11 Plus Exams Forum

Hi everyone,

Not sure if this thread already exists and apologies if so.

Ds is currently in Yr5 and will be taking the entrance exams this year along with a million and one other dcs. I thought it would be nice to start a new thread and follow the journey through to next year, but most importantly encourage / share our experiences along the way.

It's hard to imagine that this time next year it will all be over, can't quite see the light at the end of the tunnel at the moment

Looking forward to hearing from those embarking on this JOURNEY too.

Josa

We too are looking for our DC to sit the exam for 2011 entry. Have just got to the stage of buying various VR papers, and learning the various techniques is taking up a serious chunk of my day now.

Hi new2me,

Nice to have you on board as I was beginning to wonder if ds was the only one sitting the exams this year . We've found the AE NVR workbooks and IPS VR method and technique very useful and I will highly recommend them.

We are working through the bond fourth assessment papers and ds seem to be doing well except for the English comprehension which he finds difficult. Does anyone have the same experience with this paper?

I agree. DD's weakest subject is English, and the first couple of attempts scored 40-50% in the time given for the age 9-10 papers.

We are now trying to increase her 'reading for pleasure' time (enforced 'reading for pleasure' LOL) and I also followed their advice at the back and ordered the 8-9 age ones. I've bought the Bond 'Secrets of Comprehension' book which I partially read last night. This seems very helpful and I've decided to to try and teach her technique bofore any more timed tests. She alarmingly told me the school haven't taught her how to tackle comprehention - only given out tests. I checked with a class mate who is dropped off at our house at 8am and I take to school and she also said the same. Hmmmmmm.........

I was a bit shocked by the tests in the middle of the book and would not recommend them until autumn - they reminded me of O level work! I wondered if they were Essex papers as I know that they have used Dickens and Ted Hughes in the past and are about the toughest in England.

It looks like I need to teach myself to proof-read at the same time!

We found the Bond 'secrets of comprehension' rather too much to take on board at one go - good to come back to later, though. The best book I found to start off with comprehension was a Scholastic one - 'Quick fix for year 6' - it really gave good techniques for answering different kinds of questions. It was pricey, but worth every penny. We had the same problem that comprehension didn't seem to be being taught at school, just tests given out. Of course, depending on which schools you are going to apply for, you may not need comprehension at all - it is not needed for the consortium tests, but is definitely needed for DAO or any of the private schools.

For comprehension and composition I found this book great and breaks it down nicely.

Achieve level 5 English by rising stars

I have both the IPS and Susan Daughtrey VR method and technique books. Of the two, Susan Daughtrey books 1 - 4 do seem to provide clearer (to me) explanations on how to tackle each question type. As I am coaching my DC, this is important for me, but won't be relevant to anyone with a tutor.