Just received appointment for reception class entry assessment (independent school) what to expect??

[fishnet]

Just had DS1s appointment through for his entrance assessment for September. Anyone know what we should expect? The school just says "assessing his ability to learn". What is that supposed to mean and how can I prepare a three year old without telling him its an assessment?

DD's assessment took place when she was 3 too. She went off with the preprep 1 teacher whilst DH and I went with the headteacher. I know some children (who did get offered places) had parents stay with them as they didn't want to go on their own.

From what we could gather DD spent time talking with the teacher. They talked about recent holidays and about her new cousin. They drew a picture - IIRR DD drew a picture of Dora. They played a game with lots of boxes inside one another too.

DD just had a fun time and enjoyed herself.

They were just looking to see if they were "ready" for school.

our ds had an assessment for nursery at 2.10yrs. it was fairly formal in that he had to recognise colors, shapes, name various toys, draw a picture of a person ie mum, the letters in his name and pick out numbers from 1-10. he did'nt get everything 'right' but was still offered a place. on feedback we were told that he was able to concentrate for the full 45 mins and was able to engage and listen and that they looked for these qualities rather than any kind of intellectual ability (which lets face it at nearly 3 isnt going to be obvious!) I did not attend the assesment as I would have been too nervous and would probably have prompted too much - dh is much calmer! I was actually amazed that ds managed to sit fairly still for all that time - he usually tears around or loses interest after about 15 mins. I was also very happy that he was not expected to leave his dad and trot off with a teacher to another room - he would have screamed the place down.
I think a visit to the school is a good idea - we explained to ds that he was going for a play session. Having shown us the kind of work that the reception class were doing, perhaps they will be assessing your ds a little more formally on letter, number recognition etc. as he presumably is 4?
good luck - we really wanted ds to get in as we are surrounded by distinctly poorly performing inner city primaries and it is a lovely school. however just to add I would send him to a state primary if there was a good enough one in our catchment area.

I went through academic selection process with DD when she was just 4 - I don't know in detail what they covered in the one to one session as they didn't say and neither did she (we were not invitied to attend)- I am pretty sure from the snippets that we did get they did counting, animals, looking at pictures and making stories and possibly some type of making/building plus she wrote her name although seemed to do some letter work we were told that readining would not be tested - I didn't prep her as cannot really see how to do that but I know they had different tests and assessments for the 3 versus the 4 year old. I would say YES to visiting before as this will give him confidence when it comes to the day I was also upfront with DD as to what she was doing and why we were doing this - i.e wanted to find the right school for her etc and I think for her at least it was helpful. Also I put her in her Kindy uniform to give her a feeling that she was going to a school type environment so would act accordingly. Good luck - trust me that hour will be far worse for you than him......

Have seen article on this sort of thing on one of the newspaper websites recently somewhere. Will try and find it.

I took my dd to one of these lastyear.

I thought it was run disgracefully, the children were marched away from the parents and put in a classroom with a bunch of strange kids and teachers and expected to perform.

My dd freaked out at being suddenly taken away from me, to the point whereI was called in to sit with her. She had to do things like draw a picture, sort out different coloured shapes - put yellow in one pile, pink in another etc, then link some toy animals together and the teachers went round chatting to them trying to get them to count a bit and talk about their famiies.

At this school the process was shambolic, the teachers - who were all very young and a - got the children mixed up and were talking to one boy about how he had a older brother at the school when I knew he was an only child. Some children refused to take part, some were having a lovely time. DD behaved pretty disgracefully, refusing to do anything asked, shouting that she hated the school, didn't want to be there and only getting excited when they brought out a plate of biscuits at the end, when she yelled "Mummy, I like this school now. I've changed my mind.".

To my amazement, she got in. I declined the place. Had already decided I wasn't keen on the school, but witnessing this shambles made the decision final.

It sounds like the school you're thinking of will run things a bit more gently and efficiently but my verdict was these things are largely a matter of luck. Some children will cooperate, others won't and prepping imho will only make them anxious. No decent school should mark a 4yo boy down for running around like a loon, it's what they do. Frankly, in the current climate I think you'll have few problems (My dd got in to aseveral allegedly exclusive private schools I registered her for very late. Good luck.

i disagree that it's 'just looking for potential'; children are awarded points for everything from recognising words and being able to read them back to identifying shapes and and doing jigsaws. A friend heavily prepped her daughter who made it through one of these, so i don't think these assessments are a sort of playdate. they are much more engineered than that.

wheelsonthebus, I think that depends on the school. After his assessment I got a phone call in relation to ds2 to say that they thought his vocab was very limited for his age, that his speech was underdeveloped, and that he may need extra help in class. I talked to the special needs teacher who was lovely and who said they would happily provide any help needed. Yes, there are exam factories out there and there will always be parents who are attracted to this, but not all schools are the same.

Now as it happened we saw a speech therapist who said all ds2 needed was his tonsils and adenoids out, and suddenly his speech and vocab improved dramatically. I suspect that he would've been written off by an academically selective school - but happily that was not what we wanted.

i thought it was only exam factories that did assessments - otherwise why are they assessing at all?

To be brutally frank wheelsonthebus, I suspect most private schools want to weed out any behavioural issues. In other words, little Peter may be a mini-Einstein but they don't want him if he is going to be tearing around the room being disruptive. Probably not a very palatable truth, but that's what I've always suspected.

I honestly don't think the majority of schools can accurately test academic ability at 3/4 years old. But as I say, I think sometimes they tell parents what they want to hear - and for some parents it matters that their child has been "selected".

I agree with verygreenlawn - they are looking for any behavioural issues although ours described it as "readiness for school"

They are also often assessing the parents!

fishnet it shouldn't matter if your dh can't make it. My DH has spent up to 3 months at a time working overseas; if I had to put my life on hold and not take decisions, visit houses or schools because he couldn't be there we would never do anything. The only people I find get really upset about both people not being there are double-glazing salesmen!

Ae you in Nottm by any chance?

In the prospectus it said that children would need to meet the head prior to reception. Instead - to ensure a place at a heavily oversubscribed school - we booked her into their nursery. Consequently she breezed straight into reception and we were chuffed when the head opened a door for her and spoke to her using her name (without seeing us).