Emanuel School entrance guide

11 Plus Entrance Guide to Emanuel

One of our experienced 11 plus tutors, Ally, shares her thoughts on preparing for the 11 plus entrance examinations at Emanuel:

Emanuel, like many other schools in the 11+ circuit is an academically selective independent school in southwest London. It is one of the fewer independent schools in South London that offer a co-educational school experience and describes itself as a happy, well rounded, and positive learning environment. Of the pupils I have had pass through the process, they have all expressed their enjoyment of the experience and opportunities at this school.

In terms of admissions, Emanuel uses its own entry process which consists of an exam in the following: English, Maths and Verbal reasoning. Entrance to the secondary school can be taken at 10+ and 11+

Emanuel’s 11 plus entry process:

If applying at 11+ it’s going to be essential that your child has a solid grasp of all the curriculum they covered in year 5 and beyond into year 6. Your child’s prep-school will have been preparing their pupils for this and hopefully have all this in hand. Keep on top of reports and follow up on any guidance for improvements with your child’s teachers and/or tutors if you are enlisting support.

That’s not to say that pupils entering from the state system won’t be successful- far from it, providing the child is meeting or exceeding all the National Curriculum age related expectations.

Step 1: This step will take place in the summer of year 4 going into year 5 and will involve ensuring that all gaps in knowledge are closed. So that skills and knowledge in the curriculum are either secure or being exceeded. Work on areas of weakness in small and manageable bitesize chunks (e.g., 10-15 mins per day of descriptive writing skill development or 10-15mins per day of fractions).

Step 2: Practice exam level material – You may wish to use a combination of the following at this stage:

• Your child’s usual homework
• Specific 11+ textbooks (e.g., Galore Park) that cover the exam material
• Sessions delivered by an experienced tutor who can tailor lessons to your child’s needs.

Step 3: Practice exam level material in timed conditions. This stage is when specimen papers are useful. Preparing your child for success will involve recreating the conditions in which your child will sit the exam in. Getting used to working under timed pressure will ensure that they are not thrown by the exam day and support them to perform their best. Similarly, preparing for interview will require some preparation in terms of ensuring that your child feels confident speaking and presenting themselves and giving well-reasoned answers to questions on the spot. You will want to avoid having prepared answers, but interviewing is quite an unusual situation for a 10/11-year-old, so familiarity with questioning and speaking publicly will be of great benefit.

I’d never want children to feel stressed by this process, so making sure that preparation is timely, and part of your routine will support your child to feel confident rather than overwhelmed by the process. I would always encourage families to value the process rather than getting fixated on the outcome to support the wellbeing of the family.

Good luck with your journey!