Tag: 11 plus english

Eleven plus Non-fiction Models offer a fast track to your child’s writing success.

Why models?

  • Because models work. Ever followed a how-to guide on YouTube? You’ve learned from modelling. It can be a very rapid way of achieving excellent results.
  • Because models are fair. As a teacher, I think it’s very unfair we ask children to write an excellent piece of non-fiction, unless they first see, read, learn and practise what ‘excellent’ looks like.

It’s all very well people telling you to write a great persuasive letter or recount or description, but what does that really mean? How much do you write? How do you start? How do you end? What techniques and structure should you include?

Children need to know what success looks like, so they can aim for it. Success leaves clues.  Lego toys come with pictures and instructions for a reason.

My promise in writing this brand new guide, 11 Plus Happy Creative Writing Models: Non-Fiction Edition is to maximise your child’s learning, to help them score the highest mark they possibly can. My vision is that anyone who reads, learns and follows the steps in this book will become some of the best writers in the room – perhaps the best writer in the room. With this in mind, I also promise that this guide is about MUCH MORE than the models.

Our shared commitment is we want your child to pass their 11 Plus creative writing with a very, very high mark. Our shared commitment is we’ll work and write a lot of deliberate practice writing along the way, using the tools in this guide. Our shared aim is to dazzle the marker with writing that stands out from the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of others. Our shared aim is that your children feel confident, equipped and ready to rock any exam. To make this a reality, each non-fiction model comes with the following:

  • A question prompt, so your young writer understands what each essay is trying to answer.
  • A model of a short plan – the kind you can actually write at the start of a time-pressured exam. Even the shortest plan will help you write the correct amount and make sure you stick to answering the question. You’d be surprised how often children write something completely different to what the question asks for. Or, they start by answering the question correctly, but then drift onto another topic or style of writing half way through.
  • The full model essay.
  • A huge and powerful lesson chapter: WHAT, HOW, WHY. We’ll zoom in to the micro-details, the many parts that make up a whole piece. The aim is clear: your child (that’s YOU if you’re the child!) will know what to write, how to write, and understand why they should write in this way.
  • VVV: A Very Varied Vocabulary section. Throughout the essays, we’ll collect dazzling and interesting words that I think you should use.
  • A list of the very varied vocabulary used in each piece of writing comes at the end of each chapter.
  • A definition for each word (as it’s used in the text) to help you write quickly with this jaw-dropping vocabulary.

This is the book I needed as a teacher. This is the book children deserve to read in order to help them see what finished exam-passing writing looks like, as well as understanding how that writing is put together. This is the book for the superhero parents who are actively involved in helping their child learn and prepare for 11plus success. This is a book that will support tutors in teaching creative writing.

But it’s not about the book; it’s about your child’s writing improving in each session. It’s about your child’s enjoyment and understanding of creative writing. It’s about your child feeling confident and skill-equipped to write a wide range of non-fiction essays.

Growing up, my mum and dad used to say often: “Children come first, second, third and last.” Before anything, consider the children. I know it’s why I became a teacher, I know it’s why I adored and continue to love being a dad. This book is part of that belief system.

Order your copy and let’s help your child reach their highest mark. Yes!

Eleven plus Non-fiction Models offer a fast track to your child’s writing success.

Why models?

  • Because models work. Ever followed a how-to guide on YouTube? You’ve learned from modelling. It can be a very rapid way of achieving excellent results.
  • Because models are fair. As a teacher, I think it’s very unfair we ask children to write an excellent piece of non-fiction, unless they first see, read, learn and practise what ‘excellent’ looks like.

It’s all very well people telling you to write a great persuasive letter or recount or description, but what does that really mean? How much do you write? How do you start? How do you end? What techniques and structure should you include?

Children need to know what success looks like, so they can aim for it. Success leaves clues.  Lego toys come with pictures and instructions for a reason.

