To successfully navigate the 11+ entrance exam process requires careful planning, the right resources and a lot of dedication. Our years of experience at JK Educate have shown us that there is a clear set of eleven plus essentials for success.
Academic Assessment
This is the essential first step, to establish your child’s academic potential and their current attainment level and learning style. The assessment results inform discussions about the right sort of secondary school for them and whether they might need extra help to gain a place at one of those target schools. We firmly believe everyone should have their child assessed before deciding whether to pursue the 11+ and which selective schools to aim for.
If your child is shown by the assessment to be reaching their potential, but not at the high level required by very academic selective senior schools, it might be time to rethink whether the 11+ is right for them at all. Nobody wants to set their young child up for failure and disappointment, so it is very important to ensure your senior school ambitions are achievable and that your chosen schools will be right for them.
School Choice
It’s important to get this right. The right school for a particular child may not be the right school for their friend, neighbour or sibling. It will need to fit them both socially and academically (with academic standards that are not too tough or too easy for their abilities), with a suitable location and offering the sports and extra-curricular activities that interest them. We can help parents identify which schools are the best fit, based on assessment results and discussions with each child.
Application Timings
Application deadlines for state selective schools fall between May and July, but each school differs and it’s essential to check the individual school websites for information. Independent schools’ deadlines are usually from September to November, but again it’s necessary to check each school’s specific deadlines to make sure you don’t miss any deadlines.
If you’re planning to apply to schools this year, this is the ideal time to contact us, arrange an academic assessment and seek our advice on school choices.
The Right Support
Not every child needs tutoring to do well in the 11+. We don’t believe in using intensive tutoring to get a child into a school that is fundamentally too academically demanding for them, and we always try to dissuade parents from going down that road. Other students may be attending a school – often an independent prep school – that will equip them with all they need to meet the standards of the 11+ exams. But other students benefit enormously from tutoring support, to cover any 11+ curriculum that isn’t being taught at their school and to provide much-needed support, study materials and motivation.
The right tutoring support comes from tutors who are 11+ specialists, trained and equipped with the right information and materials. JK’s 11+ tutors are specialists and offer all these things, with the additional support of a team of senior teachers to keep track of every student’s progress and intervene if necessary, to provide crucial extra support to both tutor and student. This means all our tutors are thoroughly trained and consistently monitored for teaching quality, student progress and helped with the timing of the preparations. You aren’t just engaging an 11+ tutor, but a whole team of 11+ specialists to ensure your child’s eleven plus experience is a positive and successful one.
Learning Resources
The JK Educate 11+ journey consists of expert tutoring and a mixture of curated commercial resources along with JK Educate’s own writing resources specially developed for students preparing for the 11+ exams. JK tutors have access to all the up-to-date information available, including the JK 11+ Exam Practice Papers and Resource Pack.
We have created and updated this pack each year since 2012, ready for each new cohort of 11+ students. JK specialist 11+ tutors are involved in consolidating the contents and the packs are made available to parents for a small charge to cover costs. The packs are very comprehensive; for example, the 2021 JK 11+ English and maths Exam and Resource Pack consists of 100 papers, available in a printed or digital format and covering a wide selection of boys’, girls’ and co-educational schools. The papers contain a diverse list of question types, mark schemes and cover a wide range of topics. We know from experience that completing such a wide array of questions is the best preparation for whatever challenges your child will meet in these exams.
Practice Papers and Mock Exams
It’s vital for your child to write lots of practice papers, especially as the exams get closer. Sign up for JK’s mock exams that recreate the real exam conditions and take away the fear of the unknown, and consider enrolling for extra practice mocks to further boost their confidence and time management.
Interview Preparation
Many schools include interviews as part of their assessment process at 11+. This may include individual and group sessions and it makes sense to prepare your child for this element of the process as well as the exams. JK’s interview preparation sessions give our students the confidence and skills they need to create a good impression. We explain the interview process, give examples of the questions that are asked and help the child consider how they would answer in ‘live’ conditions. We do not provide model answers, we simply try to allay their fears and help them be prepared to present themselves at their best on the day.
Perfect Timing
Preparations need to be carefully timed and adapted to suit the child as an individual; getting the timing right is important so that the child is ready to take the exams, but doesn’t peak too soon and get bored. What’s required is an over-arching plan with benchmarks for your child’s results along the way, so there are no surprises close to the exams. Some children will need more preparation time than others and judging this is part of the bespoke service we offer. We break the process down into clear steps so it isn’t overwhelming, and prepare a clear plan and timeline between now and the exams.
