How to choose the Best 11 Plus Online Course for your child.

Online tutoring has exploded recently due the world events of COVID-19. Once you could visit a Local Tutoring Centre, see for yourself the organisation, their staff, how they teach, the environment they teach in and then make your decision. This is not possible for Online Courses, so what do you look for in an Online Tutoring Course. This article is going to answer this question for you, how to choose Best 11 Plus Online System in the UK. Being in this industry for decades we can share with you our experience on what you should look for in an 11 Plus Online tutoring Course.

Firstly, we must try to understand the purpose of an 11 Plus Online Tutoring Course, it is to teach a young child aged between 8 to 10 years old, new topics which are not covered in the national curriculum. It must have the facility to teach them the subject matter from scratch. It must guide them through questions and more importantly it must cover the right content for 11 Plus Examination.

So, what should you look for?

11 Plus Content and Experience

The truth is that with so many systems to choose from it is a maze to separate the good players from the poor ones. So, you must look at the background of the company offering the service, is it a specialised 11 Plus Centre? Do they truly understand the 11 Plus content and do they know how to teach it? Do they have the 11 Plus underlying knowledge? These are the questions you must try to establish, once you understand this, you will be in a better place to take a view on the company that is providing the service. There are many ways to get this information, you can scan through their website and try to capture this information, look at their reviews from past customers, and you can give them a quick call and ask the above questions, this will also tell you if there is a real person on the other side of the phone. This will help you understand if the content is likely to be of a high standard in the 11 Plus Online Tuition Course.

Once you understand the background of the company in concern, you need to start looking at the learning features that they offer.

What are the features of the online learning systems?

Course Structure

The 11 Plus online courses must be structured, they must follow a path in terms of content and navigation. If you give a 10-year-old child too many buttons to click, they will get lost in the system. It must be focused and give the child a cycle to go through. We have seen systems that simply allow the student to jump from one test to another and it fails on the fundamentals of keeping the child’s attention focused on the subject matter. ETS 11 Plus Online Course is built around a ‘focus mode’ it provides a clear path for the child to complete their work before they can move of to the next stage. This prevents the child from simply completing half the test and then trying to do the next one. If the system allows you to move to different parts of the system, it can be counterproductive, more so if the content is ‘geared’ meaning it gets harder as you progress. Your child would find it difficult to do the harder work without fully understanding the easier parts of it.

Also, the structure should support progressive development, meaning that the child must obtain a minimum percentage mark before they can move on. This may mean that your child must perform the same tests multiple times to improve their marks before the system allows you to move to the next stage. Hence, look out for systems that are structured.

Guidance – Hints, Examples and Answers

There is no point having an online system that does not help you. You may as well buy some books from the bookshop and go through them. There is also no use of a 11 Plus online system which just gives you the answers without an explanation. 11 Plus online systems are very intelligent these days, and you need to be sure that you have invested in 11 Plus online course which provides some real value in these areas. Educational Tutoring Services 11 Plus Online Course has a 3-point system.

The first is that it will provide a ‘Hint’ on every question, this will not give the answer to the question, but helps to jog the child’s memory on how to do the question, they may use the ‘Hint’ as often or as little as they want.
The second is that after the child has submitted their work to be marked it will provide the correct answer for every question that they got wrong. This enables the child to see questions they got wrong.
The last point is that with every question the child got wrong it shows you in clear steps, how to do it.

So, in summary the guidance of any online courses should:

Provide ‘hints’ throughout
Provide ‘correct answers’ after the test is submitted
Show the child ‘how questions should be done’ if they get it wrong.

Incentives and rewards

Keeping a child motivated for long enough so that they learn is important. As we all progressed through our lives, we have always been rewarded for anything we have achieved. With learning a ‘Certificate’ to prove that we have completed an examination successful is a reward. The system must reward the child for getting good marks. If you earn a certificate too frequently, it will lose the value of the certificate. So, a certificate must not be easy to get and is a point of recognition of doing well in a test. These certificates show the child’s name and test they performed, and the mark achieved and the accrediting body.

Timed Tests

We all know that there is never a test in real life which does not have time limit to it. The 11 Plus Online Course must have a timed tested, which is of a challenging difficulty and tests the child on the work they have done. This demonstrates that the child can do questions in a finite period and develops the child’s soft skills as well as the academic ones. With almost 3 decades in the educational industry, we have seen too often children who are very able, but lack in their ability to work at a good speed. If there are 100 questions and you only completed say 70 in a 60-minute test, it is possible that the easier questions may have been at the end of the test. So, you must teach a child to miss out the hard questions and go through the entire test and then if they have time, they attempt the questions they have missed out. A good online system will always have timed tests.

Summary of a good 11 Plus Online Course:

Content & 11 Plus Material: The 11 Plus Online course must have the relevant content and questions for your child to do. Look at the history of the company, call them, ensure their material is at the right level.
Course Structure: The course must go through the 11 Plus Tests and Questions in a systematic way. It should prevent the student from jumping from one area to another, without completing the work. The work should be progressive, so it gradually uses what you have been taught and builds upon it.
Course Guidance: This is again very important, an 11+ online system must provide ‘Hints’, ‘Examples’ and ‘Answer’ for each question. The 11 Plus Online Course must have an excellent element of self-learning and guidance, built into the system.
Incentives and Rewards: An online learning system must motivate and keep the child engaged. This is best done with rewards and incentives. It must provide certificates for good performances.
Timed Tests: An online learning package that does not have timed tests, would be missing a critical feature. It is important for children to be able to do questions in a time limit.

Educational Tutoring Services have one of the best 11 Plus Online Courses in the UK, that steers the child through 11 Plus questions of challenging difficulty to those of the real exam. To enrol or to read more about our 11 Plus Online Course please click here.

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