11 Plus Exams Forum

We have taken a restful break over the half term holiday. Now going to get back into prep next week. Lincs forum is very quiet! A support thread for the 11+ exam this year!

Hello,

We've started to structure things a bit more after the half them. My DS is still struggling with Nets and Cubes and timing so we're doing a lot more practice papers and the 10 minutes test. We're DIYing it so all on us really.

We are the same. Little but more often now during the week! The timing is tricky. My dd makes lots of scribbles for working out answers so I'm not sure if they will be extra paper supplied during the exam?

My DS also does a lot so scrabbling but I am not too worried about that yet. he can always do that on the question paper during the exams. The challenge we are having is with consistency. We're doing to the GL practice paper and his scores vary very wildly. One day its 84% and the next its 40%.

Taking a chilled approach at the moment but its a little frustrating.

Only just found this forum! Hello everyone.
Anyone else go to the taster day in sleaford today? My DS has been so nervous he almost didn’t go, yet came home adamant he wants to try for the 11+ as loved the school. He gets so worked up, any tips would be appreciated.

Well I was confidently leaving it all to do in the summer holidays as for the two older siblings. I knew they had thrown in a couple of extra spatial reasoning questions int he last few years, but didn't realise that the name of the paper has actually changed to Non Verbal and Spatial Reasoning. This makes me wonder what else I have missed. I had him read the GL 'Explained' books before the mock tests, but now I need to research and find out what else we need to do. The practice papers that QEHS Gainsborough suggested similarly do not contain the Spatial Reasoning questions, so I am on a hunt for resources!

I'm not panicked - yet!! But any tips well received

JRM wrote:Well I was confidently leaving it all to do in the summer holidays as for the two older siblings. I knew they had thrown in a couple of extra spatial reasoning questions int he last few years, but didn't realise that the name of the paper has actually changed to Non Verbal and Spatial Reasoning. This makes me wonder what else I have missed. I had him read the GL 'Explained' books before the mock tests, but now I need to research and find out what else we need to do. The practice papers that QEHS Gainsborough suggested similarly do not contain the Spatial Reasoning questions, so I am on a hunt for resources!

I'm not panicked - yet!! But any tips well received

You’ll be fine. We didn’t realise about the paper being Non Verbal and Spatial Reasoning until my daughter came out of the test, as we’d just done the preparation recommended by the school (which didn’t mention SR, and the practice tests they suggested we buy didn’t cover it.).

That was still enough to get my daughter in from out of county - at the end of the day, these tests are intended to assess children’s natural abilities, so familiarisation with the test style and structure is sufficient; no need for specific training. My daughter really liked the Spatial Reasoning section because it was something a bit new and different for her, and she said it was all very straightforward and easy to understand anyway.

Maybe just look for any Spatial Reasoning practice test, and let your child have a go at them to familiarise themselves with the question types, but I don’t think it’s anything they need to have much (if any) practice with.

Thank you for the reassurance. I have found a CGP 10 minute test book for spatial reasoning just to get him in that frame of mind. I'm back to being my usual chilled self now - had a real wobble about everyone having been working on this for months, but after a couple of weeks of the summer holidays I'm confident that he is where he will be and we will just have to see if that is good enough.

After a few practice mini tests what strikes me most is how much better he does in a morning.

Hello Lincs! I just wanted to report back since I started this thread My daughter just finished her last exam at Kesteven's in Grantham this morning. It was well organised, for both exam sittings. An amazing rainbow array of school uniform we saw on the days! We are quietly confident but I suppose so much boils down to on the day! Look forward to the results in October! Wishing you all the very best and hope it wasn't too stressful for your dcs!