Composition standards for summer term of Year 1 if preparing for 7+

[poundland]

I'm thinking of putting DS forward for the 7+ exam next January but he is struggling in composition. A tutor told me that DS, who has just started summer term of Year 1, should now be able to write a 1-1.5 page story with a beginning, middle and end, use compound setences, interesting connectives and vocabulary with perfect grammar and spelling. DS can muster 10-15 sentences (at a stretch) in half an hour. There is a beginning, middle and end with pretty average vocubulary (even though he loves reading) and his handwriting is appalling. DS has had two bad teachers at his private pre-prep and the school is in turmoil. I'm wondering whether DS' composition writing is too far behind for us to consider the 7+ exam? What is the experience of parents who's DS have successfully passed the 7+ for the London day schools? Were your DS able to write an excellent 1.5 page story at the start of the summer term of Year 1?

Who is the tutor? Is it one that you are considering using? Find someone else who is more experienced, you shouldn't have a problem getting him ready for 7+, you have plenty of time to help him along. By the sounds of it the tutor has told you what is expected, just make sure he knows it by assessment time, no big deal if he doesn't know it now.
I don't think my son knew how to write an excellent 1.5 page story at the start of summer term of year 1, but he could by the time 7+ assessments rolled round! PM me if you want any other titbits about sitting 7+.

I have some children in my Y1 class who would easily meet the tutors criteria and others who require lots of support to get 5 or 6 sentences down on paper.

Never heard of the 7+ before. I've been teaching for over 20 years, but reading threads on MN has opened up a whole new world to me. Thank God I've never been to/taught in/ put dd in a private school.

Is this 7+ a London thing? (London does seem to run in a bit of a parallel universe to the rest of the country)

Have you seen the 4+ threads ??

4+ ??????????

So the poor little sods have about 2 or 3 years to be children, before getting squeezed into the cramming machine.

Thank you very much Swimmingwithsharks. I have sent you a pm.

OP it really depends on which schools you are looking for. Some schools want higher maths levels than English.
The other consideration is that if his 15 lines are well written without punctuation errors he'll be forgiven for not writing pages and pages.

What mum teacher said with regard to quantity. Some children write teams but it starts off well and the just ends up being unstructured waffle...

They will be looking at many things. Your son will need to demonstrate different techniques within his writing. He will need to write a certain amount to be able to demonstrate the variety needed.

I'd say that he doesn't need to be able to write a whole page and a half yet though. I'd suggest 3/4 of a page of well written work is sufficient for end of Year 1.

However, having a clear structure is important and he should be able do a beginning, middle and end.

Concentrate on extending those sentences, by adding in exciting vocabulary, and using connectives to push his ideas 'further'.

If he loves reading, get him thinking about the sentences he reads in depth, why is it written that way, why are those words chosen. Get him substituting words in stories he reads for more exciting ones. I find that this is the best way of teaching 'excitingn vocabulary'. They have to have really experienced it, to understand how and why to use it.

Spelling and grammar obviously important. By the time of the 7+ I'd expect him to e very secure in full stops and capitals, proficient with exclamation marks and question marks and make good attempts at using speech marks and commas.

I hope that all makes sense.

Push for handwriting support though as first impressions count! That's something you could work on quite easily at home. But a good prep should offer support for those struggling.

Happy to answer any further questions - I'm a yr2 teacher in a london prep.

Thank you very much mumteacher and workingitoutformyself. Your comments are very helpful. We will try to improve DS' handwriting. His pre-prep is not helping with 7+ prep as the headmaster wants the boys to stay for 8+ for the extra year of revenue.

Ahh always a tricky situation that one. Best of luck :-)

I have not heard of the expectation to write 1.5 pages for the exam. Our 7+ tutor advises that quality is preferred over quantity

I teach in a primary school outside London. We do have a few children with tutors, but they are children who find English and/or Maths tricky, get extra support at school, but whose parents want to support them at home and don't really have the confidence to do it themselves.

Do many children have tutors, not because they are struggling, but to pass exams? Again, is this a London thing?

I think it's mainly a "London thing" and perhaps areas where parents don't feel they have a chance of what they consider "good" school places.

I would also say it's more than possible for children this age to produce high quality work and write at length.

Agreed you don't need such long stories - three quarters of a page is plenty. Long boring rants (and then , and then, and then ) are ten a penny. Also, whilst tutors bang on about beginning middle end (and wetherby goes for a 5 section structure) I think this is a bit of a snare. Have any of you tried to write a plot led story with a formal beginning etc in 30 mins?

The schools are fed up with canned essays and so tend to set essays to try to avoid this eg by giving the first paragraph and asking the child to continue it, or to say what they think might happen next in the comprehension passage.
Do encourage use of paragraphs, coherence, don't sort your plot with deaths, generally avoid alien abduction, use interesting vocab and relevant similes. I am sure decent handwriting helps but my two DSs managed it with gruesome pencil work (suspect my youngest will have pubic hair before he has a pen licence )
Also, at the margin maths is more important - they take mathematicians with weaker English over good writers with weak maths, so how are his numbers?