My promise in writing this brand new guide, 11 Plus Happy Creative Writing Models: Non-Fiction Edition is to maximise your child’s learning, to help them score the highest mark they possibly can. My vision is that anyone who reads, learns and follows the steps in this book will become some of the best writers in the room – perhaps the best writer in the room. With this in mind, I also promise that this guide is about MUCH MORE than the models.

Our shared commitment is we want your child to pass their 11 Plus creative writing with a very, very high mark. Our shared commitment is we’ll work and write a lot of deliberate practice writing along the way, using the tools in this guide. Our shared aim is to dazzle the marker with writing that stands out from the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of others. Our shared aim is that your children feel confident, equipped and ready to rock any exam. To make this a reality, each non-fiction model comes with the following:

  • A question prompt, so your young writer understands what each essay is trying to answer.
  • A model of a short plan – the kind you can actually write at the start of a time-pressured exam. Even the shortest plan will help you write the correct amount and make sure you stick to answering the question. You’d be surprised how often children write something completely different to what the question asks for. Or, they start by answering the question correctly, but then drift onto another topic or style of writing half way through.
  • The full model essay.
  • A huge and powerful lesson chapter: WHAT, HOW, WHY. We’ll zoom in to the micro-details, the many parts that make up a whole piece. The aim is clear: your child (that’s YOU if you’re the child!) will know what to write, how to write, and understand why they should write in this way.
  • VVV: A Very Varied Vocabulary section. Throughout the essays, we’ll collect dazzling and interesting words that I think you should use.
  • A list of the very varied vocabulary used in each piece of writing comes at the end of each chapter.
  • A definition for each word (as it’s used in the text) to help you write quickly with this jaw-dropping vocabulary.

This is the book I needed as a teacher. This is the book children deserve to read in order to help them see what finished exam-passing writing looks like, as well as understanding how that writing is put together. This is the book for the superhero parents who are actively involved in helping their child learn and prepare for 11plus success. This is a book that will support tutors in teaching creative writing.

But it’s not about the book; it’s about your child’s writing improving in each session. It’s about your child’s enjoyment and understanding of creative writing. It’s about your child feeling confident and skill-equipped to write a wide range of non-fiction essays.

Growing up, my mum and dad used to say often: “Children come first, second, third and last.” Before anything, consider the children. I know it’s why I became a teacher, I know it’s why I adored and continue to love being a dad. This book is part of that belief system.

Order your copy and let’s help your child reach their highest mark. Yes!

New for You! 15 top-level non-fiction models to help your child be the best writer in the exam room

A year in the writing, informed by hundreds of hours of teaching, and already helping people win success in dozens of 11plus entrance exams, please may I introduce an absolute must-have for your book-shelf or digital library in 2025:

In digital:

11 Plus Happy Creative Writing Models! Non-Fiction Edition: Instant Ebook Download

11 Plus Happy Creative Writing Models! Non-Fiction Edition: Instant Ebook Download

£25.00

For Parents, Children and Tutors. 11plus just got happier!  15 top-level models of the most common non-fiction exam questions. Matches exam time and word count. Expert lessons for every feature in every essay, with pages and pages of rich explanations, so that your child can emulate and own each skill.  From plan to punctuation to language and structure . Question prompts to teach focus. Model plans short enough to write in exams. VVV: Explode your child’s vocabulary! For all 11plus/13plus creative writing entrance exams. Perfect for Y4-Y7 Helps skyrocket Ks2 & KS3 creative writing. Empowers parents to get involved and…

Category:

In paperback from Amazon:

Celebrate what they don’t know…

One highly effective and relaxing teaching and learning method you should use with your child is to high five them when a test shows they don’t know something.

Let me explain.

They sit a Maths paper and it shows they don’t know co-ordinates, or have forgotten how to do long division, or they come across a topic they haven’t covered yet. This is absolutely brilliant. Why? Because you have both just identified the next thing they’re going to be brilliant at. When you know you don’t know, you can then sit with them for a session or two dedicated to this unknown area.

Do this enough times and you come close to running out of things you don’t know in time for any real test.

