11+ help please

[venus89]

Hi - we got a letter from school today with our children's NFES scores. This appears to be a series of tests - in Maths, non verbal reasoning and verbal reasoning - designed to assess whether a child should apply to take the 11+ in September to try to gain a place in a Grammar school (the letter says they need a certain aggregate score with no score less that 117 to apply....)

I don't know if anyone can help me but I was wondering if the scores are standardised (my dd's birthday is October. In the 11+ the scores reflect when their birthdays are, the older the child the less each correct answer is IYSWIM [which begs the question can an older child achieve 100%?] )

and also, can anybody whose child has done these tests - or their equivalent - tell me if the scoresgenerally are indicative of what the child would be expected to achieve at 11+?

Any help gratefully recieved!

[singingcactus]

Gonna post cos I read your thread but I don't know. We arrived in a county that still did the 11+ months after they had been sat so my boys were rushed through them. They didn't get any initial testing, just the 11+ itself. Their sats scores were very high. Never heard of any of the tests being made easier for younger kids though - that would be out of character for the schools, they don't really care when the kids turn a certain age.
The boys passed them easily with no practise or experience of this type of test, I'm sure if your child has been put forward for it they will pass it no matter when their birthday is.

[venus89]

Oh we've no doubt she'll pass - barring disaster -but the school she'd most like to go to is superseletive and I was wondering if there was any way of roughly translating what she got in the tests at school into a predicted 11+ result just as an indicator of whether she's likely to get in or not.....

Thank you for answering, by the way :)

[sarah707]

Children who are trying to get into super selective schools round here tend to go to extra hot housing lessons (they are on Saturday mornings round here) from about age 7 upwards so that they are fully prepared for the 11+ exams.

The lessons cover the verbal & non verbal reasoning and other skills needed to pass the entrance interviews as well as the exams.

It also means they know each other before they start at the school which can make it very hard for children who are coming in from out of area or on scholarships / without the lessons to join in friendship groups because they are all in groups already.

You can buy practice papers for the reasoning exams from WH Smith and similar bookshops or online if your dd wants to practice.

Hth :D

[venus89]

Thanks Sarah.

We can't afford to get her a tutor and tbh if she had to be tutored for 4 years to be able to pass then I think there's the risk she'd struggle at that school without the tutor. She got 130 and 136 - it goes up to 140 and that translates to 98 and 99% I think, as far as I can tell. If she doesn't do that well on the 11+ then so be it, we're spoilt for choice for Grammars round here and they're all good schools. Luckily no entrance interview!

We've got the whole series of Bond test papers, try to sit her down a couple of evenings a week to do one. We're very lucky she's naturally academic so she doesn't need hothousing. And so long as she's happy I don't care where she goes :D

[rickysmiths]

Lessons for 4YEARS to pass the 11+ :eek: My goodness poor children. I have never heard anything like that before.

My son did his at school and they did practice papers the term before the tests to give them practice in timing and that was it. They were completeing for Highly sort after Grammar schools as well. He passed very well but decided not to go to the Grammar School anyway!! :laughing:

[venus89]

Lessons for 4YEARS to pass the 11+ :eek: My goodness poor children. I have never heard anything like that before.

My son did his at school and they did practice papers the term before the tests to give them practice in timing and that was it. They were completeing for Highly sort after Grammar schools as well. He passed very well but decided not to go to the Grammar School anyway!! :laughing:

Poor children indeed :( And these are probably the same children who are dragged to 2 different clubs every single night after school.........

[rickysmiths]

Poor children indeed :( And these are probably the same children who are dragged to 2 different clubs every single night after school.........

They'll be the ones that drop out of Uni no doubt. Either because they are burned out or because they have been forced in the wrong direction poor kids.