11+ journey until September 2013

Eleven Plus (11+) in Bexley and Bromley

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LauraA
Posts: 26
Joined: Mon Jul 09, 2012 12:29 pm

11+ journey until September 2013

Post by LauraA »

Hello,
Around 10 months to go until the exam, it already feels around the corner!
Let's share ideas, advice, concerns, stay on this journey together and support eachother!
I, for one, need a lot of support.....

My DD is in year 5 and will be taking Bexley and newstead wood exam in september. We still haven't decided about the Kent exam, we live in Petts Wood and all schools seem so far away!
In April this year she started preparing for the exam slowly by slowly, timetables, adding, substracting, vocabulary, familiarise herself with NVR etc. She is an avid reader and has always been top of her class at literacy. Maths though has a lot of gaps, and we have started filling them slowly and steadily.
We finished 8-9 Bond books, we are not doping 9-10 Maths Bond, 10-11 VR (she found the levels below quite easy - as I said, this is definetly her strong point), NVR we are working on easy exam papers downloaded from this website.
As I work Mondays and Tuesdays, we rarely do any homework whatsoever, only vocabulary (I printed the list of words for VR on this website, I think Patricia posted it online for us, and we are learning around 10 words per week ). We do about 1 hour on Wednesday, she has 1 hour tuition on Thursday, and at the weekend we usually do 1-2 hours over 2 days. She enjoys it, and it is generally motivated, but we do have the odd days when she feels like throwing the books down the toilet! SHe is a perfectionist, and she gets really upset when she gets things wrong, no matter how much I explain that by making mistakes, she learns! It's her personality, just like my husband :? .... I dread to think what will happen if she doesn't pass the exam!
Unfortunately we are not in the catchment area for any great non selective, so we are really hoping (secretely, not putting any pressure on our DD of course) on a successful 11+.

I hope to hear from you and to help eachother on this very stressful but important stage in our kids life.
bromley mum
Posts: 1061
Joined: Tue Oct 20, 2009 5:04 pm

Re: 11+ journey until September 2013

Post by bromley mum »

A small suggestion. If you do decide not to do Kent, I would still register and then just do the practise test. My DDs found that very useful. It gives them a feel of the real thing, doing papers under exam conditions and in an unfamiliar place. Feel free to shoot me down if you think this is a silly idea!
LauraA
Posts: 26
Joined: Mon Jul 09, 2012 12:29 pm

Re: 11+ journey until September 2013

Post by LauraA »

Thank you for your suggestion bromley mum. We might do that actually, my only concern with that is I know they also do a written paper and I am just not sure when we would have time to take on additional preparation, I am not sure what the paper entails, would you be so kind to tell me a bit about it?
Thank you
bondgirl
Posts: 802
Joined: Wed Sep 21, 2011 11:30 am

Re: 11+ journey until September 2013

Post by bondgirl »

I agree with you, bromley mum. I'm sure one of the reasons my DS did well in the Kent test this year is because of the practice test the previous week. He was very happy and relaxed going in on the real test day and got a great score. I thought Kent would be a long shot for us and we've ended being in the fortunate position of being able to look at the Kent SS's. Plus, it keeps your options open should Dc have bad day on the Bexley/Newstead day.

Edited to add: the written paper is an essay which is only looked at in the event of a Head Teacher review should DC be borderline.
neurotic kent mum
Posts: 970
Joined: Wed Mar 07, 2007 12:40 am

Re: 11+ journey until September 2013

Post by neurotic kent mum »

Don't worry about the story. it isn' t really part of the test and contributes nothing to the results. Only used in appeal. We never once looked at this during the run up to the exam. And I never asked him anything about it - so still don't know what he wrote a story about!
christmasbonus
Posts: 118
Joined: Sun Mar 04, 2012 4:45 pm

Re: 11+ journey until September 2013

Post by christmasbonus »

I was not going to enter DD for the Kent Test, just Bexley, but am now thinking that I should not put all my eggs in one basket! Am even considering Newstead, though that was not at all on our agenda. I am just (hopefully unnecessarily) worried about what changes might be brought in to the Bexley test. From what another poster on the "changes" thread said and what I have been able to glean, I would hope the changes are just administrative rather than a change to the actual exam, though the Secondary School 2013 booklet (from what I remember) does not seem to rule that out.
And DS actually enjoyed doing the Kent Test a couple of years ago!
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