If it was clear he was getting halfway there with a question we spent the time on that subject. I never spent more than half an hour a day talking through with him. Short sharp, focussed work and very mindful if he was too tired. Never sure if this approach would work, I never realised the stress I felt (super effort to help make time off totally relaxing and away from school work, fave meals, regular routine at home, anything to keep him happy).

Well Done to your DS:)
My dd passed too, and she wouldnt do papers in the holidays, and screwed the ones up I did persuade her to tackle.
So anything IS possible!

Same here my DD passed Kent comfortably with no tutor, no practice papers or anything..however she just failed her medway by 4 points and curses me for not getting her a tutor as all her friends that passed were coached to within an inch of their lives!!

for_tinkerbell wrote:...and curses me for not getting her a tutor...

It's an arms race. If people have Atom Bombs you need Hydrogen Bombs...

... and there will always be a degree of luck when the margins are so small.

Hello there, Onedown01, it appears there are two of us !

Well done to your DS for passing the 11+. My DD2 passed too, so I suppose it's about time I changed my user name to 'Two Down' to be strictly accurate - anyone know how to do that? Or should it be 'Two Down ( formerly known as One Down)'?

Do you have any more DC still to take the Kent Test - no more for me, so I'll be Two Down forever now.
Nice to meet a 'like mind'

DD currently in Year 2 so yes I will have to do this again in a few years time.

I'm also a 2down1togo but as I have had two this year (Jan and Sept) and no3 has only started at school I think I might hang up my elevenplusexams boots for a while and just relax and enjoy the stresses of secondary school for a few years before coming back on here with my new name. Should I register it now though as I do rather like it

Hi I'm 3 down and no more and my DS passed too thankfully. Onedown how did your DD do in NVR? We corresponded quite a bit after they had taken the test and I was so grateful to others including Onedown for their similar experiences with the dreaded NVR. It was my DS's worst score and I found out his raw score was 42 out of 72 equating to 128. Anyway onwards... we have another 3 months to wait to see if he is able to get into his choices!

shuff wrote:I found out his raw score was 42 out of 72 equating to 128

Shuff - can you please explain what this means. Sorry to be thick but I can't get my head around it!

Shuff - can you please explain what this means. Sorry to be thick but I can't get my head around it!

Think Shuff means that dc scored 128 (standardised/age weighted) on that paper and when contacting KCC he/she found out that dc got 42 questions right out of 72.