Help _ What's it all about?

[Lincs]

Hello
We recently moved house to Lincs and now find my daughter is in a 2-tier school system with the option of grammar school. We moved from a 3-tier system where your child either went to the local catchment school or you paid about £9k/yr for private school.

So my daughter is bright. She scored level 4's in her year 2 sats. She is currently year 5 but has done a year 6 sat paper and scored 4.

There are 2 grammar schools which both require the child to sit 2VR tests. What are they?

Also there is a secondary school which is apparently very good and for the last 2 years was over-subscribed. I hear that some children who passed 11+ opted to go there instead of the grammar.

So can someone tell me in simple terms what the 11+ is all about.

Does my child need a tutor?

When will she sit it? The open days for the schools are not til Sept.

Will her primary school give her any guidance towards the test or give her past papers to try?

All replies gratefully received - thanks

From a confused Mum in a new area

[Meena]

Dear Lincs,

VR = Verbal Reasoning.

This entire website is dedicated to parents just like you, having been written by a single parent completely new to 11+ exams seven months ago.

A good starting point would be to visit the frequently asked questions section:

http://www.elevenplusexams.co.uk/freque ... stions.php

and then work through the rest of that Eleven Plus Advice.

Meena

[Guest]

If your school is IN AREA (for Grammar schools) they will probably do practice papers with your child in the last 6 months or so before the exam.

Most people would opt for a Grammar school as oppose to a Grammar stream in a comp.

I'd recommend doing practice papers at home now, one each weekend, to get familiar with the format.

A tutor is a good idea to do the base coursework background and give hints on how to tackle some types of questions in the 11+.

If your child was achieving LEVEL 4 in year 2 (??!!) then I wouldn't worry too much. An average child is expected to reach LEVEL 4 in year 6. Those achieving LEVEL 5 in years 5 and 6 have a VERY good chance of passing the 11+.

[Guest]

in our LEA the state schools are only allowed to do one practice paper per year and NO coaching to make it alevel playing field.
In our LEA the children do a verbal reasoning and as non verbal reasoning tesy.if you read the research section on this website you will find that it has been found that tuition does not improve performance more than a tiny amount (half of the total improvement ocuuring from doing just one practice paper and after doing practice papers no further improvement weas seen .in fact tuition can lead to pressure in children which adversely affects performance.

[Perfect]

I think this view is just to generalised, every child (even adults) are affected in some way by exams/tests. Ok - some children will sail through the tests, but a majority of others are quite capable but would/will fail due to bad poor exam technique.

YES - technique not just practice, for example - (quite) a few years ago I started microsoft accreditation, the first exam I failed miserably - not because I didn't have the knowledge - but due to the lack of technique:

=> time - I ran out of time, so speed and accuracy can only be accomplished by practice

=> interpretation - wording of questions can be the downfall in any exam, again analysing of past questions is essential to understanding the content.

=> practice - so are we saying all those past '0' / 'A' level papers I practiced at school was a complete waste of time? I don't think so!

=> Confidence - no confidence = poor performance - more practice and seeing the increasing test results has bound to have a positive effect.

...and after I practiced and improved the above - I passed all the exams.