What subjects will my daughter need to work on?

[Gracegrapecherry]

My daughter is going to LEH this September but many people are saying that as my daughter is attending a state school currently, she is going to find it hard to cope with many academic subjects. What subjects does she need to work on? I know there are many experienced people here.

I don't think you can work on particular subjects. Both our boys were in state primary. DS1 went to Reeds a few years ago and coped fine. DS2 is going to Hampton this year. I expect him to find the step up in workload the hardest part, the amount of homework he will get compared with the last few years will be enormous - probably as much or more each day as he has been currently getting each week.

But I think the only preparation can be to help him get organised for when he starts, help him manage his time, and maybe reduce the outside commitments where possible for the first term. DS1 for example gave up scouts pretty quickly after starting.

A bit of exposure to French or whatever language she will be learning, would not go amiss. Quite a lot of students wil have studied the language before so those that have not, will have to move at quite a fast pace.

Fair point about the language. Although DS has done some basic French I bet it's miles behind many - which is one of the reasons he put Spanish then German when we had to make the language preference order recently.

My older two children went from a state primary to a partially selective secondary that seems to attract a lot of children from prep schools. Compared to the children from state primaries, the ones from prep schools seemed to have had a head start in Latin and were slightly more confident with their MFL (mine did some beginner MFL in primary but not much). Most of the other subjects were at a similar level.

Thank you so much for the advice!

I would add that by the end of Yr 7, when many schools will set for French, there will be plenty who have just done a year. Schools will expect some to be ahead and indeed DD spent most of Yr 7 coasting. What were 30 basic French words to be read through each week, was a significant homework for others.

I would keep the French to fun exposure, ie so she has some familiarity with basic vocab and the accent. And not worry about Latin. Not that many take it to GCSE, in part because at least a couple of subjects will have to be dropped. So either she loves it and thrives, or she does not and drops it.

As for the rest, yes some prep schools have a head start but honestly all that will happen is that she will have to work quite hard in Yr 7 so might as well have the summer off.

The other big gap will be sport. If she is keen on making a team you might consider joining a club or doing a sports camp somewhere. However LEH is lacrosse not hockey so perhaps not so important as the prep girls won't have played it either. Hopefully sports staff will use Yr 7 to encourage participation, especially amongst those who are not used to school sport. This did not happen at DDs school. The Yr7 netball team seemed to be picked from the tallest of the prep girls. A couple of years later they were having a problem putting out a team because they had limited the potential pool. By then DD had shot up, but refused to be considered. My understanding is that in some schools access to drama and music can be equally competitive, in that you have to audition for plays and orchestras, leaving some "all-rounder" girls without anything.

Also some preps really dont do much except prepare girls for 11+, so very limited science and languages. DD was at a co-ed which went up to 13+, and where they did not seperate girls from boys. As a result she had covered vast chunks of the 13+ Common Entrance syllabus in all her subjects. It was a huge confidence boost for her to suddenly be top of the class, and luckily she decided she wanted to stay there. It could have gone the other way and after coasting for a year she might not have realised when she needed to shift up a gear.

Yes that can be true about sports as in Primary school the sports provision is often (relatively) pretty pathetic. I can use the example of cricket where if you weren't playing at a Club and only playing at primary school then you wouldn't have even played with a hard ball - primary schools are stuck playing the stupid kwik-'cricket' with plastic bats and balls right up to Year 6 (U11) when many Clubs will have had boys playing hard ball cricket from U8/U9.

What about science? I know it is very variable between schools, but that seems to be the big one around here.

Maybe worth checking on MFLs taken in Y7, as the schools we looked at seemed to have a lot of different takes on languages...not all did French straight away, for example.