11 Plus Made Simple

10/09/2026

10/08/2026

My child struggles with counting cubes."

A parent said this to me last week, and I hear it most terms. Here is the whole thing in one sentence.

A block cannot float. If a block is sitting up high, another block is underneath holding it up, even one you cannot see.

That is all 11+ spatial reasoning is. Moving a shape around in your mind and knowing what has to be there when it is out of sight. Whether your child is in Year 3 just starting out or in Year 5 deep in preparation, the children who count only the faces they can see will always come up short on these questions.

You do not fix it with more papers. You fix it with a handful of cubes and ten minutes. Build a shape, ask how many cubes, then pull it apart and let them find the ones that were hidden. Two or three goes and it clicks.

Save this for your next revision.

05/08/2026

"My child won't read the right books."

I hear a version of this on almost every call I take. What parents usually mean is that their child is reading Wimpy Kid and Dog Man and graphic novels, when they had pictured something closer to Jane Eyre.

Those books are fine. A child who reads Dog Man for pleasure is building stamina, fluency and a reading habit that a reluctant reader does not have. That is worth protecting.

The gap usually sits elsewhere. When a child meets a word like reluctant or consequence in a story, they take the gist and read on. They recognise the word without ever being able to define it or use it.

Comprehension and verbal reasoning papers do not accept the gist. They ask for precise meaning, the exact synonym, the right word in the right place. A child can read widely for years and still arrive at that question with nothing firm to hold.

So before you change the book, look at what is happening to the words inside it.

Save this for the next time you are standing at the bookshelf wondering whether to swap it.

04/08/2026

No child can memorise every word that could appear in an 11+ paper. There is no official list, and seeing a word in a book is not enough for a child to hold its meaning under exam pressure.

What works better is teaching a child to take an unfamiliar word apart. Most long English words in the exam are built from Latin and Greek roots, so once a child recognises the root, the meaning stops being a guess.

Take port, from the Latin for to carry. Transport, portable, export, deport. A child who does not know deport can still work out that someone is being carried away from somewhere.

A small number of roots does most of the heavy lifting across comprehension and verbal reasoning. Learning those is a better use of a summer than another word list.

Save this for the next time your child meets a word they do not know. Lexi's Vault teaches root words exactly this way, with a free seven day trial, and the link is in my bio.

01/08/2026

"Miss, I find measurement questions difficult."

I hear this often, and if you have heard it at home too, you are not alone. Measurement and conversion come up all the time in 11+ maths papers, and they catch out plenty of capable children.

More practice papers rarely fix this. What helps is a bag of flour and a measuring cup. So this holiday we're baking, and every packet and cup on the counter becomes a real question your child can work out while they help.

Try the flour question from the video with your child before you tell them the answer. Working it out with the bag in their hands is what makes it stick.

These are the real life questions the 11+ asks all the time.

Real places make 11+ maths stick.

Let me know in the comments how your child got on with the flour question.

30/07/2026

The holiday decides more about 11+ readiness than most parents realise.

Knowing where each year group should be. The maths that clicks in the kitchen instead of a page. The specific comprehension gaps that catch most children out. Reasoning, built through play.

I have put all four into a free guide for Years 3 to 5, written from years preparing children for 11+ entry across Kent, Bexley and SE London.

Link in bio. Enter your child's year group and it lands straight in your inbox.

24/07/2026

For Year 5 parents with children sitting the Kent Test on 10 September: I'm running Kent Test format mock exams online this August, four dates (13th, 15th, 19th and 29th). Real GL format, real timings, invigilated on camera, marked by an experienced tutor, written report within 5 days. £45, 12 places per sitting. Details: https://11plusmadesimple.co.uk/kent-test-mock-examonline. Questions welcome below.

15/07/2026

"You can't make your mum force you to do it. You have to want it for yourself."
Those are the words of one of our students, spoken near the end of her time with us. She worked that out on her own.
The children who go furthest are the ones who decide, somewhere along the way, that the effort belongs to them. We can build the skill and hold the structure. Wanting it has to come from the child.
That shift is what we work towards in every small group. When a child starts talking like this, the exam takes care of itself.

12/07/2026

Is your child falling behind in comprehension?

I have been working hard this morning putting together the final touches for my free live workshop taking place this Wednesday, 15 July at 8:00 PM.

If your child is in Year 3 or Year 4 and struggles to explain why something is happening in a text, this session is for you. We will break down exactly why good readers often lose marks and how you can start supporting them at home.

Click the link in my bio to register and save your place. I will see you on Wednesday!

comprehension

24/06/2026

Struggling to get your child's 11+ English marks up before September
Here is the part most families miss. The GL comprehension paper rewards vocabulary directly, not just whether your child understood the passage. So there are marks sitting there that have nothing to do with reading speed or comprehension confidence.

With the exam this close, vocabulary is the lever that still moves. I have put the fastest way to build it in the slides above.

Swipe through. Then save it, because 10 minutes a day from now until September adds up.