Prep for 11 plus at beginning of year 5

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Sonia nn
Posts: 9
Joined: Fri Sep 04, 2015 10:46 pm

Prep for 11 plus at beginning of year 5

Post by Sonia nn »

Hi all I'm new on here. My son has just started year 5 and I'm a little confused as to what he should be doing to prep for the 11 plus. He does the bond books and schofield and simms comprehension papers, is there anything else he should be doing? He has also just started with a tutor once a week. I'm hoping to apply for the Sutton grammers.

Should I be investing in any other books?

Look forward to hearing from someone.
Tolstoy
Posts: 2755
Joined: Wed Aug 13, 2008 5:25 pm

Re: Prep for 11 plus at beginning of year 5

Post by Tolstoy »

Look for the county Sutton is in, in the regions section and see what information you can find. You will need to know what type of paper your DC will sit.
Petitpois
Posts: 1440
Joined: Thu Jul 02, 2015 7:44 am

Re: Prep for 11 plus at beginning of year 5

Post by Petitpois »

Do bond placement tests untimed as soon as possible. Write down list of core skills. One being timetables.

Do a worksheet of 100 varied 1 - 12 timetables. Ask him to complete sheet as quickly as possible and record time. Don't set time limit, just tell him to complete as fast as possiible and praise for hard work

. To help you understand how good he is here are the following Best references scores and times for mid year 5

DD's Yr5 maths teacher ...... 100 correct in 1 minute 40 seconds
DD Yr5 ......... 100 correct in 1 minute 57 seconds
Petitpois,........ 100 correct in 2 minutes 10 seconds

Repeat for 5 days and record scores and times. Take average and best, you will then know where your child is at. How they deal with time pressure, how quick they can take things in and process then. We did this all through year 5, and DD loved it cos she knew she was guarnteed to beat me.

There are other things to cover, so pm me for more info. BTW I am not a tutor so only going by what worried for me
Faith4
Posts: 28
Joined: Tue Sep 29, 2015 1:49 pm

Re: Prep for 11 plus at beginning of year 5

Post by Faith4 »

Sonia nn:- You should soon start Vocab words. You can buy good ones online. Even if you do 5 or 10 a day with your child. Antonyms and Synonyms. If his exam is going to be CEM you need to work hard on his English. I feel CEM Durham has a lot more English and Verbal Reasoning in the papers. Especially tough vocabulary (which can frighten any child or even an adult!!) If you get some of the CEM CGP books and papers for 11+ you will see what I mean.

The maths is equally important. Keep the practise going daily. I am not an expert. I am just giving you some tips that I learnt along the way.

You will have good days and bad days and so will he. That is normal. Just show him your proud of him and his hard work and it will keep things going nicely.
overwhelmed mum
Posts: 7
Joined: Fri Oct 02, 2015 10:27 am

Re: Prep for 11 plus at beginning of year 5

Post by overwhelmed mum »

Petitpois wrote:Do a worksheet of 100 varied 1 - 12 timetables. Ask him to complete sheet as quickly as possible and record time. Don't set time limit, just tell him to complete as fast as possiible and praise for hard work

. To help you understand how good he is here are the following Best references scores and times for mid year 5

DD's Yr5 maths teacher ...... 100 correct in 1 minute 40 seconds
DD Yr5 ......... 100 correct in 1 minute 57 seconds
Petitpois,........ 100 correct in 2 minutes 10 seconds

Repeat for 5 days and record scores and times. Take average and best, you will then know where your child is at
I tried this with my DD who is in year 5 and we both took 3 x longer than your times! Think we need to work on that :D Thought she was good at her times tables too!
mystery
Posts: 8927
Joined: Tue Jul 21, 2009 10:56 pm

Re: Prep for 11 plus at beginning of year 5

Post by mystery »

To get 100 correct in 100 seconds means quick writing.
Sonia nn
Posts: 9
Joined: Fri Sep 04, 2015 10:46 pm

Re: Prep for 11 plus at beginning of year 5

Post by Sonia nn »

Thanks everyone for your responses. Im working on his timestables and he is quite good at them so will continue to practice. Is it a good idea to get specific grammer books, like tyhe cgp punctuation, grammer and spelling question book?
PurpleDuck
Posts: 1586
Joined: Sat Jul 24, 2010 10:45 pm

Re: Prep for 11 plus at beginning of year 5

Post by PurpleDuck »

Sonia nn wrote:Thanks everyone for your responses. Im working on his timestables and he is quite good at them so will continue to practice. Is it a good idea to get specific grammer books, like tyhe cgp punctuation, grammer and spelling question book?
As advised by previous posters - mental maths speed is crucial as there is a lot of time pressure in 11+ maths tests.

Spelling, grammar and punctuation are always very useful to practise. Regardless of whether they are going to come up in the SET (first stage exams) for Sutton grammars, they will be needed in the second round of exams, which includes an 'extended writing' English paper. Apart from Bond and CGP books (their 11+ series is very good), I really like Collins Key English Skills for year 5 and 6 - it is a workbook that covers all skills you need - comprehension, cloze, writing, grammar, vocab, punctuation - and gives your child a solid preparation for everything he will need later... It's divided into 14 or 15 sections of 6 pages each and from memory, we managed to work through year 5 book in about 3 weeks. My DS's English did come along very nicely and we were able to move on to 11+ test papers from there.

Amazon seem to be out of stock, but you can see inside the books if you follow these links, I bought mine from WH Smith.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/English-Skills- ... kills+9-10" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.amazon.co.uk/English-Skills- ... ills+10-11" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

If your DS doesn't like writing too much, you can go through some of the comprehensions exercises verbally - it's quicker and gives you a chance to talk through the text and help you DS improve his text analysis skills.

As for Bond maths books, they are good to use in the beginning, but in my view they are not demanding enough in final stages of the exam preparation. Bond Comprehension, on the other hand, is quite hard and worth doing.

I wouldn't be without Schofield & Sims Mental Arithmetic books 5 and 6 (they bridge KS2 and KS3) - the way they formulate some questions can be quite different from Bond or Letts, so they challenge DC's thinking. Also, the same publisher's 11+ Progress Papers, both in English and maths.

Good luck!

Edit: I've checked with the publisher and the Collins English Key Skills books are out of stock, with no plans to re-print. A shame, because they are really good. You may still be able to get hold of them from some internet second-hand book sellers. Hopefully Google will help :)
Last edited by PurpleDuck on Thu Oct 15, 2015 5:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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yoyo123
Posts: 8099
Joined: Mon Jun 18, 2007 3:32 pm
Location: East Kent

Re: Prep for 11 plus at beginning of year 5

Post by yoyo123 »

Some schools use the cgp spaghetti books, so check with school, otherwise he may be sick and tired of them!


Tables (random and as division facts), speedy mental calculation and vocabulary are good starting points. Play lots of word games , there are also some excellent online games to help with maths.

ETA: Spaghetti books?! I typed SPAG books, flaming auto correct!
Sonia nn
Posts: 9
Joined: Fri Sep 04, 2015 10:46 pm

Re: Prep for 11 plus at beginning of year 5

Post by Sonia nn »

Thank you all. Just a lot of organising to do! Will definitely look at the resources you have recommended and hopefully take it from there.
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