Once you have decided that you would like your child to sit the test, and therefore have the chance to apply for grammar schools for Year 7, you can begin to plan out a strategy to help them prepare.
Where you start with this, will depend on how close you are to the test date. The test takes place in September of Year 6. You must register your child for the test when they are in Year 5. Registrations usually open in June of that year. Keep an eye on the KCC page for updates.
If your child is currently in Year 5, please see my tips for helping Year 5 children to prepare, by clicking here.
For Children in Year 4 (or younger)
- If your child is in Year 4, you have a little more time to help them prepare. You should still look through the familiarisation materials, and you can look for workbooks that are geared towards GL 11+ tests, for younger students, or enrol them in pre-11+ courses aimed at Year 4. If you have the means to hire a tutor, Year 4 is the perfect time to get started, to ensure that your child’s Maths and English skills are really good, before they start Year 5. The earlier you make enquiries to tutors, the better, as you can ask to be placed on their waiting list, if they are currently full.
- Encourage your child to read books by a variety of different authors. A good idea is to try books that are aimed at ages slightly above your child’s age. This list (actually aimed at Year 5) gives lots of useful recommendations. Year 4 is the perfect time to give your child’s vocabulary and reading range a real boost, by not just allowing them to read their favourite author. Guide them to read books by many different authors. Audio books are just as valuable as print copies for this, so invest in some for bedtime, or car journeys, or just for quiet moments. Enjoy them together if you can.
- Nurture a love of puzzles: any – and all – types of puzzles! Word puzzles (like wordsearches, anagrams, crosswords and codewords) are great for developing vocabulary and spelling, and introducing Verbal Reasoning skills. Number puzzles will help with Maths skills. Jigsaw puzzles, mazes, spot the difference and picture puzzles are all good for beginning to develop Spatial and Non-Verbal Reasoning skills. Logic puzzles are great for Verbal Reasoning. Buy puzzle books; install puzzle games or apps on phone, tablet or console; enlist your child’s help with the puzzle pages in the newspaper.
- Use games to build skills. There are so many board games that have elements of Maths, English, Verbal Reasoning or Non-Verbal Reasoning in them. Play Monopoly to build Maths and money skills; Scrabble or Boggle for word skills; Cluedo and Guess Who to practise the all-important process of elimination (which is essential in the multiple choice format of the Kent Test); Tetris and Minecraft for Spatial Reasoning; Wordle for Verbal Reasoning. Escape room games are great for logic and problem-solving, too. In fact, if you type “Educational games” into Google or Amazon, you’ll be amazed at the variety.
- Use grown-up language when talking to your child. Instead of the (very tempting) option of using really basic, easy-to-understand phrases, explain things in a more sophisticated, adult way, using new vocabulary that they might not have heard before. The only way they will learn new words and phrases is by either hearing them or reading them. So why not take every opportunity you can get? Perhaps instead of saying, “Are you hungry? I’ll be making dinner soon,” you could say, “Are you feeling peckish? I’ll be preparing dinner shortly.” You don’t have to speak like this all the time; just give them a taste of new words every now and then, when you think of it. The more you remember, the more natural it becomes. You’ll soon find that they will be understanding and using a wider range of vocabulary – just what is needed for the Kent Test.
- Practise some basic Maths and English skills that are hard to retain. Practise addition facts, subtraction facts, multiplication and division facts. Can they use quick mental strategies like partitioning, near doubles and compensation, to add and subtract quickly, or do they have to count up in their head? Can they recall addition and subtraction facts like 3+5 and 10-7 off by heart? Help them learn all their times tables off by heart, with rapid recall, and the associated division facts. Teach them the mathematical names for shapes, both 2D and 3D, and revisit them regularly. Another area that I find is almost always not retained well is TIME. Firstly, using and reading all different types of clocks, but also working out time intervals, and converting between minutes and hours. They also need to memorise time facts: the months in order; which ones have 30 days, 31 days, 28 days; 365 days in a year; 52 weeks in a year; and how to work out how many days until a certain date. In English, the fundamental skills that often cause problems are punctuation and grammar. Do they know where and how apostrophes should be used? Semi-colons? Commas? Inverted commas? Do they know what nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs are? How about conjunctions, modal verbs, determiners and pronouns? These are skills that can all be practised regularly at home, and are guaranteed to be needed in the Kent Test.
- Make good use of the “dead” times. During the drive or walk to school, make a routine of reciting or quizzing them on their times tables, or tricky spellings. When they are brushing their teeth before bed, get them to think over the practice they’ve done during the day. While they wait for their dinner, have them explain some concept to you – how commas should be used, how to multiply a number by 30, how to show that a character in your story is scared without saying they are scared… The students that I know who have learnt all their times tables and addition facts by heart, are the ones whose parents have made a routine like this, practising day in and day out until it has stuck. It may seem like a chore, but this conscientious and motivated attitude is exactly what you want to be modelling and instilling in your child, if they are to succeed at grammar school.
- Support them in developing good habits regarding homework and home learning. Make sure they have a calm, quiet, well-lit place to do their homework, away from distractions. Be on-hand to help them when they need you. If you find they aren’t needing you at all, and they get their school homework done easily, give them more of a challenge with some 11+ Maths and English workbooks (such as those aimed at 8-9 years or 9-10 years). Make homework and home-learning a consistent routine, and not something to be rushed or avoided. If you are able to, give them some undivided attention – a lot of children really thrive on this. If you are not able to do this yourself, for whatever reason, look into getting a tutor who can give your child that same undivided, one-to-one input. It will not only help to plug any gaps that your child may have in their learning, but can also give them the “stretch” or extra challenge that they may not be getting from their school homework.
If you are considering using a tutor to help your child prepare for the Kent Test, please see details of my Tutoring Service, and contact me to enquire about availability. You are also welcome to send me a message through my Facebook page.
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