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

If it's a school that goes to 11 or 13 they may not be supportive as they want you to stay.......

Ditto to what @passport123 said. Our school goes up to 13 and they are not too pleased to find a record number of requests for references from the various selective schools this year.

oh dear - but if they will receive the reference request anyway, then surely it is better to give them heads-up? and make sure they are fully on board and to giving a glowing reference?

and even if 'frowned upon', am sure schools understand the realities of 7+/8+ etc etc - I mean, you didn't invent this weird system !!

haha obviously I was born yesterday...forgive my naivete :)

@passport123 @ItsRainingTacos79
yes our school is a prep to 11 so they will not be happy that we are leaving (and even less so 5 different school applications lol). However totally agree with @walkinpark that must be better to give them the heads up and try and keep them vaguely on side rather than receiving reference requests out of the blue….not looking forward to this conversation at all!!

some of the schools that go to 13 refuse to give references at 7 or 11, that is made clear when you apply.

Yes this is the case here too.

Schools requesting references are told it's not happening. It is then up to the parents to provide the selective school with a report, if available from previous years. And relationships with the head/teachers become awkward for the remainder of the school year/years.

that is outrageous ! I cannot believe some schools are so petty !

Speaking of summer born kids, I must tell you that there are quite a few of them in the cohort who started Year 3 at Kings. At least 8-10 out of 54, so don’t be disheartened! Good luck!

ah thanks - they said they do not standardise by age when I asked

Preparing a summer born as well and keen to know what sort of scores in the EPP papers will give some comfort that DS is on track to sit WUS and SPJ. It appears as if the papers are at a slightly higher difficulty level than is to be expected in the actual exam.
anyone with thoughts on this? Thanks

@Catchme sorry not sure what the right level is - am guessing >90% for math and reasoning; for english - should be able to complete papers within time limit and

1. comprehension - I find the difficulty varies a lot so on average, I suppose >80%
2. writing - should be able to write a page neatly in 25 mins with some structure and few good spellings, adjectives, maybe a simile. again it varies a lot and so subjective.

plus listening/dictation, should be able to do most of it. my DC does not write v fast so the dictation bit will likely be hardest hill.

@Catchme note that this is all guesswork - I have 0 inside knowledge of the school requirements :)

😂

Thanks @walkinpark , I appreciate you are sharing a perspective. I was told SPJ would not have any writing exercise apart from the dictation spelling exercise and WUS is moving to computer based multiple choice questions. Is this everyone’s understanding too? Thanks

@Catchme WUS said they may have writing as part of activity session but yes, computer based tests. for SPJ - no comprehension and creative writing thankfully AFAIK.

Do you know if this is the first year of these new changes or were last year's cohort assessed in this way too?

UCS has also scrapped the creative writing element. Apparently because the children were churning out the same style of story with 'meanwhile' and 'suddenly' in almost every other line, indicating they'd been seeing a certain north london 'super tutor'.

i think during the pandemic, it was online and they are continuing it with some tweaks perhaps.

That's interesting to know @walkinpark thank you.

Thanks for the info. Wasn't aware there is no comprehension for SPJ, only knew they changed the creative writing to dictation a few years back.

@ItsRainingTacos79 sorry I checked the email from them again and they have said there will be comprehension as part of the reasoning (so not a separate paper it seems). the registrar did not mention a comprehension paper on the tour FYI.

Thank you for checking @walkinpark that's very kind of you.

@ItsRainingTacos79 happy to :) I find the other parents at my DC's school are too secretive and it irks me so much...wish there was more information sharing on this topic...