Urgent advice needed for Year 8 child, English and Maths

[FellatioNelson]

Hello, I wonder if any teachers of English and Maths could advise me? I have just moved to a new country with my DH's job, and I need to get my year 8 child into a school. The system here is that he will (hopefully) go into an English curriculum international school which is private. No state education here, as such, except for the local children, and it's all Arabic/Islamic. The schools all do an assessment before they will commit to taking a child, and the bunfight for places is horrendous. As we are applying at an unusual time of year I am hoping he won't have too much competition and it will be a case of 'fee-paying bum on an otherwise empty seat'.

He is above average in English (although he is a truly rubbish speller, his reading is quite good and his comprehension and vocab both pretty good) but slightly below average in maths (I am guessing, but as he was previously in an independent school I am not sure how his levels are, compared to 'national average' in SATs.) But he writes and works painfully slowly, which is an issue for him in tests.

He is reasonably intelligent, inquisitive, insightful etc, however, he has an appalling memory - completely sieve-like and find it hard to retain methods for maths, especially.

He is a very young year 8 (late August birthday) and due to the crap timing of us moving out here, has been out of school since breaking up in mid July, so he is very, very rusty.

He has a two hour assessment on Thursday. One hour English, one Maths. What can I do with him at home over the next few days to get him up to speed? I know about the bite size website but I am not sure exactly what kinds of things the school will test him on, or expect him to know. Can you please advise? I would be eternally grateful.

[Moominmammacat]

Bite-size is as good as anything. If he hasn't done much since the Summer, you just need to get him sitting down and concentrating. Two hours is a long time for an eight year old ... good luck.

[FellatioNelson]

No, he's not eight, it's year 8! But yes, two hours is still a long time!

[overthemill]

if it is English curriculum go to national curriculum site and check out. But BBC Bitesize will prep him for the likely testing. Just go through the revision, activity and then test. Obv it's a bit late to advise this but getting the KS3 revision books from Letts or someone from amazon will help him anyway. Have you done anything with him since July or is he going to find this all a big shock?! good luck