11-plus proves a headache for our radio team

Thousands of children will sit the Kent Test next week as they seek to land a place at one of the county’s grammar schools. You can find out how YOU would get on by taking the sample exam in our centre pages - just like our team of kmfm presenters did thi

The on-air team at kmfm have certainly got the gift of the gab, but have they got what it takes to pass the Kent Test? The exam, also known as the 11-plus, is always one of the hottest topics of conversation among the county’s parents. It has been criticised in the past for favouring those who can afford to pay for additional private tutoring for their children, and changes have been made to this year’s test to make it ‘less coachable’. So just how easy is it to pass the Kent Test? The kmfm team, joined by fresh-fromschool editorial apprentice Dan Wright, found out. Only two had taken the test in real life (with just one passing) so it was a nervous group who gathered under exam conditions in our Medway office. And it was immediately clear from some of the murmurings – ‘What’s an onomatopoeia? Where’s my calculator?’ – that this wasn’t going to be a walk in the park. Pre-test favourite Olivia Jones, presenter of the Hit List, conducted herself admirably but confessed to finding the test harder than expected. Despite scoring highly in the maths and English round, she still came unstuck when asked to identify which words were nouns, pronouns or conjunctives. Nicola Everett, who finished second to Olivia in the scoring charts, also performed strongly but despite being the voice of the kmfm news bulletins was unable to list any onomatopoeic words – and was still complaining hours later that the exam had given her a headache. Mid morning presenter Andy Walker may be responsible for kmfm’s 90s hour, but sadly for him his exam score was down in the 30s. He trailed in a distant last place committing the schoolboy error (no pun intended) of failing to even guess at some of the multiple choice questions. Rob Wills started strongly but the wheels fell off for the presenter of our Drive show when he ran out of time and panicked in the final round, flunking the last 10 questions. And what about Dan? He had the advantage of being closer to school age than his colleagues, and could immediately identify an onomatopoeic word, but like Rob ran out of time to complete the test and scored poorly in the final round. Turn to the centre pages of the paper to see how you would fare. The questions are based on previous year’s exams, and although the test this year has been slightly altered it will still give you an excellent idea of the kind of questions our children will be facing. Obtaining a ‘grammar assessment’ in the Kent Test does not guarantee a child will be offered a grammar school place as the grammars may be oversubscribed.

Next week: Don’t miss your 32-page education supplement