Eleven plus Parents

         "...However, having used BOFA and compared it with a variety of other resources, the motivation of marks and progress measures were really what drove ... I'm more than happy to endorse it!"      Cheltenham Tutoring

Here are several common questions asked by parents enquiring about the eleven plus.

Click on the question below to find the BOFA answer:

• What are the main benefits of BOFA when it comes to 11+ preparation?

• In brief, what is the 11 plus?

• What else can you tell us about the 11 plus?

• What’s the big deal about the 11 plus?

• Why should I prepare my child for the 11 plus?

• What would be the ideal strategy to prepare for the 11 plus?

• Where can you get help with the ‘ideal strategy’ for the 11 plus?

• How do you go about buying and then using BOFA?

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What are the main benefits of BOFA when it comes to 11+ preparation?

• Saves time – no marking or driving around
• Saves money – costs you approximatly £1 an hour
• Reduces family stress – BOFA acts as the mediator between parent and child
• Enables your child to work independently - BOFA effectively supervises them for you.
• Emailed progress at key points in the learning process keeps you up to date with your child's progress.
• BOFA is designed to boost, not damage, your child's confidence in tackling the eleven plus.
• At the end the BOFA Report can give you a list of topics still needing work for yourself or a tutor to work through.
• An Extension /Scholarship level programmes is available for the high fliers
• A Foundation level programme is available to help pupils who have quite a few topics which require work
• Quality – produced by experienced, qualified specialist teachers
• Experience – almost 1 million books for 11 plus preparation have been sold by the creator of BOFA
• So what is the catch? I don’t know, you tell me! 

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In brief, what is the 11 plus?

In short, it is a test sat in some counties in year 6 to decide which state school your child should attend . This usually include Mathematics, English, Verbal Reasoning and Non-verbal Reasoning questions.   Many private/indepedent schools also use the eleven plus and their own eleven plus style exams to decide who to offer a place to.

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What else can you tell us about the 11 plus?

The 11 plus, 11+ or Eleven Plus as it is called, is a tool used to select pupils for Grammar Schools, either state or private in the UK and abroad. The original idea was to set an exam that you can’t prepare your child for to decide which children would benefit from a more academic Grammar School style of education.  The difficulty is that this only gives your child one shot at the test, so  preparation which will  help your child feel more confident about sitting the test will obviously help.   Some places use Verbal Reasoning and/or Non-verbal Reasoning tests which are even harder to prepare for to differentiate (split up) pupils.  

The Eleven Plus varies from place to place. It is important to find out from the school that you would like your child to go to, what to do.  The school should be able to give you more precise details of the exams they use and may be able to offer you examples of past papers to practice.  You may also find many examples of past papers to buy, either on-line or in  a book shop.

At this point it is important to say that if your child is struggling with these past papers and doesn’t want to sit the exam, or your child sits it and fails then this is not the end of the world. The selection process is meant to divide up the school population  and perhaps a grammar type school is not actually right for your child. Children who just scrape through may find it difficult to fit in and if they end up at the bottom of their class can develop low self-esteem which can lead to other problems.

Selection at eleven is also flawed and your child may just be a 'late-developer'.  There will be plenty of opportunities within the school system for your child to succeed in their own way, particularly if you can help them to build up their confidence. 

 At this point I should mention stress.

Any exams are stressful, not least the eleven plus. Your child proabably seems far too young to have to go through this stressful process.  The stress often is made worse by friction between parent and child over the whole process.   BOFA  has been specifically designed to try to reduce this friction by acting as a buffer between you and your child. It allows  the child to prepare, in their own time, in a relaxed atmosphere away from adult interference. The parent does not have to monitor what their child is doing, or not doing, because BOFA does this for them and informs them directly by e-mail. There is no need for, “Have you done any 11 plus papers yet?”.  Instead, when they have done one you can say, “Well done on that Maths paper!”

To conclude, I suggest that your child starts with BOFA .  If after this, you think that they will like it at a grammar school and should pass, then enter them in for the exam. If you don’t think that  they will pass and you have a choice,  don’t put them in for the exam.   If you are unsure, go with your gut instinct. If you decide to try and they pass make sure they aren’t going to be bottom of the year.  If you try and don't pass, I very strongly advise that you focus on your child as they are going to be disappointed and any stress you place on the family by an appeal at this time could have a long term negative effect.

