Having a wobble re preparation for super selective exam

[tittifilarious]

My 10 yo son has asked to sit the exam for the super selective near us in September. It's the only one in they county and usually has about 1,000 kids sitting the exam for just over 100 places. It's not a grammar area so it's either that school or comprehensives or religious schools. Not sure how far we match the criteria for the church schools and we're quite far away from the comps so in a high birth rate year this may be a problem if they go solely on distance. Risks for whatever option we choose.

Anyway, as son asked to sit the exam for the super selective, we said he could and we'd support him. I spoke to other people and it seems that many parents have been preparing their children for up to two years, practising exam technique etc. With this in mind, we decided to pay out for a tutor 1hr per week from June, despite him being quite bright and pretty much at the top of his class in school.

I'm aware that we're playing catch up to many people. He's good at the non verbal reasoning and maths. His written work is good, but untidy and I think an examiner will struggle to read his answers.

His tutor has said he should now be doing as homework around 3 papers for each Bond book (maths, verbal reasoning, non verbal reasoning and English) per week, plus practicing his handwriting with a piece of writing around a subject set by her. This seems like a lot to me. Is it? Despite me saying a while back that it was all completely up to him, and him saying he knew it was a lot of work, I'm now having to nag him to do the work.

I think the most valuable thing he is getting from the tutor is practicing his handwriting and learning to work to exam timescales. I think it is worth him continuing to go for those reasons. But 12 papers per week plus writing for homework seems a lot. The papers he does at home vary between 95% and 80% generally with the odd few (rushed!) being below. Do those marks indicate he has a "good" chance of getting into a super selective based on the numbers of applicants above? His tutor says he is doing well and does well on the exemplar materials from the super selective. I did ask her to tell me if she thought he may be "square peg, round hole"

In the interests of full disclosure, son had an illness earlier in the year which he has almost entirely recovered from but one of the effects was "fatigue". I'm fairly certain it wouldn't qualify him for SEN or anything, but I'm also conscious of putting a lot of work on him.

I don't know, I'm just having a wobble. I don't want to be making him do all of this work unnecessarily. I'm also worrying whether this volume of work represents the homework he'd be set by the super selective? On the other hand, we're only talking another 4 weeks. Just get on with it?

This is all new to us. DH and I just went to big standard comprehensives.

Thanks in advance for any comments.

Ridiculous. He has a right to sit the exam if he wants to. But practice papers should be fun (yes, really) - they're logical puzzles. He should enjoy improving and beating his own score. Get him to do papers against you - see if he can beat your score! (you may be surprised if he beats you!)

I always told mine that they can just do the best they can on the day of the exam - it doesn't define them, it just reflects their performance on a particular day in a particular paper. If he passes, good; if not, fine - the examiners don't have a magic view inside his head to measure his brains with! - it just means that on that day on that exam, he didn't perform as well as he might have done on another exam on another day.

If he's capable of getting 95%, he's a bright kid. Celebrate him!

If he passes, good; if not, fine - the examiners don't have a magic view inside his head to measure his brains with! - it just means that on that day on that exam, he didn't perform as well as he might have done on another exam on another day

That's what I've always done to be honest. Just think he's wobbled and I've made it worse by overreacting.

Raisin what I mean by his idea is that we would never even have considered this school, but since he's expressed a strong desire, we wanted to do everything possible to facilitate him having a good chance and I don't want him to miss out on something that is really important to him if that makes sense? I definitely shouldn't have mentioned the money though.

Thanks again for all of your views. I'm going to be black and blue from kicking myself.

Do have a look at the 11+ forum for your area - usually Bond papers are not the only or best papers recommended. Also, if he has an English exam, reading (and discussing) high quality literature is the best preparation by far.

Tittifilarious, I so could have written your posts. My ds has been having some of those crying meltdowns, which is very uncharacteristic as generally he's pretty phlegmatic. I look at my gorgeous sobbing son and I wonder what on earth we're doing, since I'm not completely sold on the schools anyway (and they involve long commutes.

Like you, I'm torn. If he's going to sit the exam (and there's only one more left) then we have to do enough for him to be able to give it his best shot. But not at the expense of his happiness and my sanity. He'd never actually done any NVR until this week so I do feel that even a little will make a lot of difference.

