How to Help Your Child Prepare for the 11 Plus English Test

Mar 14

How to help your child prepare for the 11 Plus English test (without losing your sanity - or theirs!)

Ah, the 11 Plus English test - where even the best young readers can come unstuck if they’re not careful. It’s not just about breezing through a fun story and answering a few questions like they do in school. No, no, no - those 11 Plus question setters like to raise the bar a bit!

So we asked our boffins at Club 11 Plus to put together some hints and tips on how best to help your child prepare for it. And here's what they came up with!

What’s in the 11 Plus English Test?

If your child is sitting a GL-based 11 Plus English test (and if you're not sure about what style of test your chosen school uses, check out the school website for details), they will probably face one of two possible formats: either one long comprehension passage (somewhere between 500 and 1000 words) followed by 20 questions, or two shorter comprehension passages, again each with 20 questions.

Sounds manageable, right? But wait - there’s more!

There are also two or three separate sections that test spelling, punctuation, and grammar or “use of English”. If there are two comprehension passages, the grammar or use of English sections might not appear, but spelling and punctuation will definitely still be there.

And just when your child thinks they’ve got the hang of it, sometimes the comprehension passage is a poem. Because why not?

The Big 11 Plus English Test Trap

Here’s where many confident young readers get caught out. They see a passage, skim through it, and go for the most obvious answer - because that’s always worked fine in school, right? Well, not here! Those pesky 11 Plus test question setters love a trick question and a red herring answer. The ‘obvious’ answer is often not the correct one.

So, what’s the solution? Practice!

Your child needs to get used to the level of detail required, so they learn not to rush and assume they know the answer. Doing plenty of 11 Plus-style comprehensions will help them spot those sneaky traps before they fall into them!

Key Skills to Brush Up On

A strong vocabulary and knowledge of literary terms will go a long way. Your child should be comfortable with words like onomatopoeia, alliteration, hyperbole, irony, and quite a few more. They also need a solid grasp of punctuation - speech marks, commas, capital letters for proper nouns, to name but a few, because these always pop up in the test.

And spelling? The best way to improve spelling isn’t trying to memorise endless word lists - it’s reading, reading, reading! In fact, reading widely, and at a challenging level, is the single best thing your child can do to boost their English skills, so anything you can do to encourage your child to read, read, read would be very helpful indeed!

How Club 11 Plus Can Help

At Club 11 Plus, we’re confident we've got all of this covered. Grammar? Check. Punctuation? Sorted. Spelling? Yep. Plus we’ve got plenty of bite-sized, short, and full-length comprehension exercises so your child can sharpen their skills without feeling overwhelmed.

Want to find out more? Head over to https://www.club11plus.co.uk and see how we can help make 11 Plus preparation stress-free! (Well, as stress-free as possible. We can’t promise zero eye-rolling from your child, but we’ll do our very best!)