11 Plus Exams Forum

Hi - My son is in Year 4 but he is born at the beg of sept so I reckon that he is going to have to go pretty well to get a good GS place, assuming he passes of course!

The question I have is how do I start preparing him - I was thinking of a paper a week. I am planning on tutoring him myself - is this a good idea? What do other people who tutor their own children do?

Hi Kentstress - which part of Kent? Roughly will do east/west etc

Hi

I really wouldn't do any papers at all this early. I would concentrate on building up his maths, puzzle solving & vocab skills in a fun way.

My dd sat & passed her 11+ in October (Medway rather than Kent)- the first papers we did were in the summer just b4 the test but we built up her general skills as above using pc games, workbooks, board games at home etc from about this point in year 4 without mentioning 11+. She went up 2 sublevels in less than a term at the end of year 4 in maths and we only did 20 mins or so a day . This improvement built up her confidence & achievement with in school. test papers that were too hard would have knocked her down totally.
Once she was in yr 5 i bought yr6 maths workbooks from wh smith to be sure we covered the whole curriculum b4 the test - they were more cartoony & funt han trad 11+ stuff. I also did 1 subject per week across about 3 books/ websites rather than working thru the whole book & areas she was confident in we didn't do at all

there is a starter VR book by IPs which is fab & the method & technique free download from this site is v v good reading as a parent.

It suited us for me to tutor dd but each child/family is different. Also I don't think I am a natural at NVR so if we were in Kent I might have considered a tutor if I hadn't grasped it after a bit of practice - fortunately there is no NVR in the Medway test! It wasn't cheap to tutor at home tho - i spent a lot on books , downloads from this site etc etc

good luck

Kent test is slightly different in that it is VR, NVR and Maths plus an English paper which is (I believe) only taken into account in the event of a problem/appeal. From experience with DS1 I believe that NVR is a definate "learned" skill.

DS2 is yr 3 and we are playing with numbers and words at the moment - but this is because he really enjoys this sort of thing - sudoku, scrabble, boggle, rumikub, chess etc . We will start 11+ prep slowly at the beginning of Yr 5 - but this is dependent on when the exam is for his year group. He will go to DS1's tutor but that is because I know that this will be the best route for us as a family.

My son is also in year 4, I will start in earnest with 11 + preparation when he gets to year 5 but at the moment am concentrating on tables and reading good quality fiction. This worked for dcs1 and 2 so am sticking with the same general formula (with slight differences taking into account different character of course).

TBH being born in September won't do your child any harm - under the standardisation process they don't lose any points for being Sept-Dec born but rather children born later in the year gain points (roughly speaking).

Depending on where you live, unless you are specifically looking for one of the West Kent super-selectives, as long as your DC passes then it doesn't matter so much what the score is as long as it is a pass.

I would agree with previous posters to keep it fun at this stage and not look at papers etc until Year 5 (and even then the latter part of Yr 5). Work through the Bond series or similar and build up to it gradually.

DS had an hour a week in Yr 5, no work during the holidays and no test papers until the second half of the summer term. He passed very well and we had no issues with 'burnout'.

Thanks everyone - I think everyone I speak to locally is wound up as lots of children seem to have passed 11plus and sent to local comp. We are in the East of West Kent so technically not in the catchment for any GS, so I think a fab score about 415 is needed if we are to get anywhere. It so difficult to know what to do - I thought that giving birth was the difficult bit of parenting!!!

Does he have a nintendo DS? Brain training and Professor Layton (SP?) are both really excellent and teaching puzzle and problem solving...

"Does he have a nintendo DS? Brain training and Professor Layton (SP?) are both really excellent and teaching puzzle and problem solving..."

He doesn't have one although he is very keen on getting one!! We have a wii - so perhaps I will have a look at see if they have anything similar. Thanks

Quick recall of maths facts, tables, square numbers, prime numbers etc will be a great asset.

Games like Tetris, jigsaws, spot the difference puzzles etc build skills for NVR and the Professor layton and brain training games are excellent.

A good vocabulary is also important. Try www.freerice.com
Words games like scrabble (using a dictionary) are good too.
Look at woodlandsjunior site ( google it) there are lots of good literacy and numeracy games there. Check with anything word based on net that it is not too American first..