If you’re critical of something they don’t know, they may be less likely to want to learn it, in case they get it wrong and disappoint you again. But if you frame learning as an adventure to actively seek out the unknowns and see it as finding treasure, it becomes less worrying and you make faster progress. Faster progress is what we want!

So celebrate what your child doesn’t know. You’ve found the valuable next step on their learning path. Yey!

Enjoy your back to school moment. Give them extra hugs and handshakes, it doesn’t last forever. Here’s to the preciousness of education and the preciousness of another chance to start again and move forward.

Best, Lee

This book really improves your child’s 11plus creative writing

If you're spending time helping your child's eleven-plus creative writing reach the grade for secondary school entrance exams, make sure you make progress - i.e. something changes about the writing itself or the understanding of the techniques and ideas - in every session. This book helps you do just that.

I wrote it for parents or tutors working with children. The ideas inside help children pass entrance exams every year. In last year’s season, it helped children pass the Sutton Test, Surbiton, Kingston Grammar, Tiffin, Ibstock, Queen Elizabeth, Highgate, Freemans and Dame Alice. They’re the ones I know about.

In my own cohort of personally taught children, 8 out of 9 made it to their school of choice.

Teach Your Little Genius will help you make the most of your precious time together, making sure everything you do is about learning, happiness, confidence and success. Along the way, your child will see the miracle of their own writing. Y5/6 children may be able to work through much of it alone, but it is not designed for that. There are plenty of books that do that. This book is to help the most powerful part of 11plus success, the learning relationship and time between parents and their child, or a child and their tutor.

It really helps. It may be the missing link that causes a shift in progress, and be the difference between good and “Wow!” I love this book so much for the help it brings and for the difference it is making to parents and children’s lives.

 

If you prefer a digital copy, look in the ebooks section on this website, 11plushappy.com

Start reading, start learning, start writing. Stay 11plushappy.

Lee

What has 6 faces and is an amazing teacher?

Quick 11+ game of the day. Grab a dice, grab a targeted vocabulary list from the net, print it out, and BOOM, you have a game board. Write a sentence with each word you land on. Don't know the meaning of the word? Excellent. Look it up and you're both learning new words that can be a part of your child's next story.

DICE

A pair of fantastic teachers!

Who can reach the end of the list first?

Who can reach the furthest in 11 minutes? 

Play with one or two dice. Throw a double? Make up a rule: go backwards, steal your opponent's word, write a sentence with two words from the list...anything you can think of. 

In short bursts, in cafes, under the table, between sessions when your child is tiring...dice turn learning into fun. A bonus? They're not electronic! Just you, your child, the dice, fun and learning. 

Please share how your game turned out at leemottram@11plushappy.com

You'll find a whole chapter dedicated to dice in the brand new parent and child guide, Teach Your Little Genius to Pass 11 Plus Creative Writing Exams. Yey!

Learn Out Loud – please read with your voice turned up!

Because the week is about fun,

I thought – how can I show ‘em?

Then some words raced into the room

And yelled: “Just write a poem!”

Mums and dads – they need fun too

They might have grumpy faces

Just speak in an unusual way

And take them to fun places

It might go right, it might go wrong

That’s not the point because

Our playful purpose is to pass

Our child’s 11 plus.

Perhaps you’ll say: “Today,

Our lesson starts under the table.”

Then with a preposition, move it

Everywhere you’re able

Splashing through a puddle,

Sprinkling water on your face,

You’ll say, “This ‘ain’t no lesson, child,

This is a Maths Café!”

A milk shake and some paper and a pencil and a jug

Turn milk to millimetres and then finish with a hug

I could go on forever, but I better stop today

So you can go and have some fun in your English Café.

This last verse has adverbs of time, this poem has showed you how

Your child learns longer with a laugh…so go and teach them NOW!

Happy learning. Let me know if you enjoyed today’s learning snack.

Lee, with a smile on his face, London

November 2nd, 2023

It’s okay to feel lost

You’re teaching your child nearly every day and it is working. You are making a difference. You are helping them. This is hopefully about adventure, not pressure. Challenge, not problem.

Sometimes, you will be lost. You must be lost. It’s required.

