13+ CE Revision Guides

[willali]

Worth the investment? Looking at Galore Park revision guides @ £10 a pop

Hi. My son did CE last year so you have my sympathies. After buying lots of different things i discovered the following:
For Maths, science and geography use KS3 revision guides/books both higher and intermediate tier for maths.
French - the revision stuff from Galore Park was good.
English, History - I ordered past papers from Galore Park. These come with mark schemes so you can see what examiners want. DS then did practice essays.
Latin - there were no revision guides at that time so worked on past papers - also Harrow School has a section of useful vocab on its website and lists that required for CE and for scholarships it also mentions the grammatical knowledge required.
Again past papers useful.
HTH

Constantly thank you - did the "normal" KS3 revision guides cover the same syllabus for geog, history and Science? I'm thinking the advantage of the Galore PArk ones is that they match up to the CE syllabus / papers which they also produce!

I haven't used the Galore Park revision guides, but have used the text books.

For science, the syllabus matches the old KS3 one. You can use SATs revision guides. Seriously, though, your DS will probably get loads of practice at school.

For French, I don't think KS3 revision is sufficient for the higher paper, but GCSE is probably a bit much.

It is very unusual to 'fail' CE. The senior school preselects in Y6 or 7 based on VR/NVR tests, and the CE is just a rubber stamp confirmation, imo.

Blueberry I really hope you are right - we have got a conditional offer depending on getting 55% average in CE and yes the offer was made after a report done by prep school which presumably had details of assessments etc but still want to make sure that "we" acheive that magic number!!

I used normal KS3 guides for geography but just used the school text book and past papers for history revision.
French - the paper is no longer in tiers so it is up to the child to show what they know, make sure your child know to include a few more advanced grammatically structures etc. We used BBC bitesize GCSE to revise for the oral exam - as many of the situations are similar.
Also eliminate silly errors by making sure he can conjugate avoir, etre and aller correctly and that he can form the perfect tense with both avoir and etre. Get him to practise writing short paragraphs about his day/school/town etc and check for recurring errors. You can cherry pick some bits from GCSE guides.
HTH

I used normal KS3 guides for geography but just used the school text book and past papers for history revision.
French - the paper is no longer in tiers so it is up to the child to show what they know, make sure your child know to include a few more advanced grammatically structures etc. We used BBC bitesize GCSE to revise for the oral exam - as many of the situations are similar.
Also eliminate silly errors by making sure he can conjugate avoir, etre and aller correctly and that he can form the perfect tense with both avoir and etre. Get him to practise writing short paragraphs about his day/school/town etc and check for recurring errors. You can cherry pick some bits from GCSE guides.
HTH

willali,

When my boys were at prep school, their headmaster had been there ten years, and he told us that no boy had failed to get their first choice senior school, and phone calls on the day before results were rare. This school sent boys to Eton/Harrow/Winchester, as well as minor selective and non-selective schools.

The skill of the headmaster is to make sure that boys apply to the school that is right for them. If they do that, and pass the pretest, they should sail through CE. 55% is the standard passmark (some schools make it 65%), and the senior schools do their own marking. They don't have to use the actual ISEB papers or use the ISEB markscheme.

I would say that unless you went against the prep school's advice, your son should do fine. I say this with the benefit of retrospect - I was rubbish at dealing with this at the time. I even had to have DS2 board for much of his CE year as it was too much for me watching him not work, and constantly nagging. He is now doing his GCSEs, at a day school, and it really is painful. With DS1, I didn't have to worry at all.

BLueberry - this is totally our exprience - his prep school jealously guard their long held 100% record of getting into the senior school of choice - a choice which is HEAVILY influenced by their guidance ie they say "we think he is a St Cuthberts chap" or "you are thinking of St Cuthbert's? Well, in our experience we don't think that is the right place for him to flourish". So I may be over worrying but as you say watching the lazy little bugger can be painful so anything I can do to make the revision process a bit more interesting....

In fact he told me last night that they have been recommended to get the Galore PArk books so I'd better go and find the credit card!!

Thanks so much for the reassurance!

I guess a few revision guides are cheaper than boarding fees!

Boys!

Don't know the revision guides, but the books were good. The English one had lots of practice essays, comprehensions etc - for a child who needed lots of practice, and was recommended by the teacher.

The science one, again recommended by the teacher, had a really good glossary at the back which made testing easy for me as a parent. Ditto geography.

But past papers were best of all, especially for maths, and the school handed out bundles of them.

I would echo what has been said in previous posts. The prep is in touch with the senior school and they should tell you if there is any chance of a problem emerging. If you son has done the work it is unlikely at this stage, even for the most academic schools.

by the way Galore park are lovely to deal with - they even let me use a discount code that was sent out after I had ordered.
I echo what the others said - common entrance exams are now often just used for setting in London day schools with each school setting its own entrance exam. However, having the books helped me and also DS felt stressed because it was still seen as important.
The most important thing is to make sure he sleeps in the weeks before the exams as the exams themselves are very intense (all over in a few days) and our prep head said they are actually worse than GCSEs because they are so tiring - no days off.
Remember as well the prep and the senior school will talk a lot and even if your ds has a bad day (forgets to answer question on back of sheet etc) they should be able to show the school that it was a blip.

As a prep school teacher and a mum i can definitely recommend the Galore Park revision guides. Boarding did help too and is helping now with GCSE time - weekends are nag free as i know he has been working till 9pm each night all week! As for choosing schools, yes the Head should be geting regular feedback from staff and assessing the right standard of school for each child - in conjunction with parents' short list. Don't be afraid to go with your gut feeling as well though, as some Heads can be prejudiced for/against individual schools for purely personal reasons (they are after all only human too!). Tip - ask parents from previous yr groups for past copiesof revsison guides - little changes from one year to the next and it's easier to pick info on the slight changes than buy a whole new book. Age wise, CE is a terrible time - 13yr old boys are at that "am i bothered!" stage and the grls are too busy obsessing about their hair and looking right! Good Luck!