Secondary School Entrance Exams

[yummymumoftwoandanangel]

We went for our daughter's Parent Teacher Evening yesterday and I have become very disillusioned. Our daughter has been a consistent straight A's student and is currently preparing for her secondary school entrance exams in January. However, yesterday at the meeting we were told she had a B in her Maths exam and a D in her English exam. This has really shaken us to the core and don't know what to do. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Did you ask why? It seems very odd if you have been told your dd is a straight A student but actually does significantly less well in exams.

Are they trying the up-the-ante scare tactic by any chance?

The prep I was at did that to us in the Mocks - marked excessively hard so that we were all petrified we'd fail and so everyone upped their game.

You and she need to now where she went wrong. Was it just a bad day (which of course is still a risk on entrance test day), timing , exam technique, misreading questions, panicking and leaving answers blank or minimal, insufficient use of expressive language and punctuation etc. Then you will know what to address to help her up the standard a bit.

Do all the children leave at 11 or might they be trying to suggest she isn't ready to take the tests and should stay until 13. Were these tests in a similar format to those she is due to sit; at dd's prep the few preparatory sessions they had focussed on one particular style of paper and not the type or topics she had to sit for the school she is at now.

If she has been an A student up to now,maybe the pressure is getting to her a bit and she panicked?
How did she feel the exmas had gone? If she knows she hadnt done well, perhaps look at some techniques to help her stay calm. If she thought she'd done really well, then maybe look more closely at where she went wrong and concentrate on those areas.
Did the teachers make any comments on her ability re the entrance exams?