Eleven Plus Teaching Methods

Teachers and parents, working with Eleven Plus children, use a variety of teaching methods.

As well as monitoring the intellectual side, they have to take into account the physical and emotional side or learning.

Sometimes, for example, it may be deemed to be necessary to use a straightforward drill. A fact needs to be learnt. This is how you learn it. Now learn it. The problem is that the dullness of constant repetition tends to destroy interest. Teachers and parents will therefore use a variety of methods to try to help their child learn new facts.

It is very difficult, however, to be able to describe a single method that could be used to inculcate values or attitudes towards Eleven Plus work.

The school, for example, could have a positive attitude towards the Eleven Plus. A different school would be less enthusiastic. One Year 6 teacher could work hard with the class to prepare as many children as possible for the examination – while another teacher in the same school could, perfectly rightly, disagree with the whole idea of selective education. After all personal choice is at the heart of education.

Within a family there could be different attitudes towards the Eleven Plus. One parent could be highly focused – while another could murmur: “What will be, will be.”

An older brother or sister, or close relation, could have had a positive Eleven Plus outcome – while another could regard any discussion on the Eleven Plus as heresy. (Punishable by ostracism!)

All the new teaching aids exposed by the internet could lead to the assumption that new methods of teaching are being developed. In reality, among the most valuable methods of teaching Eleven Plus children, are probably those of warmth, interest and subject expertise.