To be cross that DD in year SEVEN has come home with an exam timetable?

[MaureenMLove]

There's nothing like piling on the pressure, eh? All of year 7's are doing progress tests next week and she has come home with an EXAM timetable. She's panicking now.

My school have also piled on the pressure for yr 7's to revise for them. Surely the whole point of progress tests is to see what they can do, not what they can do on the day because they've revised. Surely if they remember things just because its fresh in their minds, they'll put them in the wrong sets, because the teachers think they can do it and then they struggle. Great way to boost a kids confidence!

Its the bloody 11+ all over again.

Oh is it? Birthday greetings firmly retracted in that case

I think that secondary schools have always had end of year exams.

My dd is in year 7. SHe has had tests every four weeks or so in core subjects to test at the end of each module and next week she has a test in all her subjects (including art!) Don't think it's particularly strange.

It IS ggod practice, esp if she'll be going on to do A levels etc. The system at my uni used to be that you could get an exemption from all end of year exams if you had a high enough average in your coursework, which meant many people went into finals having not done any exams for four years. That's is FAR more stressful!

Luckily they changed to a modular system before I started Honours, so I had exams and essays throughout.

Exams are a skill just like essays are a skill. They aren't good for everything but it's useful for your daughter to learn how to do them.

If she's getting stressed (is this a perfectionist girls thing?) then maybe talk about how exams are a way of her showing off (this would have worked for me) or a game where she gets the rules and gets the results?