Thank you michaelahpurple. You give me hope. DS' maths, grammar and reasoning are all very good. He is scoring consistently in the high 90%s in his class tests so maybe all is not lost. His spelling is very good in the spelling tests but dreadful in his compositions. It's as if he can't compose and spell at the same time. I'm relieved most people think 3/4 pages of quality trumps 1.5 pages of average writing.

I totally agree with Michaelahpurple. Best to try and prepare them well in the hope they remember something! Manoeuvre your son away from the rambling nonsense if that is what he is liable of producing. Look at the past papers from the schools you are considering, they will probably all vary slightly in lay out ( a picture story to write about, continue from a starting sentence/paragraph etc) I didn't get your PM Poundland, try again.

While perfection is ideal , an essay with interesting words and concepts spelt badly always beats a boring mechanically correct one. Just work on the obvious homophones (we're, where, wear, their , there , it's , it's )and any favourite words - my DS always used "suddenly " and always left out a D, and leave the rest to what falls

Would you consider the sentences
"One stormy day Miranda gazed out at the tempest. Jagged lightening split the sky and waves crashed filling the air with tiny drops of rain."

Written by a 5 year old re telling The Tempest ...continued in a similar style for more than a side of A4.

Having been through this process twice successfully with two different boys, I can agree that things are not as black and white as your tutor is telling you.

My first son's strength was his story writing, and he would easily create an original lengthy story with "exemplary" (the target school's words) vocabulary and complex sentences in the 30 minutes given to him. HOWEVER, he has atrocious spelling and is often so engrossed in the plot that he forgets capital letters and full stops. Did not prevent him from getting accepted.

My second son was at a disadvantage as he entered the English system in Year 1 with the reading, writing, and maths skills of a child entering nursery as he was switching from a different type of school system. He struggled to get a story cohesively written in the 30 minutes, and he certainly could not get a page and a half down! He does have a flowery poetic way of describing things which does hint at writing potential, but vocabulary and structure were nowhere near his brother's level. Although the schools did admit that writing was his weak point, it was still considered acceptable and taken with his excellent scores on the other subjects did not harm his chances of getting in.

In other words, these exams are not tick box exercises and whilst your son does need to be able to produce something with a sense of structure and direction, they are not looking for Proust, and if his maths is excellent, they will be more lenient on this section of the exam.

Both my dcs passed 7+ without tutoring from state schools. I had no idea there was this tick-box approach to the composition - had I known, I would have freaked out. Mine both had terrible handwriting and, in one case, incredibly poor spelling. I have no idea if they used connectives or not, I doubt they did it in a sophisticated way. I am sure the school was much more interested in a wide vocabulary and a vivid imagination and I suspect they were relieved to see some non-prepped stories!

As others have said - 15 good, imaginative sentences would be perfectly fine. My DS had to be extremely encouraged to produce more - but his maths was excellent. He was also prone to writing lists of birds (on the most tenuous of topic connections) and he still got into one of the hardest boys 7+ schools. I don't think the markets get hung up on "perfect" spelling. They'd want to see good basic level and good attempts at harder words.

Your tutor sounds bonkers - if a kid could do that already you would t need a tutor!

I'm
Currently preparing my third child for 7+. Roll on Jan 16 when I never ever have to get the poor child to do another comprehension.

For posters asking is this a particular London madness - the answer is most definitely yes. I think other independents have entry at 7+ but it's more a checking they are at national standards. In London the very academic prep and through schools are choosing the most academically gifted kids. For us, it's a chance to get the kids into good schools avoiding 11+ which is more of a bun fight. It is all crazy though.

Haggis .... I agree with your comment that OP's tutor sounds bonkers. However, I disagree that London's "very academic prep schools" are "choosing the most academically gifted kids". Sadly, what they often get are the "most academically tutored kids", some of whom are indeed naturally "gifted". My children attend "academically selective" prep schools; I am a volunteer teacher in a "deprived" state school I see signs of "giftedness" among children in both schools in almost equal measure. MRZ's example of a Y1 child's writing in a state school presumably un-tutored other than by MRZ's classroom teaching -- also shows that 'gifted-ness' is not the preserve of academically selective schools!
As Michealapurple said, I think the prep schools often struggle to find ways to test for natural ability as opposed to over-trained formulaic writing. They modify the tests, particularly writing tests, to try to stay a step ahead of the tutors and get a truer sense of children's abilities.

OP -- I would suggest just letting your child do his normal Y1 school work and see how he progresses naturally. There are many excellent schools in London and no need to push a child to prepare for exams. If your son is doing well on his own with his normal school work, he will do fine on his 7+ or 8+ tests, if you decide to pursue that route.