Secondary School

[Techsavygal]

Hello Everyone,

My DS is studying in a local grammar school which is reputed and has ofsted rating as "outstanding". However, I noticed that the school does not provide enough reference materials and no notes on how to prepare well for the exams. My son although is scoring well in end of term tests and online quizes (Corbett Maths, BBC Bitesize, etc) is struggling with end of the year exams. He advised that the questions are very hard at the end of the year exams which were never asked as part of homework or end of term assessments. How can one prepare for schools giving Foundation Plus or Higher standard exam questions? Could you please recommend any online resources for exam preparation? DS is in Year 8. Thanks

@Techsavygal it may be worth you asking MNHQ to change your thread title to something more specific, so you attract the right audience.

Every school's approach to assessment is different in key stage 3 so I suggest you ask the school. Grammar schools often do have exams which push their very able students to think outside the box, to demonstrate a deeper understanding and to differentiate between the smart kids and the super-smart kids in their cohort. It can undermine some children's confidence in their ability.

Hi @Techsavygal I agree you need to speak to the school.

Is he really being tested on topics not studied in class? If so that's surprising. Or do you mean as @drubadub suggests, he is being asked to analyse and discuss at a deeper level in exams?

Not sure at all what you mean by Foundation Plus or Higher standard exam questions? Are you referencing GCSE questions? If so I doubt the purpose or use of that in year 8 tbh.

There are lots of threads in secondary education on this board covering ways to revise which might be useful, as that's always worth spending time on.

As an example, in maths, it's common for some grammar schools to include some UKMT style questions in the paper, as a differentiator. They will use skills that have been covered in class, but students may need to think laterally about how to apply them.

Many exam questions ask students to use what they do know to a novel situation. Some students feel like they’ve not been taught about that exact thing, but they have, they just need to apply their knowledge.

For example, my Year 10s can calculate gravitational potential energy. They can calculate power. Very few could apply that to a question about using a set of steps to find the most powerful pupil in a class. They whinged I had not taught them how to do that, but when I showed them the answer, most agreed they had the basic knowledge, they just needed to think laterally.

Thank you drubadub . Yes, my question was more around exam preparation and how to help DS to demonstrate deeper level of understanding in the end of the year exams. DS also gave UKMT tests (Maths Challenge) in school and is aware of the type of questions.

clary The topics in the end of the year exams are not something they didn't study in school. But as drubadub advised above, the questions are lot harder and perhaps require more deeper level answers. Since DS school would start GCSE preparation from Year 9 (year 8 is almost over), we are keen to get him to look into anything we could do in the summer to help him do well in Year 9.

Thank you all for your responses. I will check other threads in this forum to understand the ways to revise and prepare for exams.