How to get DS10 to do homework for common entrance exam

[lollylegs]

We are in Sydney and heading back to the UK at the end of the year. My son is keen to sit common entrance exam for a public school in the area we will be moving to but he won't do the work/ homework here to get him ready for the entrance exam. I feel like just chucking the whole thing in and letting him fail it but then I feel bad. Any words of wisdom please? What would you do? Let him fail and consider it a life lesson learnt and be done with it or would you try to push him along.

I am really quite over it to be honest. He's just had a melt down about doing some of the 10 minute tests.

Please help!

What school year will he be in when you get back?

If he'll be going into Y7 I'd just put him into a good Prep and let them do the work with him.

He will be in Year 6 when we get back.

Most of the school procedures have changed (as I think OP knows) so the initial entrance exams are largely going to be in Y6 so although a Prep would help with the CE in Y8, he needs to get over the first hurdle in Y6.

I sympathise as my Y5 child keeps assuring me he'll think about doing 11+ prep when he's 11 and I've explained various times that it doesn't work like that!

It's hard when you're a long way away but have you shown him the various school options - he may be marginally keener if there's a school he wants to go to. Otherwise, bribery/cajoling if he'll do something with a push or perhaps your plan B if he really won't.

Y6 pre-tests are often of the 'untutorable' variety, CAT tests etc.

At the Public school DH works at the pre-test is all personality based-team work exercises, personal interview etc. There is an academic element, but it is very much aimed at judging potential and would not need or benefit from a great deal of prep.

However, it appears OP has a very specific school in mind so perhaps knows that school has a pre-test that can be prepared for.

Are you talking about CE, lollylegs, or about entrance tests set by the school your DS might want to go to at 13 (which would be taken in Year 6, with CE to follow at the end of Year 8)?

It is a computer based pretest. The school he wants to go to is Tonbridge School but he just won’t do any of the test prep for it eg, learning how to answer the questions and working to the time limit. I am despairing.

It is pretty early to get het up about this. Unless it has changed recently he won't take it until October. In theory you can't prepare for the online test anyway. If he misses out on Tonbridge there are plenty of other schools available who offer different admissions procedures.

You say he wants to go there. If he does then make sure he understands that if he doesn't prepare then he might not get in. That he needs to give himself the best chance.

Our first hurdle was getting DD to even want to go. Once she'd visited and got enthusiastic about the school then it was like a switch and he had no problems (very little anyway) in getting her to practise. She was desperate to go there and was more than happy to work hard to get in.

In my (considerable) experience, the whole point of these computerised pre-tests is that they can't be taught/tutored for. They also go on ad infinitum, so nobody ever 'finishes' the test. Part of the point, I think, is that they are testing intelligence (or a certain type of intelligence), which gives boys who haven't been to prep schools as much of a chance as those who have. So at this point, I wouldn't worry about revising/preparing: I would just let your DS sit the test and see how it goes. He would presumably have an interview, as well? I've just had a quick look at Tonbridge's website, and it seems that the admissions criteria are changing slightly for boys entering in 2020, though that may not affect your DS.

I echo fairypenguin . Make your DS understand the correlation between putting the graft in and passing tests/getting the results. Not a bad life lesson for all of his future and not just the CE tests.