Education is without a doubt the most important element of life. It is our education that allows us to create a bright and successful fate, determines the life that lies well ahead into our future, and is ultimately what shapes us, molding us into the people that we become! After all, It is the crucial skills that we adopt throughout school life that play a magnificent role in the mapping out of our futures and the truth is, it is the exams we partake in as early as primary education that seal our fate! Yes, exams truly are the deciding factor when it comes to shaping our own futures and it is the 11+ exam we take within our penultimate year of primary school that determines where our next milestone of education will begin!

Secondary School is One of Life’s Important Stepping Stones!

Getting your child into the right secondary school is one of the most important stepping stones in life! This is the place where your child will spend the most formative years of their life and being a devoted parent, we understand that ensuring they accomplish their pride of place within the right school will not only benefit their growth but will also provide them with invaluable skills to progress in their general and academic development.

That is why parents all around the globe wish to do their utmost to seal their children’s future by preparing them as best they can for the important upcoming exams, to ensure their children pass with flying colors. Here are some great ways how you can help your child prepare and ace those 11+ exams!

Discover Which Exam Board Will Be Administering the Test

Now, the first thing you can do to invest in your child’s educational future is find out just which exam board will be administering the upcoming test. This will all depend on where you are located and will fall into one of two categories, the first being Granada Learning (GL) and the second, the Centre for Evaluation and Monitoring (CEM). This information will provide crucial insight as even though both tests will include similar exam formats, the reality is, both do impose differences that could realistically affect the given material that your child may require to study.

Invest in Some Extra Tutoring

Investing in a little extra tutoring is a great way to ensure your child gets in some vital preparation and it can be a total godsend, especially if you find your child is falling behind on homework or struggling within specific areas of the curriculum.

There are various options available when thinking about outsourcing additional education. For example, you could choose to enlist the help of a private home/online tutor or look into enrolling them into many of the 11 plus intensive courses that are on hand. Private tutors or intensive courses will provide your child with the ultimate learning boost and will successfully work to focus solely upon your child’s individual needs. This will give your child the opportunity to receive valuable individual feedback and possess the advantage of partaking in plenty of practice features such as mock exams, exam techniques, and some all-important revision. You really will be providing your child with the additional power to succeed!

Begin Your Preparation Early, Ideally Months in Advance

Almost every child needs an adequate amount of preparation time if they are going to ace the 11+ exam, after all, “practice makes perfect.” It is a good idea to begin preparing months in advance and designate specific days/times for studying. Having a plan firmly in place will ensure your child has plenty of practice time and will allow them the opportunity to discover both their strengths/weaknesses, allowing them to pay specific attention to working on their weaker points.

However, bear in mind it is extremely important not to inflict too much study time onto your child, to avoid the danger of them becoming completely overwhelmed. To make sure you do not overdo it, organize study time by spreading it out into smaller sessions over long time periods. By doing so you will be shielding your child from any unnecessary pressure. Implementing around 30 minutes of learning time 3-4 nights per week, certainly will suffice.

Be Sure to Cover All Elements of the Exam and Practice the Two Question Formats

All children are tested on the same subjects, revolving particularly around Maths and English, consisting of both Verbal and Non-Verbal reasoning topics. Therefore, it is a smart idea to implement both of these topics into your child’s study time.

The Maths exam will include topics such as the four basic operations, fractions, decimals, and percentages and the English exam will entail topics such as spelling, vocabulary, grammar, and punctuation.

Also, the 11+ exam consists of two question formats, known as standard and multiple-choice. Basically, the standard format gives instruction for a written response and the multiple-choice entails choosing the correct answer from a number of options. Make sure to prepare your child for answering both question formats by implementing them into your studying schedule.

Encourage Your Child to Read Regularly

Reading is not only imperative to every child’s overall development but regular reading is also proven to immensely improve children’s vocabulary skills, amongst many other benefits. Encouraging regular reading sessions with your child will provide them with the power to be able to understand complex content and provide them the ability to handle questions that revolve around the style of verbal reasoning.

Make Sure to Implement Practice Questions Into Study Time

Practice questions are a great way to aid in the preparation of 11+ exams and since the rise of technology, they certainly have never been easier to get your hands on. By simply using search engines such as Google, you can stumble upon masses of these revision tools for free or can choose to visit your local bookshop to come into possession of vital workbooks that truly are pure gold when embarking on that all-important revision.

As parents, we understand that our child’s education is incredibly important, as it is the crucial skills that they learn through the power of education that sets them up to become a great success in life. That is why we, as loving and devoted parents, continuously seek out effective ways to invest within our children’s future, to place them ultimately on the road to accomplish the best in life as humanly possible.