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What’s the big deal about the 11 plus?

Here are the numbers. Within the state grammar school system there are 70,000 children going for 20,000 places. Many of the 50,000 who do not get offered a grammar school place end up feeling like failures. The current economic climate means that fewer people are able to pay for schooling and are more inclined to maximise the chances of getting a place at a state grammar. This will increase in areas with an increasing child population as more children are competing for the same number of places.

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Why should I prepare my child for the 11 plus?

Good question.  

In theory you shouldn’t have to, because the exam is not meant to benefit anyone who has done any practice. The point of the 11 plus is to choose pupils who would best benefit from a more traditionally academic education.   However,  in reality it is almost impossible to set an exam for which nobody can prepare. This is even the case for Verbal Reasoning and Non-verbal Reasoning questions.   Quality preparation will make all the difference.  At the very least it should help your child to feel more confident and less anxious about the process.  Your child will then be able to perform to the best of their ability, and is less likely to be 'thrown' by any unexpected or unusual types of questions. More straight-forward Mathematics and English exams do expect a certain level of understanding and knowledge.  This should have been taught in your child's school, but it will help if your child is able to identify weaker areas and practice these. 

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What would be the ideal strategy to prepare for the 11 plus?

• Firstly, set an exam paper similar to the real thing.  Mark it as quickly as possible to reduce the stress on the child and avoid marking it in front of them, get them to relax and get some fresh air.  Don’t forget they have just been sitting down, concentrating, for a prolonged period of time. 
• Secondly, identify areas where they have gone wrong and explain what they should have done.
• Thirdly, practice more questions on these weaker areas so that they can see if they now understand it.
• Fourthly, create a new test similar to the first one so that they can have another go.  
• Fifthly, mark these as quickly as possible.
• Hopefully you and your child should be able to see some confidence-boosting progress

Next you want to do two things:

Either

• Do the same thing with some new exam papers
• Sort the questions they still don’t understand into topics so that you can go through these with them in more or to give to a tutor to go through.
• You will need to do all of this in a relaxed manner, never raising your voice nor complaining to the child how much time and effort you have to put in to help them pass the exam that they dreading doing.
• If you think this seem like too much work and you are cash rich then find a top quality tutor, (I wouldn’t do it for less that £50 an hour).  Then you will need to arrange a time and appreciate that they may not live around the corner, so you will either have to travel to the tutor then wait around for the hour, or they come to you. This will inevitably take quite a few sessions as nobody is going to tell you they are ready after less than 8 hours of tutoring unless you didn’t need to spend the time and money in the first place.

Or

You can work through BOFA which will:

• set the tests for your child to work through independently,
• mark each test for you,
• email you  to tell you how your child got on
• tutor your child through the questions they got wrong
• set them different practice questions
• give your child a re-test
• mark the re-test for you and email you the new score
• sort all the questions your child still can’t do into topics which you can give to a tutor to focus on (or DIY - remember to stay calm!). BOFA will then do this whole process again a further 3 times with 3 different papers (4 papers in total) .
• You can then get a set of 4 "elite" papers if you think they are scholarship potential
• Or get 4 "bonus" papers if they have been struggling or just want some extra practice
• This costs ,on average, about £1 an hour

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Where can you get help with the ‘ideal strategy’ for the 11 plus?

Well, you can either

Try and find a quality tutor who is within a reasonable distance from your house and ,despite being a good tutor, is not fully booked. You should expect to be parting with up to £50 per hour.  Tutoring will inevitably take quite a few sessions as nobody is going to tell you they are ready after less than 8 hours of tutoring unless you didn’t need to spend the time and money in the first place.

Or

You can work through BOFA which will:

• set the tests,
• mark each test for you,
• email you  to tell you how your child got on
• tutor your child through the questions they got wrong
• set them different practice questions
• give your child a re-test
• mark the re-test for you and email you the new score
• sort all the questions your child still can’t do into topics so that you can give to a tutor to focus on (or DIY, remember to stay calm!)