1st January 2017 1:00
By Blue Tutors
The 11+ exams, taken by students across the country at the end of primary school, are used to determine entry to many secondary schools across the UK. With long term implications on a child’s educational choices and the level of support given by schools varying wildly, the assessment is often the first-time parents decide to take up the opportunity of private tuition. The assessment is made up of four parts: numeracy, literacy, verbal and non-verbal reasoning. For many students, this will be the first time the later three have been formally assessed and the style of questions used will be very unfamiliar. So what are the best ways to prepare future examinees?
How best to prepare depends entirely on the level the child has already reached and how long you have. All students will benefit from doing past papers, as this will familiarise them with the format and question style, particularly for the non-verbal reasoning sections. This can take anything from a few hours to several weeks, and can be enhanced by the help of a parent or tutor to hone exam technique and identify areas of weakness to spend longer on. One of the other challenging sections of the exam is the composition, where children need to produce an original piece of writing. Practicing and receiving feedback on short creative writing tasks is important, not only to improve grammar and spelling, but verbal fluency and narrative structure. For those with only a few weeks to go, exam technique focussed practice will probably have the most impact over a short period of time in boosting scores.
For those who have longer, the more effective and less stressful way to prepare is to ensure that your child has the fundamental skills to enable them to do well on any test of this type before reaching the exam practice stage. For students who have bigger learning gaps or are not confident with the material, this often involves regular sessions over many weeks or months to cover the basics of maths and English. Many children struggle with or are simply slow at mathematical operations; practice of unfamiliar, timed problem-solving questions, without the help of a calculator, is the best way to gain mathematical fluency. Long-term, the best way to improve literacy, as well as vocabulary, punctuation and spelling, is to ensure a student is regularly reading and able to ask questions about any words or structures they do not understand. Long-term, individualised preparation of this type will also show gains in school work; those who have a good base in mathematics and English at this stage are more likely to succeed at GCSE level.
Despite claims that the test is ‘tutor proof’, any additional time spent learning the fundamental material and skills evaluated in the test will improve outcomes, and often the most effective way to do this is with the help of a professional tutor who knows the content, question style and child’s abilities. Adding an opportunity to clarify concepts, learn at your own pace and receive feedback and guidance, as well as structured and time pressured practice at the later stages, will impart important knowledge and skills for the 11+ and beyond.