Atom users

We've used ATOM for four months. She's done 3907 questions and covered 88% of the course.

She is state primary and throughout lockdown we had tons of paper exercises from school but zero teaching. We are not going for a competitive independent. She scores 102 - 110 on ATOM mocks (usually stanine 6). We have good state options too so aren't overly worried about where she ends up. We have told her she may or may not pass, it's not the result which matters - we are proud she isn't afraid to try. It's also really great experience. She said she was nervous this morning but still at breakfast OK.

The ISEB pre-test was this morning and I bought some flowers in her favourite colour and some large gooey cookies as a well done for when she got home. She seems positive about it, said she tried every question (didn't panic and make a random selection!) and had about 10 mins spare for each test. Just a wait until 30 October to hear if she is offered a place.

OP, you sound very anxious. Relax, your son is doing great. Anything over 115 is top independent level. Anything over 100 is good independent. The cohort is already a strong one. And not all private pupils are ahead of state: many will go to non academic secondary private schools. Almost none go to state grammars, which tend to be where state primary kids go.

Don’t you think there is way too much anxiety around the 11+ ? which (while understandable) is jumped upon by tutors and sites like atom. remember that both are in it to make money, so it is in their interest to get the user hooked to them—and to do so, they cause this sort of anxiety.

I saw this with those tutor groups too. I don’t have the answer, but seriously, don’t worry. Also, it’s important that your child goes to a school he will enjoy. Fits in easily, academically. Having been to grammar, the kids at the bottom of the class were miserable.

Yeap, they have an incentive to I guess. Their equivalent of sats results is senior school destinations so they have to. Although a lot of private kids around me have tutors anyway.

@noughtmare you didn't come across as that at all. We are in the same position, barely anything from the state school and finding VR really challenging. He's scored better than I thought he would so we will give it a go, we have a good comp option tho so that's the main reason I'm not stressing out too much.

My only suggestion would be to maybe print off a GL familiarisation assessment (the free one) and get him to do it like that. It can be very different doing it on paper than clicking a mouse, especially if he's been doing it mainly on the computer.

Sorry Saturday!

Lol we're sitting the Latymer on Monday and we just signed up today.
He got 111-115 on the mock test but we hadn't done any work before this. We're just going to use it everyday till Friday as that's when the trial runs out.
You've done tons.