I have a year 5 daughter who we are entering for the Medway 11 plus this September. Living in Cuxton however many of the children also go to Kent schools. Should we also enter her for the Kent 11 plus?

Two things going through my head, not sure we would send her to a Kent grammar if she passed this and not Medway, and as the test would mean we would have to work on the nvr which doesn't appear in Medway are we better on focussing on the things for the Medway exam.

However, the school ( and I know local tuition centres, although she doesn't attending tutoring) seem to encourage pupils to sit both. I guess this is to give them a better chance of getting into a grammar school.

What are others views? any advice welcome.

I can only speak from personal experience and chose only to enter my daughters for the Medway Test, as they wished to attend a specific school and did not want to sit anymore exams than necessary! However, sitting the Kent Test does give the advantage of increasing the chances of success, also Chatham Grammar School for Girls accept a Kent Test pass, not withstanding the travel arrangements from Cuxton.
I would also be aware that in addition to the NVR in the Kent Test, The Medway Test is set by a different examiner (CEM), so the structure of the test and timings are quite different.
Geographically, although Cuxton is not particularly close to a specific School, the transport links are good to Gravesham and Maidstone and as such increase your pool of potential schools.
It maybe prudent to enter your daughter for both but monitor her mood and enthusiasm during early September and if she is not receptive / confident, do not take the Kent Test.
I hope my ramblings are of some benefit!
All the best; whatever choices you make.

We live not far from you. Everyone we know who passed Medway also passed Kent, but it is good to have a back up. Our experience was that the Medway test was harder, with less time for questions; most children failed to complete some sections. MGGS would be an easy commute by train. The only issue we heard about was indecision from children when faced with a choice of schools, sometimes choosing a school in the opposite direction to which the parents wanted.

Thank you.
That all makes a lot of sense. I think we will work on the nvr and see how it goes. Does seem like a good idea to keep our options open at the moment. Doesn’t mean that I have to enter her when the time comes if things not going well.

It is safer to do both exams, since last year, the Medway exam has become harder than in the past when it was GL, particularly due to the timing. Non-verbal is not the only difference though, the Verbal reasoning for Kent is different from the Medway Verbal Reasoning which is CEM (Antonyms, comprehension, Shuffled sentences, Synonyms, odd one out). Kent's Verbal Reasoning is GL (based on the previous 21 types of questions e.g. sequences, codes, compound words, etc).

If you are not using a tutor, you need to purchase both GL and CEM books if you want to prepare her for both exams.