Words of the week that your child can add to their writing (taken from a new upcoming book release)

Good morning, winter parents, tutors and children! I wanted to share a set of words from a story I’ve just finished writing, which will be included in an upcoming 11plushappy! book of fiction models. I thought, why wait till the book is out? They might help you now.

Each story model I’m putting in the book comes with a VVV – Very Varied Vocabulary – section, with ambitious vocabulary used in the story, along with meanings as they’re used in the story.

Vocabulary development is a vital tool for eleven plus writing – rare or advanced words, especially if they’ve been revised and the spelling is correct, will stand out from the crowd. Beyond the 11 plus, vocabulary is a superpower to help reading, writing and speaking. As Dr Seuss remarked, “The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.”

Remember that some of the words below can have more than one meaning. Indeed, they can also be different types of words. Venture, for example, is a verb for doing something or going somewhere that has risks, but it’s also a noun, the name of a particular venture. (Did you see I added an adjective before the noun to describe it?)

So use these words and meanings below as a springboard. The meanings I give are how I’ve used them in my story, and this can be a very quick hack to getting your child to use them quickly. Do have fun digging deep into all that a word can be alongside this.

Words you can use and what they mean in the story

Volume (noun): How loud something is. (I am talking about flooding river water, so it’s also a pun on another meaning of liquid volume or capacity, which means how much liquid is in the river.)

Pummelling (verb): Hitting something or someone many times, often with fists.

Affrighted (adjective): Very scared or frightened.

Instructed (verb): Told someone how to do something; gave directions.

Principal (adjective): Most important.

Thus (adverb): In this way; as a result, therefore we can say that. A fantastic sentence starter!

Venture (verb): To go somewhere or do something that might be risky.

Wretchedly (adverb): In a very unhappy, miserable way.

Reciprocated (verb): Responded to something in the same way (like returning a smile or kindness).

All-consuming (adjective): Taking up all your attention, energy, or feelings.

Seized (verb): Grabbed something quickly and firmly.

Impulse (noun): A sudden desire to do something without thinking.

Subdued (adjective): Quiet, gentle, or not as strong as usual.

Distressed (adjective): Very upset, worried, or in trouble.

Clacking (noun): A sharp, clicking sound, the sound of knocking stones together.

Inevitable (adjective): Something that is sure to happen and can’t be avoided.

Anguish (noun): Very strong pain or sadness.

Anticipate (verb): To expect something to happen; to look forward to something.

Flood-borne (adjective): Carried or brought by floodwaters.

Prodigious (adjective): Very large, amazing, or impressive.

Silhouette (noun): A dark outline or shape of something seen against a lighter background.

Mercifully (adverb): Thankfully; in a way that brings relief or kindness.

Presently (adverb): Soon; in a short time.

Occurred (verb): Happened; took place.

Clamber (verb): To climb awkwardly using hands and feet.

Makeshift (adjective): Temporary and not perfect, but good enough for now.

What wonderful words. I hope your child will be able to put some or all of these into their writing this week. If your child does add them in a story, I’d love to read it, so please do email it in at leemottram@11plushappy.com.

Right, back to writing the book! Have a wonderful winter day of learning. If you’re considering tuition as the season of winter fire glow, crisp dark nights, Christmas lights and mulled wine begins, do get in touch at leemottram@11plushappy.com. Giving the gift of education could be the most rewarding gift of all. If you’d like to treat a relative – a son, daughter, niece or nephew to a lesson or two, please do let me know, gift certificates are available. And do please visit www.11plushappy.com for paperback books to help your child’s learning.

Have a wonderful winter week of wonder and words.

Lee, London

Creative Writing Happy Tip: Subscribe to this blog!

Boo! A very short hello as you prepare for 11plus pr…oh, no , sorry, I mean Halloween today. If you’re serious about your child being the best prepared they can be for their creative writing exam, it’s wise to dip into different sources and formats of tests, as well as alternative advice and how-to’s. You gain the widest net of knowledge and perspective. That goes for resources too. There are books on my website that are dedicated to 11plus creative writing, that will give you a fresh, expert (I tutor 6 days a week) approach to transforming or enhancing your child’s writing.

There’s also this blog, where I post daily thoughts and strategies to improve your child’s writing, along with other aspects of the 11plus English exam. Think of it as the networking equivalent of an after school or before school parent teacher meeting, with insider advice you can put into practice as fast as a firework, and much faster than carving a pumpkin. So please, do subscribe, whether you’re a parent, grandparent, fellow tutor or teacher, or anyone helping children learn, and let me help you along the wonderful road that is the 11plus.

11plus Happy Halloween!