The brilliant author Seth Godin says it marvellously that true learning requires ‘tension and discomfort.’ Before change come moments of not knowing, not understanding, perhaps not even being aware of what you are supposed to know.

Learning an eleven plus curriculum means your child is engaged with at least eight forms of knowledge. It also means you are, too. Those forms are:

  1. Information they have already learned at school, so will be revising.
  2. Information they are familiar with, but purposefully repackaged into multistep problems they will not be familiar with, which are designed to test logic and a creative ability to use information.
  3. New skills and concepts they will not know. Eleven plus exams involve a Year 6 curriculum, but exams are sat at the start of Year 6 – before that curriculum may have been taught in your child’s school.
  4. Exam techniques: learning how to manage time; how to dive deeply into the parts of a question to make sure they understand what is being asked and which method they should use to solve it; how to not be fooled by incorrect answers; to do all of this as efficiently and carefully (yes, there’s a contradiction there) as possible.
  5. Learning to mistrust and test and not be tricked by multiple choice answers that are designed to trick children.
  6. To believe in and keep returning to a growth mindset that understands learning is not fixed, that new skills and information can be taught and learned and understood.
  7. Stamina and buoyancy to start learning, stay learning and continue to prepare for many months. This includes feeling lost and found many times, a cycle of discovering what you know, discovering and celebrating what you don’t know, and having the cool courage to begin learning each chunk of what you don’t know, so that in the end, your child runs out of nearly everything they don’t know in time for the exams.
  8. Doing all of this inside relationships: parent and child, grown-up and child, tuition, friends, clubs, grandparents, and so on. Finding a way for everyone to be on the same page, to trust, to be okay about asking for, and being given help, from different people, to understand and not blame frustrations. To know when a break is needed. To know when a smile and a hug is needed.

This is a huge set of tasks, and feeling lost is normal. If you can embrace feeling lost, accept that it means you are on the right path, you can stay happier, learn more, and surrender to the long-term process and path, the ‘journey’.

One step at a time – or one step ahead?

One of the most helpful methods that served me as a dad when teaching both my children, and which serves nearly every teacher on the planet, is to forget knowing everything, and focus on being one step ahead of your child. It’s such a simple process, but it can make the learning session so much easier for you both.

For example, feedback from a test shows your son or daughter doesn’t know about angles in quadrilaterals and triangles. Before you rush in to solve or give more questions, set aside an hour for you to learn about these. Books like Bond How to do 11plus Maths, CGP’s Year 6 Maths, are good introductions, as are youtube channels like Corbett maths and Khan academy, as well as the BBC teaching part of its website. You have the whole internet to help you. My go to book for learning about concepts, which I recommend to parents of the children I tutor, is Derek Haylock’s Mathematics Explained for Primary Teachers.

You don’t need to know everything or visit all channels. Just knowing enough of the topic for you to understand the basic concepts ahead of your child will allow you to answer a few of their questions, possibly to recognise mistakes in their thinking, and to delve into the subject and some questions with them.

As a class teacher, I would always brush up on knowledge or skills ahead of teaching children. As a tutor, I do this continually.

Admitting you don’t know something is good for your child’s learning.

During a session, if you don’t understand something or can’t answer a question your child has asked (yet), it’s a wonderful moment to compliment your child’s curiosity and intelligence: “What a great question! I’m not sure, let’s explore and try and find out.”

This admission has three wonderful benefits you definitely want in your learning time together:

  1. Your child watches how you respond to not knowing, and when they see you respond positively and excitedly, it’s more likely he or she will learn to respond the same way.
  2. You give them permission to not know or understand something. In fact, you normalise not knowing and understanding something as a vital part of actually learning it!
  3. You create a mood of being willing to explore a topic. To open up, not shut down.

It’s okay to feel lost. You are helping your child. You are both learning. Enjoy your time being lost and exploring together.

Stay learning, stay happy, stay 11plushappy!

My best, Lee

It’s okay to feel lost

You’re teaching your child nearly every day and it is working. You are making a difference. You are helping them. This is hopefully about adventure, not pressure. Challenge, not problem.

