Hi all mums,
Need your help/advice with admissions to 7+ for our DS for 2016 intake. We have started preparing him since last month with bond books. He is quite strong in maths and unless makes some silly mistakes should be able to ace through it. Similarly his verbal/non-verbal reasoning are strengths and with enough exercise he should be able to deal with it. The problem we have are in some specific areas:
- English comprehension / story writing: Looking at what everyone has been saying the standard seems quite high certainly compared to what he gets/does at school. His language skills are good but not extraordinary. He also struggles with abstarct and open-ended questions. Are there any good comprehension books we can use to practise? Also what are the type of topics that are given for story writing?
- Interviews: What type of questions are asked in interviews? Are kids expected to display certain types of behaviours or just be themselves? Again how do we prepare? We are particularly worried about King's admissions as the first filter seems to be interview
- Reading: There is a long list of books in Colet website such as Horrible History/Geography, Butterfly Lion, Rudyard Kipling book etc. While our DS has good reading skills (among the top 2 or 3 kids in his class) some books such as Horrible Histories are tough for a Yr1 kid to understand and appreciate on their own. So I wanted to understand what other mums and dads have done to prepare
- Arts: In some schools (Westminster I think) there is also a test on arts - I may be wrong here. The trouble is this is the weakest point of our DS. We don't expect him to become very good at it in 7-8 months but we want him to at least have some sense of proportion and symmetry. Are there any good exercise books which can help him out?
- Anything else I have missed out?
Appreciate it's a long long list. Thank you all in advance!