Lee, London.

Now With Pictures! (I Love Writing)

On Monday, I shared my love of both teaching and writing creative writing, and offered you a tip to help your child combine photographs from a day out into an exciting story. I now add to this three super happy, super important gifts: the photographs!

As I near completion of the 11plus Creative Writing Fiction Models guide, book 3 in the Creative Writing Series, I’ve just finished a story about cakes, and am, this morning, halfway through my last story, a story about two very different trees and a villain called Lord Hardsilver, inspired by a visit to the incredible Port Meirion, a creative writing paradise!

How did I come up with the idea for this latest story? I took countless photos on the day, chose three, and then stared at these three pictures below and imagined a way to connect them.

Aren’t they spectacular? All from one place!

Your child can do the same with photos chosen from a day out anywhere. After choosing three pictures, encourage your child to plan a possible story that links the photos, with between 3-6 steps. HAPPY TIP: Your young writer could even repeat this and come up with several plans for different stories from the same photos, which is a fantastic planning exercise to build planning muscle! To help you see what I mean, here’s one of the rough plans I came up with for the fantastic photos above:

Lord Hardsilver has persuaded/bullied the old secretive lady to sell him land on a remote peninsula.
Ancient forest, a giver to nature – a spirit lives to tend it.
He wants the rare wood, and to build a village on it to trap people to work for him.
As he works, the tree screams. The men are frightened.
He ignores them, sacks any who rebel and brings in more desperate people.
The spirit through the tree threatens he will be made part of the land, but he laughs and starts to chop at the tree.
All the trees scream, deafening and hurting, vines begin grabbing, soil swallows workers. Some run for the boat, but it has fused with the island – no escape.
Lord Hardsilver is turned into a tree stump. Animals come and slide coins into him so he can feel the pain of money that he caused nature.

Feel free to use this as a plan for your child’s writing. In any case, the story your child writes for their photos will likely have a structure and connection, since the pictures you took were from the same area, as you can see in the pictures above.

Why does this power of three work? As we spoke about on Monday: “the act of linking the pictures possibly takes advantage of the fact we humans are very good at finding patterns or associations between given objects – even when there is no real link. For example, if I ask you to imagine a story or create a link that could connect a tortoise and a paperclip, your brain will probably do it (perhaps the tortoise is a jewel thief who uses the paperclip to pick locks from a Lego house, keeping the treasure under her shell), whereas, if I had asked you to think of associations that connect only to a tortoise, it’s unlikely your brain would have thought about a paperclip!”

Okay, today is ‘finish story’ day. I really hope you enjoyed the photographs. Port Meirion was a life-changing creative writing experience for me. I came back with a whole book of story ideas.

In the meantime, if you think your child would enjoy or benefit from creative writing lessons from a teacher who absolutely loves writing, please do reach out to me. With the 11plus exams nearly over for this year, I’ll be taking on five online students. I’m currently teaching Y4, Y5, Y8, Y10 and Y11 students, preparing for both the 11plus and GCSE English Language exams, from Halifax to London to Kent. Please email leemottram@11plushappy.com.

Happy Writing!

Lee, London.

Quick…A sneak peak inside my Creative Writing Models Non-Fiction Guide!

With a new Non-Fiction Models book issued fresh for 2025, I’m dying to show you an extract from a persuasive letter, so you can see exactly how the guide will transform your child’s writing. Remember, each model in the book gives you:

A Question Prompt.
A short plan – the kind your child can actually put together in a couple of minutes.
The full model – Show your child what finished exam writing looks like to help them imagine it clearly. It’s like seeing a picture of a cake in a recipe book. Your child needs to know what they’re aiming for. Each model has all the must-write ingredients of exam-passing writing to super-boost your child’s mark.
A full, line by line or paragraph by paragraph lesson of every writing technique and structure point in the model, so your child can see what, how and why the writing works.
A vocabulary section with definitions of stretching, dazzling words for your child to use in their writing, to build eloquence and wow any marker!

It’s a guide to make your parent-and-child and tutor-and-child learning moments easy, valuable, and most importantly, to guarantee your child KNOWS how to make progress in every creative writing lesson and session. Yes, if you’d care to leap ahead in learning straight away, you can order your copy of the book on these links:

From Monday through to Friday, I’ll serialise extracts from the model and lessons – the full model and lesson taken from the book is 13 pages! We’re talking mountains of help and guidance!

My parents and children love this guide because it works: students progress quickly in all areas of exam-passing creative writing. Remember, I wrote the guide as a teaching tool, which use continually with my young writing legends – because it works. It’s your turn! Please come back to my 11plushappy.com blog on Monday. Here’s the sneak preview of what’s coming… Why not ask your child how many features they can spot in the opening paragraphs below?