Sometimes, you will be lost. You must be lost. It’s required.

The brilliant author Seth Godin says it marvellously that true learning requires ‘tension and discomfort.’ Before change come moments of not knowing, not understanding, perhaps not even being aware of what you are supposed to know.

Learning an eleven plus curriculum means your child is engaged with at least eight forms of knowledge. It also means you are, too. Those forms are:

  1. Information they have already learned at school, so will be revising.
  2. Information they are familiar with, but purposefully repackaged into multistep problems they will not be familiar with, which are designed to test logic and a creative ability to use information.
  3. New skills and concepts they will not know. Eleven plus exams involve a Year 6 curriculum, but exams are sat at the start of Year 6 – before that curriculum may have been taught in your child’s school.
  4. Exam techniques: learning how to manage time; how to dive deeply into the parts of a question to make sure they understand what is being asked and which method they should use to solve it; how to not be fooled by incorrect answers; to do all of this as efficiently and carefully (yes, there’s a contradiction there) as possible.
  5. Learning to mistrust and test and not be tricked by multiple choice answers that are designed to trick children.
  6. To believe in and keep returning to a growth mindset that understands learning is not fixed, that new skills and information can be taught and learned and understood.
  7. Stamina and buoyancy to start learning, stay learning and continue to prepare for many months. This includes feeling lost and found many times, a cycle of discovering what you know, discovering and celebrating what you don’t know, and having the cool courage to begin learning each chunk of what you don’t know, so that in the end, your child runs out of nearly everything they don’t know in time for the exams.
  8. Doing all of this inside relationships: parent and child, grown-up and child, tuition, friends, clubs, grandparents, and so on. Finding a way for everyone to be on the same page, to trust, to be okay about asking for, and being given help, from different people, to understand and not blame frustrations. To know when a break is needed. To know when a smile and a hug is needed.

This is a huge set of tasks, and feeling lost is normal. If you can embrace feeling lost, accept that it means you are on the right path, you can stay happier, learn more, and surrender to the long-term process and path, the ‘journey’.

One step at a time – or one step ahead?

One of the most helpful methods that served me as a dad when teaching both my children, and which serves nearly every teacher on the planet, is to forget knowing everything, and focus on being one step ahead of your child. It’s such a simple process, but it can make the learning session so much easier for you both.

For example, feedback from a test shows your son or daughter doesn’t know about angles in quadrilaterals and triangles. Before you rush in to solve or give more questions, set aside an hour for you to learn about these. Books like Bond How to do 11plus Maths, CGP’s Year 6 Maths, are good introductions, as are youtube channels like Corbett maths and Khan academy, as well as the BBC teaching part of its website. You have the whole internet to help you. My go to book for learning about concepts, which I recommend to parents of the children I tutor, is Derek Haylock’s Mathematics Explained for Primary Teachers.

You don’t need to know everything or visit all channels. Just knowing enough of the topic for you to understand the basic concepts ahead of your child will allow you to answer a few of their questions, possibly to recognise mistakes in their thinking, and to delve into the subject and some questions with them.

As a class teacher, I would always brush up on knowledge or skills ahead of teaching children. As a tutor, I do this continually.

Admitting you don’t know something is good for your child’s learning.

During a session, if you don’t understand something or can’t answer a question your child has asked (yet), it’s a wonderful moment to compliment your child’s curiosity and intelligence: “What a great question! I’m not sure, let’s explore and try and find out.”

This admission has three wonderful benefits you definitely want in your learning time together:

  1. Your child watches how you respond to not knowing, and when they see you respond positively and excitedly, it’s more likely he or she will learn to respond the same way.
  2. You give them permission to not know or understand something. In fact, you normalise not knowing and understanding something as a vital part of actually learning it!
  3. You create a mood of being willing to explore a topic. To open up, not shut down.

It’s okay to feel lost. You are helping your child. You are both learning. Enjoy your time being lost and exploring together.

Stay learning, stay happy, stay 11plushappy!

My best, Lee