Preparing for Superselective

[Thesouthernwindisblowing]

Hi
Dd is about to start Y5 at a very poor Primary school and I want her to try for superselective as alternatives are pretty poor.

I have been looking at Schofield and Sims Mental arithmetic books but am unsure of which one we should be working on.

Any suggestions of which would be good at this stage and how they correlate to levels?
Thanks

Oh and what sort of things should she be doing to prepare for verbal reasoning. The exam is prepared by GL - would Bond books be okay?

Hello OP

These books are very good but not sure if they are what you are looking for as I don't know anything about superselective schools.
My dd is H.ed and we use both the Mental arithmetic and the problem solving books. They also do English books that are good too.
The books at KS2 go from 1-6 obviously book one borders KS1/ Y3. By the time you get to book 5 and 6 you are bordering on KS3 which I think would be the level you would want to be buying. It does list the levels on the back cover, but doesn't give enough guidance imo. However, can thoroughly recommend, although they are very dry. Unlike the fun books of other publishers.
I found this in unanswered, so thought it would at least bump it a bit.

OP- what NC levels is she at at the moment?

Hi southern can I ask which area/county you are in, as different areas have different papers, and some are changing soon, so you would need to check this.

At this stage, the most important thing is to make sure your dd is reading reasonably challenging material, coming across enough new vocabulary, and able to understand and process what they read. This coupled with a good grounding in KS2 maths, and a secure knowledge of times tables and playing with numbers is a good way to prepare for looking at the tests in more details.

If you are sure the test will still be set by GL next October, then the publishers to look out for are IPS (they do good, clear technique books to start off with) AFN, Bright Sparks tests, PHI Learning Lab books, Walsh tests, GL Assessment (yes, they do publish a great book which introduces the question types as well as packs of question papers.. Pack 2 is harder and best kept for nearer the exam time). Check whether the test your dd will sit will be of standard format or multiple choice, too.

Are there other grammar schools to choose from in your county or only super-selective schools? I am just curious as to why you're only interested in a super-selective school.

Hi. It's wallington girls. Thanks for replies. She got 4a for reading and 4c for writing and maths.

Thanks to all for such detailed replies. They are very helpful to know what to buy!

Doing a little research throws up that while the above would be useful for the Verbal Reasoning section of the test, Wallington Girl's high school write their own maths tests, so it would be a good idea to seek out a tutor for at least some maths preparation, as you are looking at one of the most highly competitive entry tests in the country.

Have you come across www.elevenplusforum.co.uk yet? Loads of information on levels/materials and threads for posting/searching. There are preparation guides which i seem to remember looked useful. Good Luck

oops wrong link sorry:
www.elevenplusexams.co.uk

Ok. Bought schofield and sims mental arithmetic book 3, gl practice pack 1 verbal reasoning, gl guide to verbal reasoning, IPS book 1 and 2 verbal reasoning tests and ae tuition book 2 although not sure if this one is too hard.

You have a whole year, so put the ae to one side, and just go through the maths book and GL guide, a bit at a time over the next couple of months. GL!

Sorry to be a pain but don't totally get what a super selective is ? Is it a Grammar that has no catchment ? And if so does that differ from a Grammar that has a catchment but takes children fom outside catchment if they get a higher score?

And Curlew has asked what NC levels at the end of year 4 the OP's child has, is there a level they generally need to be? Someone said to me level 5 yesterday which seemed a bit steep for the end of year 4 to me but I am pretty clueless.

Apologies, I should have started my own thread really.

Thanks. Will follow advice re what to do.

Wynken, a superselective is usually a grammar school where admission is based purely on score, with no distance or catchment requirement. So typically whereas a normal grammar school is aiming at the top 25% of the population, a superselective will be aiming to select the top 5%. Most of the grammar schools in or close to London are superselective, which results in a booming tutoring business.

Wynken I think level 5s at end of year 4 are a high level but prob about right if aiming at superselectives such as Tiffin. I am not in Sutton area but think Wallington (and other grammars round there) have the catchment plus "will take higher scores from out of catchment" selection methodology.

OP a year is plenty of time to prep your DD for the exam if she is able - and if after a year of proper prep she turned out not to be able, it probably isn't the right place for her anyway. Good luck with it. Practice does help a lot, especially with the VR.

Should I be doing verbal reasoning now or leave it till much nearer the time?

I'd start now. Get one of the technique books and start working your way through. There are sometimes tips and tricks for each type of question. From the word on the street, the questions aren't designed to catch the girls out as such, but they do need a high score, so method and not screwing up timing is key as of course is vocabulary. Do free rice or any other vocabulary game.

Thanks, ladymuck. Don't suppose you know what percentage she should be aiming for in practice papers?

Start with the technique book and introducing the questions. Don't do any question papers yet, save them for when your DD has had a chance to understand what they are meant to do with the questions. The practice papers vary in difficulty too, so a poor mark at this stage on a difficult paper isn't going to do anything for your DD, and could knock her confidence.

(If you have any questions, feel free to pm me. )

I'm afraid that for Wallington you are looking at 90%+ in practise papers by this time next year, though they're not the hardest of papers. That said the maths has had a few level 5 questions especially on algebra. If dd is just entering year 5 I wouldn't go for the actual test papers yet though - they're something that you would want to work your way up to by next May say.

Going to encourage her to read more classics. Will start her today on swallows and amazons. I think maths will be the harder one for her. She is getting 28 out of 36 on the schofield book 3 which puts her, according to their website, at 4b so will need to do more on this.

There's a technique to VR

I thought its raison d'être was that you either 'get it' or don't - the success being more down to having good general word power rather than good exam coaching.

On the schofield and Simms website there is a test you can download to find out which of the mental arithmetic books your child is operating on. I find it tests a little high, but is a food start

Are the Bond books passé? When ds was doing his 11+ (in a superselective area within Kent) everyone bought Bond along with practice papers - that was years ago now though