Hi, I have been searching online for places that may help provide some sort of guidance packs for parents that are working with their kids to prep them for the exams, but haven’t found anything, is there such a thing?

What area are you in? There is plenty of help on here for DIYers. Let us know & we can point you in the right direction.

What area and which exams?

Thanks for the replies - I’m looking at the sutton/Kingston schools for my daughter - I can see there’s lots of info here online but what I’m finding actually there’s so much it’s a little overwhelming and I feel I need some sort of structure to help!

I will move your post to the correct section & you will probably get more help there. I'm not local but others may be able to share what they did.
In the meantime there are some suggested materials here, which you may already have seen.

I don't know anything about the Kingston schools I'm afraid but the thing with the Sutton schools is that they set their own exam papers and don't provide any past papers so it can definitely feel a bit overwhelming at first.

The papers for the first round of the Sutton tests are multiple choice English and maths. If you sit the second round tests they're also English and maths but not multiple choice - for maths the children have to write the answers in and for English it's a piece (or sometimes two pieces) of long writing.

We used the Bond 11+ books in English and Maths to prepare for Sutton, although we also had external tutors as well. I think it's definitely possible to get through the Sutton exams without a tutor as long as the child has been consistently at the top end of their class and the parents doing the DIY have themselves a strong grasp of the English and Maths concepts they're meant to be teaching.

The exams do cover areas that won't yet have been done in most primary schools, so in maths, for example, you need to be able to teach techniques as well as give support in areas that the child will already know. You'll also need to be pretty confident in areas such as comprehension, which has previously been quite a big chunk of the English test.

I don't want to put you off but it's important to be realistic. These are difficult exams and most children who sit them don't get through. The schools may say that any bright child will do well and that they only cover material from Y6, but the exams are at the beginning of Y6 and the material they cover includes things from the end.

Goodl luck.

We have done Bond papers to start with - to get used to the layout, to know how to work when there is a time limit and to identify the areas that needed more attention.

Overall, Bond papers are a little bit too easy when compared to the actual exams in our area, that it why they are useful to start with - makes the child more confident, they see that this is not super scary after all.

Later on and in especially the final 3-6 months we have used other schools past papers (not Sutton or Kingston, as they do not publish those) that can be downloaded from internet. Any good schools' papers where they apply a similar exam format, grammar or independent, are useful. Some of them would have the answers included and some do not.

Those papers helped a great deal, and 3 years ago my son had to write his stage 2 exam English essay on a topic that already had come up in the preparation 2 months before. He did not remember that - but I did when I heard that the essay had been about munity on the Bounty.

A very good book that we have used a lot is Usborne Illustrated Dictionary of Maths (we had two - Junior version with blue cover and red which is more advanced and can be used both for their SATs and GCSEs. I recommend the latter.)

Finally, I think that mock tests done by Sutton schools (Sutton Grammar, Wilson's and Wallington Boys) were very useful. Sutton Grammar are fully booked by now, but there might be slots left with Wilson's and Wally Boys.

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/national-curriculum#programmes-of-study-by-subject

You can see here what is covered in which year / key stage and can assess what your DD should already have covered at school etc

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Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.Groucho Marx

That's useful TM, not sure I've seen that before.

On the Bond books, they are presented by age (10+, 11+, 12+ etc) - I think we began with 11+ books at the start of Y5 but moved pretty quickly to using 12+, which is closer to the standard that I think you will need for Sutton.

Thanks all - some very useful information much appreciated!