How do I support my child at home, during the forced school closure?

As you know we work very closely with our parents, in Year 5, as this is the time when many children and families are thinking about the 11+ Exam that is taken in the Autumn Term of Year 6. You may recall, there was a parents’ meeting, in school, on Thursday 12th September 2019.

This meeting was an opportunity for parents to explore the implications of the 11+ for their child and provided parents with useful information regarding:

• Understanding the 11+
• Support from school
• Support at home

We also looked at some additional materials that you may like to use to help to continue to support your child at home, including:

• Non-verbal Reasoning 10 Minute Tests ISBN 978-01927-40625 / 978-01927-40649
• Verbal Reasoning 10 Minute Tests ISBN 978-01927-40670 / 978-01927-40694
• The Official 11+ Practice Papers Verbal Reasoning ISBN 978-07087-27690
• The Official 11+ Practice Papers Non-verbal Reasoning ISBN 978-07087-27706

In addition, please use the FREE Verbal and Non-Verbal resources:

During that meeting, we also discussed the many Secondary School options available to our pupils, in this area and the ways in which you can continue to support your child, at home with their learning.  This included:

• Developing fluency of reading;
• Playing a range of games e.g. jigsaws, Sudoku, word searches;
• Supporting your child to develop spelling accuracy;
• Developing further mental maths strategies e.g. learning times tables.

Organising Home-Learning: Helpful Tips and Hints:

When completing tests from the Bond books, each test has 20 questions and lasts 10 minutes, equaling 30 seconds per question.

• Autumn Term - Verbal Reasoning and Non-Verbal Reasoning Bond 10 Minutes Tests (8-9 years old):  begin to familiairise the children with both the Verbal and Non-Verbal Reasoning Tests.  Complete 1 test from each book per week.

• Spring Term - Verbal Reasoning and Non-Verbal Reasoning Bond 10 Minute Tests (10 - 11 years old):  move to the older books to allow children to tackle slightly harder problems.  Consider asking the children to complete: 2 tests, allowing 20 minutes or 3 tests allowing 30 minutes.  This will help to increase your child's stamina.

Once we reach May-Half Term, your child should have completed the exercises in the Bond Books and you could consider moving to the GLA Test Packs.

You can purchase packs for Verbal Reasoning and Non-Verbal Reasoning.  Each pack contains:

• 3 or 4 tests;
• 80-85 questions;
• tests to be completed in 50 minutes.

When you decide to use the test packs:

• Don't expect your child to be able to complete a 50 minute test in the time available.  Typically, children are able to complete these tests around August, just before they sit the test in September;
• Consider breaking the first test up into smaller chunks e.g. (30 seconds per question)

1. select the first 20 questions-this would be 10 minutes to complete the test; or

2. select 30 questions-this would be 15 minutes to complete the test.

Try to build your child's confidence and stamina, with the first test paper by selecting more questions each time e.g. Paper 1:

• 20 questions-10 minutes
• 30 questions-15 minutes
• 35 questions-13 minutes

If your child doesn't finish the test-draw a coloured line where your child gets up to within the time then allow them the opportunity to finish the questions without a time limit.

Try to go through the answers to the tests with your child and address any misunderstandings.