If you search ’11 plus for Year 3 children’, you’ll see links to 11 plus tuition centres, books, online platforms and even parent forums discussing their experience of the 11 plus with their Year 3 children (and sometimes, even younger children!).
But just because there’s a market for it, does that mean trying to get very young children doing proper 11 plus work (e.g. vocab memorisation) is a good idea?
Children need to be children and trying to get them ahead of everyone else by giving them work beyond their ability is likely to backfire spectacularly.
I know some parents will disagree, but consider the below points:
1.Learning becomes just about passing tests
If you start too young, your child may think the only reason to study is to pass exams. That’s the opposite of what you want. You want them to love learning for its own sake. Give them time to explore the world without a pass-or-fail target hanging over them.
2. Early starters often burn out
It sounds strange, but starting too early can make children do worse. Many lose motivation and focus long before the real exam arrives. Their performance drops. They learn to hate studying altogether. So all that early work backfires.
3. Longer preparation means a harder fall
The more years a child spends preparing, the more crushing it feels if they don’t get into their chosen school. A shorter, focused run is kinder on their confidence.
4. Three years feels like forever to a child
To you, three years might not seem that long. To a seven-year-old, it’s a third of their whole life. That feels impossibly long. They can’t stay motivated for something that far away when they could be doing something fun right now.
5. Very young children cannot comprehend a lot of the 11+ content
This should be self-explanatory. Trying to make progress with a child that does not understand a thing explained to them is very, very difficult.
So, when should my child start their 11 plus journey?
Given that every child is different, there isn’t a fixed timeframe for your child to start their 11 plus journey.
We (my wife and I) have had great success in getting two of our children into top Bexley grammar schools. They both scored excellent pass marks in every exam they sat (including some of the most difficult 11 plus exams in the country).
I will outline what we did and the rationale behind it. You may wish to use this as a blue print or even as partial inspiration. It’s not a prescription by any means and other parents may have an equally effective strategy.
Year 2 (and below)
Strictly no ‘proper’ work. During this phase, we tried to instil a love of learning. Our children were able to read whilst still in nursery, which only a minority of children are able to do. Our eldest daughter was able to write basic words whilst in nursery. This was not because we tried to force it, but rather because the children wanted to do it themselves because they enjoyed it.
Specifically, we focused on English and Maths.
English:
We would read books such as ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ to our children when they were babies and they really enjoyed this. Research suggests there is benefit in reading to babies. In any case, even if the research is flawed, parents lose nothing by reading to their (very young) children. Eventually, our children wanted to read the books themselves. Needless to say, the books need to be age-appropriate and the difficulty level also needs to be raised in line with the child’s reading ability.
Maths:
By pure chance, our children had an affinity to the show ‘Number Blocks’ and ‘Number Jacks’. We don’t quite know why. We trained as teachers in History and Geography, so we are not sure where this passion for Maths came from. But we encouraged this and got the corresponding toys for the kids. This helped our kids stay connected to numbers and become comfortable with using numbers regularly. Experts in this field suggest learning by playing is one of the most powerful forms of learning. Although it’s difficult to quantify to what extent the toys helped progress their mathematical ability, one thing is clear: learning through play kept the children off screens. This may be the biggest factor in our children doing so well academically.
For us, this phase was about having fun whilst being around books and numbers. In other words, create an environment of learning…even if that learning has not yet begun in earnest.
Year 3:
By the time our children reached Year 3, they were fluent readers and very comfortable with numbers. This formed the basis of giving them fun work to do on top of school work. Fun work could be things like word searches and can include an element of colouring in.
The aim here is not to make children scholars. Rather, it’s to instil in them the idea of consistent work. Easy things like the timetables should be memorised easily at this stage. Children should feel a sense of achievement.
What is crucial here is that whatever work the school give, we would always do extra work a bit harder at home with the children, thereby stretching them intellectually a little bit. For example, if they wrote an initial story, for the second draft they would be encouraged to use more advanced vocabulary compared to their first draft. This is a small action, but over a long time, it compounds to a big result.
Once the children reached a level where they found the school work too easy, we knew it was time to make sure the foundations of the 11 plus were laid. This included moving onto things like long multiplication. By the time they reached Year 4, they were comfortable with using different mathematical techniques and were very comfortable with using higher level vocabulary.
If there’s one piece of information you take away from this section, it should be this:
Relying on school work alone is never enough.
Year 4:
This is where we began the 11 plus course proper. This phase was about consistency. Because we had laid the foundation for consistent work earlier (albeit via ‘fun’ work), the children had a good work ethic and knew what was expected of them. All that had to change was the level of work.
We opted for self-tutoring, but for the vast majority of parents, enrolling at an 11 plus tuition centre is altogether a better choice. Two things we wished we had whilst self-tutoring were (i) mock exams (ii) having a benchmark against other children to see how we were doing. These things cannot be replicated at home. (We did a lot of the 11 plus tuition during covid for our first child so we did not have access to an 11 plus tuition centre).
If children start their 11 plus journey at the start of Year 4, they have two clear years of 11 plus work. This is sufficient for the vast majority of children.
Year 5:
In Year 5 our children continued with the 11 plus programme, but we increased the frequency of mock exams.
After every mock, we would analyse weaknesses, and work on the weakness.
Our children worked on the 11 plus virtually everyday and averaged around 90 minutes per day. They rarely missed a day.
Year 6:
Children will have around two weeks in Year 6 before they sit their real 11 plus exam, so there isn’t a lot that can be done at this stage.
Some parents use this time to try to cram information into their child’s head. Generally speaking, cramming is not effective, so I am not convinced this is actually helpful in the 11+ context.
We continued with our usual activities with our children (doing lots of mock exams, revising what the children already knew, etc.). However, we were very aware of routines; we did not allow the routine to be changed. So, whatever time the children usually went to sleep, or ate or did anything else for that matter, we kept the same. Some children are not good at dealing with change, so we worked on keeping things the same. For instance, we even made sure the children did not eat any unfamiliar foods. This negated the possibility of children being affected by any potential food poisoning, upset stomach, etc. in the lead up to the exam. These points fall into the discussion of ‘fine margins’, but with around 7,000 children taking the Bexley 11+ test alone, we were not prepared to take any chances.
Final thoughts
You may have noticed that the paragraphs for earlier years are slightly longer than those for later years. Whilst I did not plan the article this way, this does signify something: the more effort parents put in during the earlier years, the less work parents will have to put in during later years. Lay down the groundwork well, and make your life and your children’s lives easier later on.
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