VR practice - do you actually learn anything from them?

[ceeb]

My DS is in Yr4. At parents' evening this week I found out that they have started doing VR tests at school and DS's scores are very erratic (somewhere between 45 and 85). She says that children who are "grammar school material" already score 95-100 regularly. She recommended buying some Bond papers ("Bond what?" I asked - so clueless am I).

I now don't know whether I need to start DS working on this already or just take away the message that he won't get in and not bother. I don't want to coach him into a school he won't enjoy being in. If I thought the work was worthwhile in and of itself, like times tables, then it wouldn't be an issue, however, I had a look at the papers and they seem pretty pointless, ie you don't actually learn much from them, apart from how to take a VR test. Any views?

I think you've hit the nail on the head - practicing the paper will teach them how to take a VR test. I started practicing with my 2 boys about six months before the test and found the practice helped them to speed up, so that they could finish the test in the allotted time. They could both manage the questions from the beginning, given plenty of time, but they wouldn't have passed without practice because they simply wouldn't have answered enou questions on the day to gain enough marks...

Clareyst, do you think there is any point in starting now, in Year 4? Or would I just be overcoaching DS?

ceeb - year 4 might be a bit early. I spent a couple of hours coaching a 12-year-old who hadn't been educated in English. There is certainly a developmental thing here, so if your Yr4 DC gets 85 sometimes and 90-100 is the score achieved by "grammer school material", I think you are in with a chance.

I agree with Clareyst that "practice helps them speed up.

Instead of coaching, why not try reading the "just william" stories aloud to your DC. Much more fun for you, and that will expand everyone's vocabulary.

I home ed my son, and he has just got into an independent school that is very competitive. We started with VR and NVR pretty soon after I took him out of school (3 years ago so in the end of Year 3), but only from time to time, rarely full papers (we used Bond) and we started with the easiest ones we could find just to give him an idea of what they were like. Like your son, his scores varied a lot, but he rarely got what your teacher would call a grammar school mark, so ignore her!
About 6 months before the exams, we speeded up a bit and he did a paper a week of each, maybe in two halves.
Yes, he could do them, but like Clareyst's boys, he was slow, and the practice definitely helped him speed up with the result that he apparently finished very high up in the marks for the IQ testing.

I think he could still have done them if we hadn't practised, but he would have taken much longer as they would have been new to him.
I think you have to remember that if you do want to apply for grammar school, then most of the other children sitting the tests will have been practising. So, they might all be of similar intelligence, but the practice will help some of them, and those that haven't practised will be at a disadvantage. There will also be some children of slightly lower IQs to this group who will have been coached well.
You don't want your DS in the higher group, with no coaching or practice, to be outshone by a well coached child in a lower group and to lose his place to him, do you?
I know there are children who with no practice of anything other than what they do in school, still get a place, but nowadays these children must be less numerous than in the past. (I was a child like that many years ago).
You don't want your child to be disadvantaged, do you?
I should buy the Bond Books if I were you (how do you know that the children in your DS's class have not mostly been practising at home for a year or more?) and get your son doing one a month to begin with, or more if he enjoys it.
They are quite fun if you can do them. My DS enjoyed them.
Bond do a couple of books explaining how to tackle the different sorts too, so get that too, for bits your DS might find puzzling.

No, you don't learn anything from doing them. In theory you could 'learn' vocab but only in the driest way possible - far better to read books esp classics with wide vocab or write poems etc or whatever they enjoy.

At this stage, getting them the age-appropriate Bond book or similar and instructions to do it 'for fun' is enough - i really enjoyed IQ puzzles as a kid and trying to beat my own score.

Next year, in year 5, if you think you want him to do the exam, then get him to do full papers, 1 a week or less, but to finish them, and gradually reduce the time so hat they are doing it in time. One tip is to get them to change pen colour when the 'official' time runs out so you can see both what they are capable of (if they speed up) and what mark they'd actually achieve in a timed test. Go through any wrong answers and look for patterns - my dd found the 'code' type questions (basically maths with letters) harder at first.
The chukra website (11+.co.uk or something like that?) has good, free videos on different question types that simplify how to do them in an easy peasy way. OrSusan Daughtrey's books do the same in a long, tedious but very thorough way. But no need/point in going there unless your ds is going to do the exam!

I think Year 4 is too early to start doing the actual tests. Chuckra or whatever it's called these days is fantastic, and you can use the site with your child to practice doing different types of questions so that they become familiar. My second son really enjoyed using the site - he hated practising written papers but doing exercises on the computer didn't seem so much like work!

Agree that vocab is also really important - well worth starting to think about that now. I think there are lists of words on chuckra that you could gently introduce, and yes, just read a lot. In fact I would concentrate on vocab and reading until Year 5, then practice types of questions, move to practising written papers from Easter of Yr 5 and then doing timed practises from Easter onwards (we started at Easter but didn't do anything over the summer holidays, then ramped it up from beginning of Sep for 6 weeks).

My other tip is that they need to be able to sort out timing themselves on the day. So I taught my boys to make a note at the start of how many questions there were, and to divide up the time into 'slots'. Four worked well for us as we had 1 50 min test and 1 45 min test. So they would aim to get through a quarter of the questions in each 10 min slot, leaving any questions they couldn't answer quickly, and then had 5 or 10 minutes at the end to go back to any unanswered questions. You DEFINITELY do not want to start stressing your child with this yet though... just keep it in mind for nearer the time...

Try www.elevenplusexams.co.uk - lots of tips on VR there and advice on home tutoring and exam techniques.

I think you can learn something from VR. My son is now amazing at scrabble, word games etc.

I'm not sure what the educational value is but we do love a word puzzle!

I don't know if you learn anyhitng from them...but you can become far more proficient at doing them, which brings better test scores.

DS improved immeasurably at them.

First vr paper my dd did she got 28%, that was after Easter in year 5. She practised like mad in the summer holidays and passed the 11plus. She was scoring between 65 and 90% in vr papers in the weeks leading up to it, but much better at nvr. I was surprised she passed but she did.

So with respect I think it's bollocks that a grammar school material kid would be getting 95-100, especially when still in year 4. They're very different to normal school work and practise is needed to get the technique.

I agree.
DS performed dreadfully on his first few tests.
By the end of his revision period he was getting way into the high nineties. I can't believe his inherent intelligence changed that much!

So he went from possibly failing the entrance test to be asked to come back and sit a scholarship.