Prep 7+ assessment

[indiesearcher]

Hi all,

We are hoping to move DS to a nearby prep school, ideally as soon as possible.

He will need to attend an assessment day, and we've been told it will include;

Maths assessment
Creative writing session - sounds like this is supported
Reasoning test on a computer
Playtime with other applicants

To me this seems quite full on but we are happy to have a go!

Has anyone any experience of these, how hard they are in practice, and how much will hang on the results of the tests vs his personality?!

Many thanks

It's depends a bit on the prep but private preps have to assess the pupils they take in from year 3 because from the end of year 4 they will start asking parents to think about secondary schools etc and they need to manage parent expectations.
Also small schools have limited TA and sen provision so they often can't take a dc with SEN as they don't have the space or staffing to support. More academic preps need pupils who can work at their classroom pace. It's good for you to also know if the school is the right fit for your dc before you start making the payments!

Thank you. DS is pretty average, decent reader, maths is fine to good, spelling is poor but handwriting is quite neat... we don't have any expectations for secondary, ideally the local grammar but certainly no fancy privates.

I guess I'm just worried that he's never even seen a reasoning test - should I try to do a bit of prep with him for that part?

Yes I would buy a book and show him the patterns etc, it doesn't take long to get the hang of it and can quickly improve his performance. Something like CPG verbal reasoning 11 plus for ages 7-8 for GL assessment.

Great thank you so much.

There are a number of threads on 7+ I have started over the years please take a look there is a lot of useful information on there

Can you please link those threads? Thanks