The Challenge: what 11+ is all about

Inventing Characters Read! Journal Word Notebook

Choosing Titles The Fab Four Golden Rules Generating Ideas Stealing Ideas From an Idea to a Plan Planning from a Picture Stories Based on a Passage Stories Based on a Sentence An Example of Good Planning

Describing a Location Longer descriptions Describing a character's appearance Dialogue Distinctive Voices Show, Don't Tell Characterisation: Shown Feelings More Characterisation Techniques Playing with Sentences Playscripts Action Suspense

What is story structure? 1 Exciting opening line 2 Set the scene 3 Talking and describing character 4 Characterisation 5 Suspense 6 Action 7 Cliffhanger Standing Out: How can you stand out from the crowd? Clever Clogs: Non-Linear Clever-clogs: Two perspectives Clever-clogs: Narrative voice Practice 11+ exam titles

Checking your story in an exam Redrafting = improving your story What if I run out of time in an exam? The Grumpy Examiner's Pet Hates

Year 2 into 3 Lemony Snicket After Harry Potter Must-Read Authors Spy Novels Horror Stories Classics Animal Stories Adventure Historical Fiction Myths & Legends Fantasy Family Stories & Comedies

If you are looking to go to an independent secondary school in London you will be asked to sit some exams.

It would be lovely if secondary schools could take everybody who wanted to join them. Some primary schools are like that. I work at the Falcons School for Girls and if you want to come to my school, you don't need to sit an exam or test: you just turn up (but you do have to buy me a nice present at Christmas, ha ha!).

Unfortunately, there is a limited number of secondary schools - and some of them are very popular. Let's say, for example, you fancied the look of St Cake's School. Your next door neighbour goes there, and they love it; you went to the Open Day and the teachers seemed really nice. Oh, and they've got a brilliant drama theatre.

There's just one small problem.

You're not the only little monkey who fancies a piece of Cake. 600 people apply, but there are only 100 places in Year 7.

Miss Joan Broody, headmistress of St Cake's, has got to find a way to decide which of those 600 to take. She could offer places to the richest - but that would hardly be fair. I suppose she could pick the children who were tallest, or those who are best at making farty noises with their armpits - guess what, kids? She decides against both of those. St Cake's, like most schools in London, decide who to take in three ways - references, interviews and exams.

Miss Joan Broody writes to your headteacher, asking them to fill in a form all about you. This form asks the teacher to write about what you're like in class, whether you're helpful and how good you are at things like music, art and PE. She will pay a lot of attention to this form, but I'm sure you can guess that ALL of the headteachers of ALL of the different primary schools ALL say nice things about ALL of the pupils...

You'll be invited in to have a chat with the headmistress, or another important teacher at the school. This sounds a bit scary, doesn't it? Don't worry. Every year, children say to me. "I'm really worried about the interview!" When they come back, and I ask them how it went, they always go, "Oh, she was really nice!".

You can find more information on preparing for interviews here.

THE BIG ONE!

Now, the 11+ exams set by St Cake's are a bit unfair in one way: they don't test you on your history, your geography, your art, your music or your ability to make your friends laugh. Nearly every independent secondary school will ask you to sit two or three tests.

Maths: There's a maths test that last between 40 minutes and an hour. Obviously it'll test you on all the things you normally do in class. You might think that if you can do sums quickly - but be careful! Most of the questions are word problems and you'll need to read them carefully. You can find more information on reading questions here.

Verbal / non-reasoning: You may well have verbal or non-verbal lessons at school. If you don't, there's loads of books in the shops to help you. Not all the schools do one of these tests, but a lot do.

English: Now for the big one! The English is normally in two parts, and the tests tend to last an hour. The first part is comprehension, and you'll learn lots about how to tackle this in class.

The second part is the composition. If you want to see what a typical composition paper looks like, click here. Composition is what the Key to All Mythologies is all about - so you've come to the right place!

Last updated on August 10, 2007