7+ WUS and SPJ 2022

[animalplanet1]

Hi there,

Just feel it's been very quiet here this year on the 7+ exams and no thread has appeared wrt to those two schools.

Anyone out there also prepping?

xxx

Following 😭

I'm preparing my summer born and feeling very anxious.

Hi @animalplanet1, I'm so sorry - my app won't load my inbox after sending me a notification 😏.

Hope the prep is going ok at your end. I feel as though I'm drowning in English creative writing.

no worries. My DS loves Perry Gripp too!

I was wondering the same ! prepping with summer-born...fingers crossed I suppose :) we are applying to 4 schools

@walkinpark I'm told they adjust for age but who knows now much attention is given to this. I wonder if anyone knows whether the cohort in selective schools is skewed towards winter borns

@ItsRainingTacos79 Hi all, re your question on DoB, my son just started SPJ in year 2 in Sept and there is a good mix of autumn, spring and summer born (almost half is after Feb)

@Lolakath19 that is really reassuring to hear, thank you so much 🙏🏼. And well done to your son, he's done amazingly well. Hope he's settled in.

Anyone else is struggling with the creative writing? DS cannot even finish one single page within 25 mins - boom!

same here....BTW how come you are not doing King's next week?

Yes, @animalplanet1 we're having trouble with creative writing. DS struggles with developing his ideas and keeps seeking reassurance that he's not 'doing it wrong'. It also seems to vary day to day, one day he could articulate so well and other days it all falls apart and he won't even remember capitals.

He also approaches the work like it's a race, making lots of silly mistakes even though he knows the correct answer🤦🏽‍♀️. Between now and the exams we need to work on time keeping.

@ItsRainingTacos79 having the same issues with DS and the race aspect - nightmare!

Some days DS is spot on and some days spectacularly off, I feel like it’s so hit and miss and feeling like we still have a huge mountain to climb. There is no way we’d pass now if we had to do it right now. Anyone else feeling like this?!

Hi @WoodlandWalks123 they are so little right now and I have accepted that inconsistency is normal...am not sure if there is a 'pass mark' though...it depends on how the cohort does I suppose...are you working on targeted areas of weakness?

@walkinpark yes English is our weaker area so we have been trying to focus on that - however I’ve not done anything over the summer and I feel like we’ve massively lost ground over that time. Now seem to have a big mountain to climb and I honestly don’t know if we will get there!

hi @WoodlandWalks123 have you done any mocks or long-ish tests at home? yes english is a tough one as it is tough to get my son to write fast

@walkinpark no we haven’t done any mocks or timed tests yet, we will probably do that in November earliest, we have worked through a few past papers though in a non timed way - and we’ve got a long way to go!!!

@WoodlandWalks123 we did a mock a couple of months back and it highlighted a few problem areas especially around how to approach the test...I am not sure how any kids can just go take the test without any preparation...the concepts are one thing but the timing and technique cannot come naturally to a 6yr old? anyway....we see how it goes...first test in a few days :/

We did a mock recently and the results were not great. I frankly don’t know what to expect. DS is at an all time low and does not want to revise even for 30 minutes a day. No doubt I am stressed, my DS has gotten super stressed too. Wonder why he scored so poorly in all sections, even the Reasoning. Any support/advice will be greatly appreciated.

@mothersgrace I find that if DC is having an 'off' day (tired or emotional etc), then he doesn't do so well and at this age, it is hard for him to just suck it up and focus. which mock did you do? we wanted to do EPP but no slots and the Reasoning was off for my DC too (for the one we ended up with - another provider). Was there some pattern to the stuff he is getting wrong? maybe you can work on those areas specificlaly? or maybe he is just saturated and needs a break !! especially if you feel he is getting stressed - maybe just needs some down time?
PS - Have you dont the Bond 7-8 books and EPP Reasoing tests?

I'm so feeling everyone's pain and anxiety. It certainly feels like climbing a mountain.

One bit of advice I'm trying to take on board is to do just one piece of work well each day rather than ploughing through multiple pieces and doing them badly. The temptation is to bombard them as we near the assessments.

I was focusing on creative writing in the last month or so and having now revisited some of the maths and non verbal reasoning - I can see things are starting to slip a little here.
So I've split out our week to cover a different thing each day on rotation. Previously I was trying to squeeze a bit of everything in daily 😭.

By the way, does anyone know if you need to bring your own stationary to the assessments or do they provide everything?

Hopefully they provide their own as DS is insisting on taking an eraser and that would be game over. He'll spend the entire time rubbing out🤪

@ItsRainingTacos79 please tell your son not to use an eraser, he should just cross out whatever he wants to correct. Rubbing takes ages, neighboring lines get rubbed out too and it’s just way too risky.

@2minutesplease yes, I am desperately trying to wean him off the eraser and have been working on showing him how to cross mistakes neatly. He obsesses over any little mistake and can't seem to move on until he's happy that no one can see the mistake. The worst is when he re-reads his work and finds a word missing so he'll try to squeeze it into the gap, making a real mess of neighbouring words.

@ItsRainingTacos79
with the missing words have you tried *, when the DS just draw a star symbol wherever he wants to add the word/phrase/sentence and then write it under another star symbol at the end of the story?
When doing maths his answers should be very clear. No crossing out one digit of a 2/3-digits number, just cross the whole thing out and write the correct answer.

@2minutesplease thank you🙏🏼. It's little things like this that I need to instil in him.