Extract

Question: Your favourite playing fields are to be closed and replaced by a refuse (rubbish) and recycling centre to handle the town’s waste. Please write a letter to your local council to persuade them NOT to go ahead with this plan. You must give reasons for your viewpoint. What will you lose? You will be given marks for interesting vocabulary, persuasive writing techniques, punctuation and following the structure of a letter.

Time: 45 mins

(HAPPY TIP: Don’t be tricked into thinking you can write any letter you want. Although a question might not ask you to write a formal letter, persuasive letters should mostly use formal language.)

Freshly Cottage Flats

17 Goodview Court

Sutton

SM6 3PP

Dept of Planning

London Borough of Sutton 20^th September, 2026

Dear Sir/Madam

From the address above, you may be alerted to the fact I’m one of the many concerned, frightened and – to be frank – livid residents whose lives will be ruined by the proposed building of the Refuse and Recycling centre on the site of Goodview Playing Fields.

My name is Laney, and as an 11-year-old beginning her life in the area, I stand to be affected more adversely and for far longer than the misguided grown-ups who came up with this nightmarish idea. A refuse centre instead of a park? Thus, I write for an immediate end to this ‘rubbish’ idea. There are three clear reasons to maintain the fields, with both urgent and long-term implications: the high levels of use the park has; the serious harm to children’s health; and a shock reduction in your council’s finances.

First, grasp Goodview as it is. You will know, as the local planning team, that there are 15 – yes, 15 – primary schools in the area, along with 2 secondary schools. Statistics on your own website (truthful facts, we presume) confirm approximately 8000 children study at these schools (7,873 to be exact).

Let’s go! If you’d like to know what features are in here and why they work, please bookmark or add Monday 19th May to your calendar. I hope next week’s blog adds ease, smooth-tempers and happy learning to your week.

Oh, by the way, I’m deliriously excited about launching a podcast soon, to help you if you’re an on-the-go thinker and learner. I’ll share more details soon. Season 1 is almost finished recording!

Again, here are the book links, the digital bookshelves, if you want to dive in and make progress straight away.

Stay happy, stay learning.

Any questions? leemottram@11plushappy.com

Lee, London. May 25

Paperback books or digital books – which is better for your child’s learning?

Your decision to choose a digital or paperback version of a teaching and learning book depends on:

What you plan to do with it.
Where you’re doing the learning.
How your home is set up.
The possibility of buying a bundle of both versions, if the discount is massive.

Why you should love digital versions

With printing-enabled ebooks – all 11plushappy guides have printing ability – you can print out one essay at a time, multiple times. You and your child can write all over it and annotate it with notes to help you learn. For example, find and underline all the verbs, find all the similes, circle any writing imagery you want to magpie, and so on.

Because you’re printing this on paper, it’s great to get a pencil and paper learning session going. If it goes wrong, or even if it goes right, but the pages get crinkled or torn, you can print the chapter again! Nothing wasted. Likewise, take a chapter to a cafe, out to the park, or have a picnic in your garden, and you can easily create a Learning Cafe, where your child can relax and learn almost invisibly while slurping up a milkshake.

Another advantage is if you make a copy and store it on a drive or in the cloud, you can’t lose the book! Ever! You can take it on holiday, in the car, on the plane, without needing to worry about losing or damaging that one paperback copy you have; a real book is, after all, pretty much a living breathing thing deserving as much love as a pet!

Being able to print out sections also gives you the same advantage as a paperback book – you and your child don’t have to look at it on a screen all, or even any, of the time.

So when you buy a digital book, you’re really buying many copies of it to work on. True, a book can be photocopied, but you need a photocopier, and it takes a lot of time. An ebook printout is press and go. Helpful if you have two kids and want to use the same resource, all clean, or if you want to revisit the learning afresh with your child. I know there are copyright issues here, but I’m realistic. I know you’re going to print it out and make an extra copy. I want you to. You buy non-fiction books as tools to build something greater – your child’s learning and exam success.

Why you should love paperback versions

Well, it’s a book. Paper is going to be better for your eyes, A precious living thing, as we’ve mentioned. Something to look wonderful on your table, to pull out of a school bag, to take with you wherever you do your learning. A book is stronger than a print out, and will resist a lot of use. It can survive coffee, juice spillages, sticky fingers, even the beach.

It’s not digital and it’s better for your eyes. A book doesn’t run out of batteries. You don’t need any device to access a book. It’s there in your hands, in your life, immediately.

A real book on a shelf or on a table? Surely, one of the most beautiful, empowering sights in the world!

