11 Plus Exams Forum

For those with DC's in year 5- how much prep are you doing? do you have a tutor and are your DC's primary doing any Vr or NVR (are's isnt ). x

Post exam now (good results), started with tutor half hour per week, and 10 minutes prep 5 days of the week. Upped to 20 mins then 30 mins as we got closer (like Easter and Summer) but never more than 30 mins and never more than 5 days, many weeks fewer. Not suggesting you will, but don't over prep, it won't help and may rebound on you. No prep done in primary, most state ones don't. The Bond 10 minute tests are a great quick way to practise things like NVR without the stress of a full test.

Hello, busybee10

Well it depends. We started prep in y5. How we did it was: ds went thru' all the basics that was needed in vr, nvr, and did all of syllabus in y5/6 maths from sept to march. We spent 30 min - to an hour per day after school mon- friday, just doing the above. Once this was completed. We moved onto tests. So from march - sept we did tests- short ones for a while in the week, and then worked on the weaker areas highlighted by the test in the weekends. We again spent 30 min to and an hour in the week, and weekends in total an hour. During this time ds also started doing longer test- 50 mins, and he sometimes worked to time pressures. As we got nearer, we did our own mock exams, which my ds throughly enjoyed. Everything was structured and step by step. I dont think we over preped, but it depends on how you looked at it.

In beteween we took a holiday in may and august and no work was allowed during holidays. We had alots of free weekends where 11 plus was never mentioned. My ds does gets nervy when he is under pressure,so we try to prepare for the pressured scenarios, eg.dropping pencil cases, nosies during mock exam. And making sure time targets are met.

The only thing which i would advise against is going for a practice mock exam outside. My ds went for it.....and the scores compared to the real ones, was very different. I felt it was different child sitting for a real exam. ds barely crossed threshold in the mock exam. He was very upset...but bit encouragment from us and ice- cream, he was allright... It was then i realised the marking structure is different and with very limited feedback, you cant really say how well ds has done. So avoid private mock exams totally.

And the myth, ( someone contributing to forum actully said this) that a child has to above 85% in gl papers....well it wasnt true for us. There is sometimes when ds did touch this % but only occasionally. Ds scores in the alty exam was 370 plus, sale grammar was 380plus, and another school in a different area in he was top 10% of the possible 1000 kids who took the exam. Sorry to sound as if i am boasting, i am not. My ds is none smarter than most kids in his school, but i think determination and hard works pay off at the end.

Stay focused , and help dc to remain determined and strong. All children are smart and intelligent in their own way, it doesnt have to be in a grammar school. I also led my ds son believe in this and always spoke of grammar school has an alternative rather than the only choice.

I hope this helps....i know rambled a bit here. But if you need any more help, just let me know.

A great help, thanks both.

Am I the only parent that didn't employ the services of a tutor or start prepping my child at least a year in advance of grammar school entrance exams?

Sure you're not, but you did tutor them (albeit yourself) from when you thought it was right, for your children, but there's quite a variety out there! From the many houred to the brief)

I believe in preparation, for sure, but a year+ in advance? Also, I'd be interested in knowing the success rate of those that had tutors vs those that didn't - I'm sure that it's been asked before!

I'm not saying tutoring is wrong at all, just wondering why people think that a tutor can connect with the child better than the parent can.

It's a lot of pressure for kids either way, the weight of expectation can be too much for young shoulders.

We only prepped for 8 weeks.

My daughter got much higher grades in the real exams compared to those of mock exams she took. It's not really the exam papers, but the exam environment they need to experience.
I advise mock exam , the more the better

Tongmeister wrote:I believe in preparation, for sure, but a year+ in advance? Also, I'd be interested in knowing the success rate of those that had tutors vs those that didn't - I'm sure that it's been asked before!

I'm not saying tutoring is wrong at all, just wondering why people think that a tutor can connect with the child better than the parent can.

It's a lot of pressure for kids either way, the weight of expectation can be too much for young shoulders.

We only prepped for 8 weeks.

Had this discussion the other day. I am totally with you over not over prepping, but there are two points of contention
1. How much is too much? I have clear ideas on that and come down heavily on the not very much, but from the sept beforehand, but not in hols or weekends. Just my view and it varies, although I feel strongly that several hours per week is too much, but just m opinion
2. Prepping is still tutoring. Everywhere here you wil see the stand off between tutor vs non tutor. For some, a parent definitely better, and that's great. Fr others, myself included, tutoring myself caused rows and ructions that I wasn't prepared to expose either of us to (it's same with maths homework, just personalities). Absolutely great,a dn cheaper, if you can DIY but not for everyone, depends on both child and parent. However, and it's a big one, you DID tutor. Calling it prepping doesn't change that, and the act that you only did 8 weeks is great and yes, maybe that's all we all need, but it IS tutoring. Most tutors,well certainly ours, covers gaps in knowledge and practises things they don't do at school like nvr practise. Surely this must have been the sort of thing you did? I'll never know if we did too long, I guess there was a measure of pressure to begin with time to space. However (again), it did mean, for us, that the work pattern was much easy to cover what we needed to, than if we'd shortened it. This in turn meant that the pressure was much relieved, much like ten minutes practise per day for their music is better than cramming three weeks before the exam, which in our case we would have had to do.

So in summary, you could never compare those with tutors vs those without, as we all tutor. But you could maybe compare DIY tutored with prof tutor, and might well find similar result.