Parents often ask me which books are most suitable for their children and I am consistently able to recommend the Bond Assessment Papers. They contain several assessment papers are always well structured, enabling the tasks to get increasingly harder – both within each book and across the books. Private schools recommend them too as preparation for entrance tests. Bond papers are commonly stocked in bookstores and readily available online from places such as Amazon, where they are cheaper than in stores. I have found standard delivery only takes about 3 days and very rarely any longer than that. The cover of these books clearly states the age group or level of the books. The more confident, competent 11+ candidates should ideally be at level 4 by midway through year 5 and certainly coping well with the papers at level 5 or 5+ by September of year 6. If these levels are not on the books, look for the appropriate age which is noticeable instead.
Parents often ask what I think of the ‘How To Do… Verbal Reasoning’ Bond books, and my answer is this: Yes, they are very helpful – if you don’t have a tutor. If you do have a tutor, your tutor should be able to take you through each task, which significantly reduces the need for the ‘How To’ books.
Once your child is consistently doing well with the 5th (or age 10-11) Bond Papers, try the NFER papers, which are A4 size and come in packs. Please do not give the NFER papers to a child with limited or no experience of NVR and VR. These papers are not aimed at beginners: they are aimed at children who have had experience of each type of question and they are notably more difficult. If a child can score well on these NFER papers under timed conditions specified in the parent/teacher guide enclosed within the pack, s/he is highly likely to pass the 11+ – or at least do well in that particular component.
For Maths:
One of my best buys is a book called Maths Key Stage 2 Revision Guide, published by Schfield & Sims. It’s blue with a blue pencil and a yellow pencil on the front. I chose this book because it gives instructions on how to do nearly all components of maths (its only weakness being the absence of information on algebra) and it gives short assessment tasks beside the information. Don’t worry parents: answers are included! Occasionally children do not understand the information given, but parents will. There are some useful illustrations and good examples to model how to work out sums and demonstrate, for example, the different types of triangle. The Contents and Index pages are useful too.
My second favourite book is WHSmith’s Practise Problem Solving, which is purple. I’ve got the Age 9-11 version but there is also a version for 7-9 year olds. I bought this book when some parents mentioned to me that their children didn’t read the question properly. Often questions involve several parts that need to be calculated for the correct answer to be construed. Questions in this book are sometimes staged so that each question depends on the answer that comes before it. Not all questions are like that. The problems offered range from simple problems that use addition or subtraction to more complex ones including time, money and patterns and sequences. It’s a good book to use if a child is struggling or needs more practise with various mathematical functions. A child weak in addition may complete tasks on the problem solving: addition pages, for example.
NVR
Letts Success Assessment Papers More NVR age 10-11 Year 6 (It’s purple!)
Letts publish a wide range of resources and are experienced educational publishers. Evidently the reason for their continued success is the quality of their products and reputation of the company. This book is also available for children in years 2-5.
The six papers included in this book comprise a good range of questions for NVR and the instructions for each task are clear and well written. A point worth noting (that is not necessarily a criticism) is that these papers are a fair bit easier than the 4th and 5th Bond papers and perhaps could be used as preparation or as a supplement to the Bond Papers. This book may be most useful to children who need confidence developing NVR skills and want to feel they are working at an age-appropriate level.
Practise & Pass Develop NVR (It’s blue with clockwork clogs on the front cover!)
This book is brilliant! A parent who had been using the Maths and VR versions recommended those papers to me and as I had a week where I needed to specialise in NVR, I purchased this book. (Incidentally, there is also an English book in the series, but I haven’t seen in yet.) In the three books I have used, there are several sections, each divided into two parts, suitably entitled ‘part 1’ and ‘part 2’. I like this approach. It allows for differentiation. If a child is new to these tasks, s/he can perhaps do part 1 not timed, and then part 2 timed. Or do part 1 with a parent/teacher and part 2 independently. The questions in each section get increasingly harder and actually become quite difficult at times. Occasionally there is an error though – for example in a code question, where the codes for all of the pictures is the same; in another example two of the multiple choice answers are identical. But don’t let these flaws deter you from the book. It really is quite useful otherwise.
Like the Bond papers, multiple-choice answer sheets are provided and these allow for good practise by candidates. Often children miss out a question in the tests and then miss out an answer in the grid sheet and so if they miss out question 4, for example, they must be sure to fill in the answer for question 5 in the space for question five on the answer sheet and not in the space provided for question 4. Practise answering questions and marking the answer sheets should help reduce the risk of this fatal error.
About Sara Connerton