A paperback book teaches your child to hold books and work with them. You will help your child see books as a real alternative to phones, screens, videos, etc.

You can still write all over a book. ALL my non-fiction books are covered with notes, in pencil, pen and highlighters. You can use it as a tool and accept it’s going to get dirty. It’s fine; this is your child’s own copy. They will feel proud to have a possession they can personalise with names, stickers, colouring pens, post-it markers and their own handwriting.

Physical books make fantastic gifts, helping relatives to support families and grandchildren, nephews and nieces. There’s the thrill of the postbox, the delivery.

The main downside of a book is the risk it gets lost or damaged. You can’t make another copy. When it’s gone, it’s gone. Admittedly, though, this doesn’t happen too often.

I hope these thoughts help you decide which is right. 11plushappy guides are available in digital and paperback formats, so you are looked after whatever you prefer. But hold on…I’ve had an idea.

What if you could own both and make a huge saving?

What if there was a third way? What if, like me, you don’t want to choose? In a perfect world, you could have a digital and a paperback, right? But it would be too expensive and a waste of money to buy two versions of the same book, right? I thought the same, so I decided to create a double bundle of a digital and a paperback version of the guides at a £20 discount. Yey! Now you can choose not to choose. Now, you and your child can learn with a digital AND a paperback book.

£30 gets you both book formats, giving you all of above benefits. (That’s only £5 for the second book.) You’ll download your digital copy immediately, and receive your paperback in the post. Oh, and I pay for the postage, so that’s free to you.

Visit the http://www.11plushappy.com bookstore to start learning today.

I really hope this reading helps you decide. I’m really happy that I can now offer you three ways to help your child stay 11 plus happy!

Have a beautiful week of teaching and learning.

Lee, London

Eleven Plus Parents – You CAN do this!

Well, another week means another opportunity to help your child as they prepare for their 11plus. How is it going? Two very simple messages today. One is up there in the title. You CAN do this. Thousands of children do pass each year, these schools do exist, they do accept children, and you have an equal chance to any other parent-and-child partnership of making it.

The second message is vast in its smallness: you, as a guide, only have to be one step ahead of your child when it comes to teaching them a particular skill. You don’t need to be a teacher, you really don’t. You don’t have to know the whole curriculum. You really don’t. You’ll end up knowing the whole curriculum, but you do not need to know everything to start.

Rather, spend the day or evening before a session with your child learning the one topic you are planning to cover. With the online world, you are never far from finding dozens of resources and lessons and free videos to get going. Choose 2-3 resources ( I think it’s useful to have different approaches to a topic, to help you take a broader view) and spend an hour looking at the information.

As long as you’re prepared to be a beginner, and as long as you don’t worry yourself about what you don’t know, you’ll make great progress, and you’ll help your child make progress.

It’s not about what you know now, it’s not about your own educational background. Honestly, it’s not. When I was helping my first child, I realised there was so much maths I hadn’t learned or remembered from school. Even at teacher training college, several tutors brought up again and again that there was a belief among many student and professional teachers they were not ‘good’ at Maths, which was totally false, and based on either old-school learning or the fact that as we hadn’t used it daily in our lives, it wasn’t in our working memory. I actually fell in love with maths only at teaching college; at school…well, I hardly remember anything from my own primary lessons. Yet I learned it along the way, or rather re-learned it, and now I teach it with a real fascination and passion, alongside my relentless passion for English and the spoken and written word. My first helpful book was the original Bond How to do 11 Plus Maths books, which had short, but so incredibly helpful, introductions to many of the subjects. Each step takes you onto the next step.

We are grown ups and we can help our children and we can feel good, not bad, about teaching ourselves just enough to guide them. These are tests for children, so please remember that. They are designed to be tricky, they are designed to catch people out, but they are also designed to be passed!

So please, breathe out, smile, and remember:

You can do this.
You are not alone.
You only have to be one step ahead in one subject.
It is definitely okay to learn along with your child.
It’s okay to say, “Ooh, I don’t know about this yet, let’s go and find out.” Admitting you don’t know everything will often make your child feel better about learning, as they realise it’s natural to not know things!

Okay, 11plus parent, okay 11plus tutor, okay, 11plus child-superhero – have an incredible week. Time is our greatest tool. Smiling and relaxing might be our second greatest tool. Now, you can go to the subject at hand and learn your way through the week.

Start learning, stay learning, stay happy. Lee

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.

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.

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.

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

£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 … Continue reading 11 Plus Happy Creative Writing Models! Non-Fiction Edition: Instant Ebook Download →

Category: Ebooks – Instant Downloads pdf

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