It's almost impossible to avoid some really vile tiger parenting. Sometimes I'd catch myself snapping 'what are the different meanings of contest' like one of those nutters on Child Genius.

Don't go on 11 plus forum. It freaks me out. People seem to have done sooo much preparation and mock exams and all that. Also I think 12 papers a week is too much. We've never done more than one thing a day and usually with some days off too.

And don't beat yourself up. You know you didn't handle it well, but it's not going to scar him as you're obviously filled with self-knowledge. It's the parents that don't know when they've gone wrong, who are the scary ones.

Our tutor (who can be a bit scary) never gave us that much work. Plus her best piece of advice was to do nothing the day before and to make sure they get an early night.

12 exam papers a week sounds soul destroying. It's totally counterproductive, particularly if all the paper-sitting is no longer resulting in steady improvements in his test results. I agree with those who suggest letting him have a bit of relaxation and thinking time, so that he can get his energy and enthusiasm back. That way, he will be the one driving it, again, rather than the one too exhausted and stressed to remember what it's all about.

ps if the poor boy has been doing 12 exam papers a week for months or weeks, does he really need to do anything much more than one more run through of each paper before the big day???

Thank you all for your advice and kind words - it really is appreciated.

I should clarify that the 12 papers per week hasn't/hadn't been continuous. He started off in June doing one paper per week per subject (so 4) then upped them to 3 papers per subject over the summer holidays. For the last couple of weeks it's gone back down to 1-2 papers per subject (so 6) plus a piece of writing.

I'm still unsure what I should be doing and whether we will look back and realise we made the wrong call but I'm going to trust my instincts a bit more and play things by ear so to speak.

Oh and playfortoday - there's definitely a lot in your post I recognise, even down to the not being entirely at ease with the school anyway!

It's weird isn't it? You find yourself embedded in a process that you never signed up for. I'm not sure that the two schools we're trying for are the best option. However, in the unlikely event he gets in, we'll have to opt for them as it would be cruel to do otherwise.

I keep waiting for a eureka moment with secondaries, when I finally realise which we should be going for. But it never comes because you don't get to choose them, they often get to choose you.

Primary seemed so straightforward...

I think they are also worried but hard for them to explain their emotions.
Tell him id only 25 more days (or however many), afterwards he won't hae to do any extra work.

Please don't beat yourself up or your son. You both sound great - just landed in a stupid system where you are each doing your best. My advice is have a good cuddle and an honest chat. Be honest with him - he is applying for a super selective and he will be up against bright pupils who have been tutored and drilled for ages to excel at these tests. The schools don't have to do anything other than choose those who score highest because they win anyway ie they cannot fail to end up with a superb intake. There may be only a few marks in it. They don't have the spaces to take all the children who would thrive and do brilliantly at the school and that has the sad result that most of the candidates just won't get a place even if they perform very well. That is the situation and it doesn't make him less good if it isn't his day to get picked. Please do tell him how much he is to be admired for his ambition and willingness to put himself on the line for a very very competitive situation and to work as hard as he has done to give himself a chance. Those qualities will bring him success in the future (wherever he goes) and earn admiration and respect right now. You have done your best to support him and though you can't get everything right that is what you have done because he is your son and he deserves it. Do please tell him he doesn't have to get the place to earn your congratulations because what he has already done has already earned it. I do wish you the best of luck. What a daft system! Then you can both choose how much prep you want to do in the final run up - people approach that in different ways so there is no one 'right' decision.

Lovely post, Dustylaw. :)

Yes, that was a lovely post. I agree with all of it.

Marking my place...so I can reread Dusty's post as needed.
Perfect

Ditto re Dusty's post.

We're giving my ds a treat of a day on finishing the exams, not on getting the results. In other words, he's rewarded for doing them, not for doing well in them.

ds has just started year 7 at a super selective,

We were where you are this time last year.
ds was really really fed up with the process at this point. I think his results in tests went down.
We did a lot of encouraging him to just do his best and it isn't the end of the world, there are lots of other schools etc etc.
He sat it, thought he hadn't done well, and then passed (just)

He started year 7 last week and absolutely loves it.

