Help!

[dynamiccoins]

Hi,

I'm in a bit of a pickle with this 11+ so I am after some advice.

My son is doing well at school - currently in year 5 and as an example, last year the teachers gave him his own maths test as he found the ones the other students were doing too easy. He is doing (not as) well in English with his spelling not the greatest. So strong maths - not so strong english.

I'd like to start self tutoring him (I know people start a lot earlier!!). We are current in the Sutton area but there is a potential we could be moving so its not clear which tests (CEM or GL) he could end up doing.

With that, I would still like to start the tutoring now so when we do know the area and thus the schools he would be taking the tests for, we can then focus appropriately.

I'm thinking of registering on the Bond site and using their online resources to start with.

Is this an acceptable starting point or should I be looking at other approaches/resources.

Thanks for any help

[Daogroupie]

I suggest you grab one of the remaining slots for the Sutton Grammar School PTA mocks. It will help you get a context for your ds against three thousand other Y5's and this information will identify any weak areas that might not be covered by your primary.

Has your ds done any work at home before or will this be a first?

I think Spelling would be a really good place to start. DG

[PettswoodFiona]

If you are moving some regions have criteria about residency prior to the test so do check those out. Registration is in reality only a few months away so you don't need really have much time. However some like St Olaves you can live anywhere and still take the test. We home tutored DD but she was also really self motivated. She sat three local tests to us, Bromley, Kent and Bexley. All three are very different. DD did best in the CEM style test as it played to her strengths in vocab. She also did well in the others but not to the same degree. All three were in exam halls with paper. We did mock tests beforehand which were invaluable as well as practicing with three lots of paper on a desk (question booklet, answer sheet, note paper). Online practice may help but it can't replace paper based practice either. In some regions a weakness in one area but a super strength in another area is fine but in for example Kent you need a minimum score on each paper but then it isn't so selective as Sutton so is relatively simple to get a pass which is all you need if in county and within distance.

[mystery]

I think you need to list out what the possible tests are and then make specific Enquiries in the relevant area fora. Yes, spelling is probably something that would help in all of them in some way or other but very hard to have a very significant impact on spelling in 7 months if it is truly terrible at the moment!

[dynamiccoins]

Thank you for the replies

I might have been a bit hard on his spelling ability! He reads a lot and we still read with him every evening. As I said he does well on spelling tests but I will work on that aspect with him...maths is without a doubt his strongest subject.

A Sutton mock is a great idea - I had a quick look on the school website but I couldn't see any details so will call the lady on Monday to confirm the details - I phoned and she is out on Fridays.

[Goodheart]

... and this information will identify any weak areas that might not be covered by your primary.

DG, do you have access to the questions used for the SGS PTA mocks? Last year all they gave back were was something like: 011111111X (i.e. the DC got the first question wrong, skipped the last question, and got all other questions right). Unless your DC happens to remember what topic question 1 was about (and given 75 questions in the English mock, is seems unlikely they'd remember) I don't see how you the mock will "identify any weak areas". Also, last year this type of question-by-question analysis was only given for English. For Maths all you got was a percentage and a standardised score.

Don't get me wrong, I think the mocks are extremely useful to get your DC used to the exam experience and to assess where they rank compared to the cohort - but I really don't believe they will "identify any weak areas". Unless you have access to more information that we all do, that is.

[Goodheart]

I had a quick look on the school website but I couldn't see any details...

Browse to https://mocktests.suttongrammar.sutton.sch.uk/ and click on the green "Register and Begin Booking" button near the bottom. Simples.
There are 75 places left right now.

[Daogroupie]

This is a lot more information that is given out in a lot of other mocks. I agree that it does not tell you about the question but when top table students who are used to being the gods of their class encounter questions they can't answer they generally remember them.

The Op's student (who finds maths very easy) is likely to want to find out more about the questions he could not answer so that does help to identify weak areas.

The ideal is of course to have the question paper back. DG

[PurpleDuck]

The purpose of the English paper feedback in the form of 0/1 is to give an indication whether a particular child just skipped some tricky questions or whether there was a timing issue with reading the text and filling in the answer sheet, rather than what sort of questions were difficult.

E.g. 11111011101111100111111 suggests that someone skipped or answered incorrectly a few hard questions, while 111111111111111111000000 would probably mean that someone run out of time to answer all questions and either left the last few boxes blank or guessed the last few answers incorrectly. With the latter, there is an issue of working to speed, which is something that can be practised. DS run out of time in his first mock because he was too preoccupied with shading in the boxes on the answer sheet. Thanks to this form of feedback, he avoided making the same mistake again and scored much higher in his second mock.

[Goodheart]

when top table students ... can't answer they generally remember them

We must know different top-table students. My year-5 DD got the highest mark in her year in last November's Primary Maths Challenge, but all she could remember about one of the questions she struggled with was "it was something about cats or kittens, and how much they weighed". I'm still waiting for it to become available as a past paper so I can download it and find out what the question was all about.