11 Plus Exams Forum

Hi, I am a parent of a child who sat the 11 plus in Lincolnshire this month. Today I was approached by several other parents who had heard on the grapevine (by parents of students from the school in question), that a certain primary school in the area had been coaching the children how to answer the two new unknown sections on the non-verbal test the week before the exam, and the questions they had been practising were almost identical to the ones on the test. I realise this is only rumour and that it would be really difficult to prove, but if this is the case surely the systems in place that would allow teachers access to the real papers prior to the exam need to be revised? I await your comments and any advice as to what to do next.

I would do absolutely nothing, unless I was 100% certain of my FACTS.

^^^what equilibro said^^^

At least wait until the results come out before commenting on/repeating/acting on the rumour.

Although I have far too much experience of "school gates rumours" to automatically place any credibility on such suggestions, I am going to differ from equlibro and FluffyCat.

There is no harm in reporting your concerns to the Admission Authority (and nor is there any prejudice to your child in doing so.)

Please make it clear that it is simply "school gates talk", but tell them what you know. They will know how to investigate further. It is not unheard of for schools to breach the rules, or the security of test papers, and Admission Authorities do take such matters seriously.

Occasionally, "the school gates" even get it right!

Lincolnshire is gl assessment? Kent is too and last year they announced that there would be an extra element in the kent non-verbal reasoning papers - spatial reasoning. This is nit in the gl practice papers on sale in the shops.

On the Lincolnshire form on this website there seems to have been talk for 2011 onwards of gl / Lincolnshire having a more bespoke test with some question types not in the practice papers. So if it had been me, when kent had spatial reasoning added I would have thought there was a fair chance Lincolnshire would test it at some point too.

There's only so many kinds of spatial reasoning questions possible multichoice on paper so unless it was the identical questions being practiced at this particular school I would not be too concerned. Since when did primary schools practise like this though?

In Lincolnshire, are you aware of any other question types that are not in the gl practice papers?

Probably worth adding that state primary schools, if that is what you are referring to in your particular case, are not allowed to teach for the 11+; it is my understanding that they should be adhering to the National Curriculum.