7+ advice

[shoutymcshoutsmum]

Hi everyone. I have a wonderful son who turned 6 at the end of August. The school has recommended he sit the 7+ for two very academic schools in January. Whilst he is definitely able, he is not very mature. I don't want to stress him in any way but I would love him to to try his best in the exams. How do I do this? At the moment, he just zooms through the papers and then says "Done, easy". Of course, that means he makes loads of silly mistakes. As I said, little chap is only 6....

Thanks for your advice.

Have you thought of writing an answer to a question that he'd typically rush/ mane a mistake in answering. He might enjoy it if you gave him a red pen and the opportunity to mark it/ core t it, telling you how they'd have got all the marks available.

Thanks AnonyMust. I will try that. I think it will be interesting to see how he reacts.

Laughing at my own typos. Oh, the irony!

If he responds well to playing teacher on YOUR error-laden examples (maximum of one error per line/ 2 lines), your next step would be to ask him (indicating with a dot in the margin for every word spelled incorrectly, etc.) to see whether he can be a detective and find what to correct in his own work - scoring him a 'point' for every error identified within the line and corrected. Keep it all positive.
Later on, you could encourage him to 'get points' through proof-reading his work without dots indicating lines containing errors.
You'll soon attune him to the importance of proof reading his work (checking for and correcting errors) - and you'll be able to identify which spellings, missing words/ grammatical points, punctuation marks, etc. he actually needs to learn vs check for.

That is extremely well thought-out Anonymust, thank you so much.

DD sailed through her entrance exam but the school age adjusted scores/expectations (I think most do). That should work in your son's favour

Alongside worksheets, I think the school looked at how she would fit in a class/how she read and emphasised...whether she looked engaged (they kept banging on about having seen a "spark/interest to learn" in her eyes at the family interview). If it is a sporty school, it probably doesn't hurt to have a few badges/interests under his belt.

Definitely like the marking Mummy idea. I bought a few Bond books as I had no idea what verbal/non-verbal reasoning tests might look like.

I kept things super low-key (only DH and DD knew we were sitting the exam). DD had seen the school and I explained she would have to do a set of tests so the teachers could see if she would enjoy it there. We'd done an open day...so we talked about things we had seen we knew she would have loved.

Not getting in would have been a bit annoying for us, but not a disaster.

Thanks Madcats. Our school has a year 3 so no disaster if he doesn't get in. Next year I may be less relaxed!