Key Details

Course length: 5 days.

Single workshop length: 1.5 hours (including a 5-minute break).

Total course length: 7.5 hours.

Start date: Monday 5th August 2024.

Time: 9:00am-10:30am

Exam style: suitable for all 11+ exams with a writing task.

Spaces: 10.

Appropriate for: year 5 and 6 students.

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Course Dates

Workshop 1 — Monday 5th August 2024, 9:00am-10:30am

Workshop 2 — Tuesday 6th August 2024, 9:00am-10:30am

Workshop 3 — Wednesday 7th August 2024, 9:00am-10:30am

Workshop 4 — Thursday 8th August 2024, 9:00am-10:30am

Workshop 5 — Friday 9th August 2024, 9:00am-10:30am

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Course Outline

During an 11+ writing exam, students are required to write in continuous prose in order to showcase their grasp of written English. Questions can ask students to either write a creative story and description about a given topic, or a structured letter or essay in order to demonstrate their reasoning skills.

In this course, we will walk students through the key persuasive and informative writing techniques examiners reward generously. Students will work through how to plan, prepare and write a high-scoring persuasive and/or informative writing piece. All elements of both persuasive and informative writing will be studied (including structure, tone and key persuasive writing techniques). Students will have plenty of opportunities to use their own opinions and practise creating persuasive arguments and informative pieces of their own.

Most importantly, students will be given simple memory aids to help them deliver what examiners will reward highly according to the mark scheme. Therefore, they will go into their writing exam with a plan, and a clear idea of what they need to demonstrate in order to achieve a high mark.

A 25-minute writing task will be set as homework after each workshop and this will be marked by our tutors. You will receive your child’s marked work as well as personalised verbal feedback on each assignment, focusing on areas of improvement needed in order to hit all elements of a writing mark scheme. This feedback is normally around 5 minutes long per piece. Importantly, the tutor will not just say what the student should have done more of. Instead, they will show the student by adapting the student’s writing and giving concrete examples about what they could have written. The verbal feedback is usually around 5 minutes long per submission and is delivered as an audio file that can be played on a smartphone, tablet or laptop. Along with brief written corrections, the consumable audio recording ensures students are absorbing as much of the feedback given about their work as possible.

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Tutor

This course will be delivered by The Exam Coach’s team of tutors. All of our tutors have:

• Passed competitive exams such as the 11 Plus.

• Attended a Russell Group University within the last 5-10 years.

• Received two weeks of training to deliver expertly within our online workshop format.

• Taught our 11 Plus exam preparation curriculum on a regular basis within the last two years.

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Key Persuasive and Informative Writing Skills Covered

1) Understanding and answering the question. Students will learn how to understand and answer different types of writing question, ensuring they give the examiner exactly what will be rewarded highly in the exam. Mark schemes and model answers will be studied, as well as the difference between persuasive and informative writing style exam questions.

2) Planning and timing. Leaving enough time for planning, writing and checking is key for a writing task but difficult to master for the 11+! We will teach students how to effectively do this.

3) The basics of persuasive writing. Students will take an in depth look at the basics of writing a persuasive argument, including using persuasive techniques such as rhetorical questions, flattery and exaggeration. Students will be given a variety of prompts, allowing them to use their new knowledge and skills to craft their own sentences and passages of persuasive writing.

4)  The basics of informative writing. Students will then take an in depth look at the basics of informative writing, including using informative writing techniques such as listing, facts and informative language. Students will then be given a variety of prompts, allowing them to use their new knowledge and skills to craft their own sentences and passages of writing.

4) Complex 11+ writing. Moving on from the basics, students will then be taught how to master the more complex parts of an 11+ writing exam, including using tenses, voices, sentence variation and complex punctuation.

5) Types of writing. We will explain how to identify and answer the different types of persuasive and informative writing questions that could come up in the 11+ exam. We will look at model answers for persuasive essays, persuasive letters, newspaper articles, book reviews, and balanced essays. 

6) Vocabulary expansion. 11+ writing tests a student’s knowledge of both writing and complex English vocabulary. As part of this course, we will focus on expanding your child’s vocabulary, to ensure they can showcase their knowledge of the English language in their writing exam. We will work through some complex synonyms and antonyms for more common words, as well as identifying the meanings of tricky words in our model answers.

7) Writer’s tools and literary devices. Students will be taught the key literary devices (or writer’s tricks) they will need for their writing exam. They will be taught how and when to use devices such as alliteration, repetition, rhetorical questions, listing and flattery, as well as how to come up with their own examples of these in an exam situation. Students will be provided with easy ways to remember these techniques under exam conditions.

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Course Resources

Worksheets, model answers, class notes and homework are sent out before the start of the course. These can either be printed or viewed digitally. For all workshops, your child will receive:

• A worksheet to complete in the workshop.

• One or two model answers for the questions studied in the workshop and/or the homework task.

• Class notes to help consolidate learning and give students an opportunity to recap some of what was covered in the workshop.

• A 25-minute homework task.

Each workshop’s homework should be submitted before the start of the next where possible. Though, it will still be marked if handed in slightly later.

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Homework and Marking

A 25-minute persuasive or informative writing task is set for all students after each workshop. They can complete this task after the workshop has finished and it should then be sent to us via email (teamkeen@theexamcoach.tv). Each piece of homework will then be individually marked and reviewed by our tutors (usually within 2 working days). For each submission, you will receive:

• An annotated copy of the homework to indicate where marks would be scored.

• A 5-minute-long voice note from the tutor to your child, celebrating good writing, correcting any mistakes and highlighting areas for improvement. Importantly, our tutors will show your child how exactly they can improve their writing by rephrasing what you child has written and then explaining why their edited version would receive more marks in the exam.

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How To Join

After purchase, you will be automatically invited to the course roughly 48 hours before the start time (or, as soon as possible, if the workshop starts in sooner than 48 hours).

Confirmation emails will be delivered to the email address you provide at the checkout.

If you have any questions, please contact us via WhatsApp on +44 7547 645100, you can also send a message here.