Preparation for yr7

[DoubleCaramel]

Hi, DS is 9 and has just started Yr 5, from experience are there any areas of study I should look at in preparing him for secondary school and if so any recommendations with books or apps would be appreciated.

Have seen lots of 11+ materials but not sure what's best as we aren't considering grammar schools but want to give him some preparation if we can.

Also is YR 5 too early to visit secondary schools? If not I'm a bit behind!!!

Thanks

Certainly visit schools in Y5. we did it - if only to knock a few off the list to re-visit in Y6.
If you're not planning on doing 11+ I don't think you need to do any extra work beyond what is done at school. Towards the end of Y6 there are practical things you can do like helping your Ds become a bit more independent etc, but nothing work-wise.

Enable a love of reading, plus independence!

Nothing worse for a teacher in a secondary school, 'miss I've reached the bottom of the page what do I do?' ?!?!?!

Oh and manners!

My eldest has just left secondary, youngest in y6.

From a work point of view I would say

• confident with maths (old level 4b)
• confident with reading and writing (old level 4b). My DD1 went up with a L3 in writing and it impacted all subjects across the board as she was unable to express what she knew. (later diagnosed with dyspraxia).

These are the things I am working on with DD2.

Other than that nothing specifically academic required, (but any knowledge is helpful).

But also

• able to work independently
• able to look after belongings
• able to record messages / hw correctly
• able to do the journey to school independently

Definitely look at schools in y5, to get down to a short list for checking again in y6. having time to mull things over does help.

Find out what schools you might reasonable expect to get into. In our case it was 1 and a rank outsider so looking at schools in Year 5 was entirely unnecessary.

I'd say if your child is working at expected levels or above there is no need for any specific academic extras. Things that would have helped DS were :learning to touch type and learning to manage several homework tasks at once.