How to prepare for the 8+ exam
If your child is due to take their eight plus (8+) exam, you may have already found there is limited information available. This guide aims to provide all of the useful information you need in one place, to help you prepare your child for this important entrance exam.
What is the 8 plus?
The 8 plus is a school entrance exam used by a number of top schools, to admit pupils for entry into year 4. Students are required to take the exam during year 3 and they will be offered a place depending on their performance in the test.
Some schools may only carry out the 8 plus, soley accepting students into year 4. Whilst others may hold both the 7 plus and 8 plus, with entry points at both years 3 and 4.
The 8 plus exam content will be similar to the 7 plus, however is delivered at an increased level of difficulty since students will be one year older.
What is tested at 8 plus level?
Maths and English forms the main academic focus, for the 8 plus exam. Increasingly, schools now include a reasoning paper, which often includes both verbal and non-verbal elements. The test is often written or computer based, though may also include verbal aspects such as dictation, memory, spelling and mental arithmetic. Schools may also adjust the pass mark, depending on the age of your child.
The 8 plus follows a similar structure to 7 plus, however at a greater level of difficulty. The 8 plus is often taken in the January, for students entering in September.
Students will be expected to be achieving upwards of a level 3 in the National Curriculum. The 8 plus will include all areas of the key stage one curriculum and the beginning of key stage two.
Since standards at prep schools are much higher, the level expected at 8 plus is significantly above the national averages.
The subject knowledge and format of the exam does differ slightly between each school, therefore to know the exact content your child needs to study, it is important to check directly with the schools. You may find it helpful to refer to our school specific 8+ pages for more tailored guidance.
The process may also include more "hands-on" tasks testing your child's creativity and dexterity. For example, one school in London has previously asked children to draw a sketch of themselves. As part of the process, schools often ask for a report from the child's current school.
Those that pass the exam, are then often invited back for an interview. It is important to note that some schools carry out their interviews before hand or even straight after the exam. The interview will often include an individual chat with the headteacher, in addition to a group task that your child will carry out with other pupils.
What is the difference between the 7 plus and 8 plus exams?
For most schools, the 7 plus and 8 plus exams are very similar. The main difference is the academic difficulty, the 8 plus challenges students at a higher level. Whilst your child will take their 8 plus exam in the middle of the school year, as a minimum they can be tested on the full year three curriculum for both maths and english. Often, standards are higher than this, including questions that fall well above the national average for year three.
How to prepare for the 8 plus exam
As with any exam taken at primary level, small amounts of practise, regularly and consistently is the best way to prepare. Timed practise is also important using past papers, in order to ensure your child can still work to the same high standard given the time pressure of the exam. These will also allow progress over time to be measured, highlighting strengths and weaknesses.
English
The main areas tested are comprehension and creative writing skills.
Comprehension
Strong comprehension requires a developed vocabulary. When reading, children are often challenged by words they do not understand for example, words that are not part of their spoken vocabulary; unfamiliar technical vocabulary; and words that have more than one meaning. Encouraging your child to look at words in different contexts deepens their understanding of the nuances in vocabulary. You could ask your child to record challenging words in a dedicated notebook, where they can write definitions using their own words.
Successful comprehension also requires readers to use their knowledge, to fill in gaps in meaning, this is known as inference. To develop this skill, you could ask your child to make predictions about characters and events in stories.
To fully understand a text, readers must use both their long-term and working memory. Children can find this a challenge, due to their limited long-term memory and overloaded working memory. To develop your child's comprehension skills, you could introduce some background information to a story, before your child reads and encourage them to take their time, re-reading any sections they find difficult.
Your child should be reading above the national average. Graphic texts are an excellent way to support your child in accessing higher level reading, developing inference skills and critical thinking. This is because they have to understand the interplay between the words and the pictures to make sense of the text. Gradually building up the amount of comprehension work set for your child, will develop their speed and stamina with challenging texts in addition to answering questions within a tight timeframe.
Creative writing
To be successful with the creative writing component, it is imperative that your child's response is directly linked to the question rather than a memorised, well rehearsed piece of writing. Schools have been known to ask children to continue the story from the comprehension section or to write a story in response to a given picture, idea or other prompt.