Post Common Entrance Scholarship activity ideas

[timmytoes]

DS will sit 13+ scholarship exams in early May and all going well will have months and months before he starts boarding school in September. Does anyone have any suggestions as to what he could do to fill his time particularly in the pre holiday period ? He is quite sporty but ideally would like to spend time with others of a sim age and most boys from his school will still be hard at work studying for CE.

[SonorousBip]

Can he touch type? It is a fabulous skill to have and I am going to try and get DD to learn post 11+.

[onebananatwobanana]

If you are looking to fill in c1month between scholarship in early May and 13+ CE in early June, it's not long. Firstly, what do the school suggest (as I assume he is staying in school?). Are there others around in the same boat also sitting scholarship exams at the same time - I would be asking school what they are putting in place for him otherwise he is going to be doing CE practice papers with his mates! Even if this is their (unimaginative) answer, it's only for 3 weeks or so (because of half term), and he could also lend a hand to the weaker students, which he may enjoy and find satisfying. Alternatively, ask the sports teachers or art department if there are any projects he can do in those few weeks before the end of year 8 programme kicks in (I assume your school runs a programme at the end of year 8 for everyone with trips, projects, plays, activities etc - ours does), which takes care of June and the early part of July until they break up for the SUmmer holiday.

Good luck to him in the exams.

[Patricia909]

School should be running a post scholarship programme for those not doing CE. If they are not, I would be asking why not. You are presumably still paying fees and if your son wins a scholarship this will be used to advertise the school. Low cost options would be some kind of extended project on an aspect of history or science that interests him. He could also do extension work in maths or languages. Art project/school play/helping younger students.

[summerends]

Agree with Patricia, My DS's school had a fantastic post exam programme ranging in time from early scholarships to May scholarships and then finally post CE. Surely your DS's school has similar? If not it is not fulfilling its remit.

[1805]

ds sits his scholarships in early March!!! Even longer!!
Have you asked the school what they do after the exams? ds's school get them doing a major science project of their own choice, swap french for spanish, and latin for greek. They have a week in Normandy, and two days of fun outings. Ds is really looking forward to post exams!!
Surely he won't be leaving school after his exams, so school will organise suitable stuff to do. Ask.
Good luck to all dc taking exams. ds in the middle of his mocks at the moment.

[homebythesea]

The school will be doing stuff! But if like my DS' it is a lot of doing nothing much at all please for the love of whatever get them to do an intensive touch typing course - it is so important and is still really neglected by schools. The odd session in ICT just won't cut it and I weep internally to see all these kids typing with 4 fingers when they had every opportunity to do a proper course post CE

[happygardening]

Keep him at home till after CE results are out? Let him just chill out for a couple of weeks he'll love you forever.

[Needmoresleep]

There are a couple of French boarding schools which are willing to take English students for a term. See if he could go somewhere like that for a month.

[grovel]

Eton teach touch typing to all new boys.

[timmytoes]

Thanks for all the comments but still really interested in fun ideas for a boy who will be fed up of academic work but does not really chill. After 1 day of non stop FIFA I expect him to be bored, raring to go and making my life misery if not engaged. Unfortunately in a very small prep school with less than 10% of boys sitting scholarship, the Latin teacher will be teaching Latin, the Science teacher will be teaching science etc so there is no cover for new subjects such as Spanish, Greek etc. The school will suggest DS helps the younger boys but I'm pretty sure the attraction of that will fade after a day or so. As to touch typing already has a 44 wpm , not the highest but should suffice. Needmoresleep - do you have the name of the French schools, that might be interesting especially if there are girls !

[antimatter]

Suggest he learns something from www.codecademy.com

[TheFirstOfHerName]

antimatter beat me to it: I was going to suggest he learns to code.

Other ideas:
Learn a musical instrument
Learn to touch type (useful for 'big' school)
Learn a new language

What is he passionate about?

[antimatter]

There are some amazing programmable Lego robots as well.
He can progress then to learning about Strawberry Pi and get his hands dirty connecting it to his TV etc www.cl.cam.ac.uk/projects/raspberrypi/tutorials/quick-start/

[summerends]

In which case timmytoes I agree with HG, keep him off school until halfterm or post CE, go on holiday somewhere together with an activity that you would both enjoy.

[happygardening]

"go on holiday somewhere together"
This is what we did, head moaned I ignored him, what could he do; ask us to leave? We had a wonderful time.