The 11+ homework from the tutor is completely different to real school. Added to that, my son is unrecognisable to the child of one year ago. I am astonished by the amount of change that happens in year 6. they grow up so much.
ds goes to school by train, he was really unhappy about this part of it one year ago. It was too big, too unknown etc. One year on, he hopped on the train without thinking about it.

I love the school, for my bright ds it is going to be great. But the process to get it was awful, and he hated it. Get past the next month and then you can leave it behind. Give him a break/rest if he needs it, and pick up again next week.

We don't normally do bribes, but on the day after the exam we gave ds a present of something he really wanted. We told him really clearly that it was for the effort and perseverance and hard work he had put in. Whatever the result we were proud of him for having a go.

play - cross posts re rewards!

Thank you so much everyone. I was ok and then just got very tearful reading (in a good way!). Dustylaw and Steppe I do the like the idea of rewarding him for his perseverance.

Also, just to update you, although I wouldn't necessarily recommend my losing it as a course of action, we do seem to have cleared the air somewhat. I think he has started listenting to the other children at school who are also going to be doing the exam and started panicing a bit, combined with usual back to school tiredness.

I asked him was it the work itself or the volume and he said it was the volume. We've come up with a maximum of 2 x English, 2 x maths, 1 x VR and 1 x NVR (so 6 per week) to either be done over 3 days to give clear days off or one per day with a clear day off, but if he still feels that it ios too much then we'll look again. In return, he doesn't have to worry about keeping his room tidy or the other usual stuff he does. We've also sat and talked about the other schools we've visited and he's happy with his "back up" choices and knows friends who will be going to each of them. I think I've always been clear to him how proud we are of him and how hard he works and tried to put the exam into perspective as one snapshot of a certain moment in time, but I've reiterated this to him to be sure.

I think we've recovered well. A big wake up call to me though.

Thank you all again so much - for your persepctive and straight talking/kid gloves when I needed it!

good ;uck to your ds.
When is the exam?

My niece is in Kent and they sit it today!

Dd sat a superselective exam last Summer.

She attended group tuition once a week, and did 3 x Bond papers weekly from Easter year 5.
She refused to do any work during the Summer break as it was 'her holiday'.
Following the break she started to get stressed about the practice tests and stopped doing any work except the weekly tuition.

She said the questions on the exam were easier than the work she did with the tutor. The exam format was 3 papers over the course of a morning. I feel going to the tutor helped her with her focus.

As Antimatter suggested, we concentrated on exam technique- marking questions that she was unsure of and going back to them; not spending too long on one question; keeping an eye on the time and guessing the multiple choice questions she hadn't answered in the last 5 minutes.

She sat the exam for another school as a warm up two weeks before at the suggestion of the tutor. She didn't finish the paper, and didn't pass,but this definitely reinforced the need to stay focused and watch the clock.

We also struggled with the net of cubes questions, the tutor said they hadn't appeared on the paper previously so we ignored them. There were none on the paper. If they had been on, she would have done them last.

She passed!

That's really reassuring Calderstones - I have heard other people say similar things about the actual exam being better/easier than the preparations! The summer break and readjustment back to school seems to have been a factor and from your post it'd seem that isn't unique. Those blinking cube questions though...fingers crossed they don't appear!

I've explained about seeing how many marks a question is worth and using that as a guide as to how much priority to give it. I've mentioned about using any time left to go back and check all questions are answered and to double check he's answered others correctly and suggested he highlights/underlines key words from the question. I think at this point the focus should be on technique and timing.

One general question though - can they usually have rough paper for working out or is this done in the exam booklet? As mentioned upthread, his presentation is untidy and on occasion his workings out for maths get so jumbled that he ends up putting the wrong answer or covering up other answers with his scrawl working out.

I sound like I'm really uptight over this - OP withstanding(!) I'm really not. I want him to do the best he can do for a chance of having something he wants but I genuinely wouldn't be any less proud of him if he completely bombed. Anyway it'll all be over with soon. I'll post back with updates when he has done the exam and when he has his result (and hopefully not before or it'll mean there's been another meltdown).

Thank you all again for your help and advice - I have taken on board all of your suggestions.