I cannot understand why state school 11+ test providers think it is appropriate to include mathematics topics beyond what is taught in Primary schools.

This seems unfair to me.

Any thoughts?

I completely agree. I would go as far as saying that the level of maths should not exceed that covered up to and including year 5. I think that it is acceptable to include questions that are in greater depth as long as the principles have been taught.

The 11+ is intended to identify able children. Testing them with questions that have not been taught only helps children who have been tutored. It does not create a level playing field.

I only know about the Birmingham test and that no one knows what is in the CEM paper. The Birmingham Grammar website used to state that the level of maths required was what had been covered up to and including yr 5. It doesn’t have this statement now. The cynic in me thinks that the commercially produced material is designed to scare parents into thinking that their child needs a tutor/ excessive preparation.

My child had a meltdown when a commercially produced maths paper was attempted- a lot of the material in it had not been covered at school, and wasn’t on the KS2 curriculum. That was the first and last maths paper attempted. They achieved a score comfortably over the priority score so lack of maths practice wasn’t an issue!

Another question has been posted about % increase from an 11+ test. I would be grateful if parents could post questions here they think are not taught at Primary and I plan to challenge the publishers.

The 11+ is divisive enough without including inappropriate and unfair content.

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My DD took the 11+ this year, like Nella in Birmingham, and also Walsall (both CEM, same format).

I, like Nella, noticed that the statement that used to be on the Birmingham Grammar website about the level of maths required being up to end Y5 is no longer there - I looked for it to reassure a friend who was preparing her son and panicking about how he needed to be about Y7-8 level, according to the online tutoring service they were using...

The only new maths I taught DD was the following:

* Long division (in case it enabled her to answer something more quickly)
* Ratio/proportion (school had covered fractions/percentages but not ratio/proportion)
* Mean/median/mode (I think only mean is covered in schools up to Y5)

The only reason I covered these with DD was because they had come up in one or two workbooks. I didn't really think they'd be required, but as the Birmingham Grammar website was no longer specific about the level of maths required, and as DD was happy to learn a bit more, we did them just in case.

I'm not certain whether DD used any of this 'home' knowledge in the 11 plus, but I suspect she didn't. She said there were no surprises on the maths paper, and she achieved very good scores in both tests.

I agree that it should not be necessary to test children beyond the Y5 curriculum, and from our experience, the CEM papers in Birmingham/Walsall don't seem to have this 'advanced' material. Instead, they impose a tight time limit and bring real world scenarios into the maths questions to test critical thinking under pressure, to identify the most able children. This seems to me to be a fair test. The only thing that's missing is a bit more clarification on the LA grammar websites, to stop parents panicking into paying for tutoring.

I have thought about this issue an awful lot and completely agree that tutors and publishers exaggerate the difficulty of the eleven plus for financial/ commercial purposes. It's of complete detriment to the well being of children and parents alike and something should definitely be done about it. When my child took the exam, i got the impression it was much easier than the mock exam she had taken as well as the published material which had created a lot of stress in the run up.

Beware mock exam companies as well - they're also just as bad - in it for the money.

Totally agree here. The mock exams were online for us and my son did badly in all three he did. The final mock he did was a month before the final exam. HE did alot better at the practice papers he did at home as well as in the actual exams itself. The mocks actually made me want to pull my son off the whole thing. In my experience the mocks were nowhere near indicative of the actual exam. Whereas the practice papers were. Other people naturally may disagree.

There is no such thing as the eleven plus, there is instead a very wide range of levels for English, Maths and VR exams used by a very wide variety of schools.

I have never heard any 11 plus applicant in London say that any mocks were harder than the actual exam.

As has already been stated mock exams are about so much more than answering the questions correctly.

I think it would be worth trying one out and see if it is helpful. Missing out on a place at your first choice school for any other reason except not being able to to answer the questions is a real waste. DG

In Kent, the Mock exam company that we used, advised us after the exam, that their mocks are harder than the real thing.

My daughter's mock results were terrible, she has been averaging 85% in Maths papers and 90% VR at home and this went down to 58% in the mock she sat last week. The first few questions were extremely hard (we saw the questions when we received her results and they were year 7 at least), I think this threw her confidence and her timing. The paper was definitely harder than the ones she is doing at home, however many kids who sat the same exam obviously knew them as we saw the scoring for the cohort who sat the exam and many did very well.

I had thought we were doing well up until this point