Wesminster Under/Colet/King's College

[anisk2s]

Hi all mums,

Need your help/advice with admissions to 7+ for our DS for 2016 intake. We have started preparing him since last month with bond books. He is quite strong in maths and unless makes some silly mistakes should be able to ace through it. Similarly his verbal/non-verbal reasoning are strengths and with enough exercise he should be able to deal with it. The problem we have are in some specific areas:

1. English comprehension / story writing: Looking at what everyone has been saying the standard seems quite high certainly compared to what he gets/does at school. His language skills are good but not extraordinary. He also struggles with abstarct and open-ended questions. Are there any good comprehension books we can use to practise? Also what are the type of topics that are given for story writing?

1. Interviews: What type of questions are asked in interviews? Are kids expected to display certain types of behaviours or just be themselves? Again how do we prepare? We are particularly worried about King's admissions as the first filter seems to be interview

1. Reading: There is a long list of books in Colet website such as Horrible History/Geography, Butterfly Lion, Rudyard Kipling book etc. While our DS has good reading skills (among the top 2 or 3 kids in his class) some books such as Horrible Histories are tough for a Yr1 kid to understand and appreciate on their own. So I wanted to understand what other mums and dads have done to prepare

1. Arts: In some schools (Westminster I think) there is also a test on arts - I may be wrong here. The trouble is this is the weakest point of our DS. We don't expect him to become very good at it in 7-8 months but we want him to at least have some sense of proportion and symmetry. Are there any good exercise books which can help him out?

1. Anything else I have missed out?

Appreciate it's a long long list. Thank you all in advance!

@ superworried NVR and VR are quasi IQ tests. Boys at the "academic" London pre-preps are examined intensively for a week each term - so they certainly have experience of times exams for 1 hour in each subject with up to 2 hours of exams per day - and they commonly receive intensive tutoring or coaching after school from their parent (which parents try to pass off as not tutoring) or a "paid tutor". Just decide what your DS needs to do to achieve his goals. You cannot control what other boys are doing so it's pointless stressing about the competition. Your DS can only do his best and you can only do your best to prepare him as well as possible.

My DS sat 7+ for KCS last year. No tutoring at all. We did the KCS practice papers a couple of times beforehand but nothing else. He passed.

Good luck. There will be lots of heavily tutored and prepped boys applying but don't let that stress you out - a bright boy can pass without it.

Thanks for all the advice. I think those who got in are mostly really natural talents and being pushy and tutor'y is not the best fit for my DS. So I'm going to take a more relaxed approach with some light but regular workout for DS and see how he fares in the beginning of the 2016. If he makes it, bless us. If not, we'll just accept and let he be the same happy boy as always... God bless all!