Some extra help/ resources for Year 7/8

[glitterbiscuits]

Has anyone found anything useful such as work books or an online program for revision or extension for this age group?
I have seen a few maths programs like Carol Vodermans- not sure if they help?
But then we need to look at English, maths, history, geography, science. We need a bit of help everywhere!

DD struggling a bit but also unfocused and at the end of Y7. Her exam result were all below 50%. School are helping to a degree as I think even they were surprised by her poor results.

I'd like her to not to suffer from the '6 week drop 'over the summer holidays.

Has the school got a subscription to something like mymaths or hegartymaths that you could use?

CGP workbooks+revision guides are generally pretty good.

Corbett Maths online seemsexcellent, and it's free. It has an alphabetical list of topics, with accompanying video and exam papers with separate answer papers.

In my opinion you can't do everything over the summer. I would stick with Maths and English as those are core subjects. The literacy side of English will hit all the humanities.

How much revision did she have to do for her exams, and how much assistance did you give her organising / doing / testing her?

DD2 has just had her y8 exams. She also struggles with everything. For right or wrong I did revision with her, hopefully teaching her strategies for future use.

Can you get the test papers back to see where she lost marks?
e.g. Maths & Science - not understanding the questions as too wordy, or not knowing/able to apply the content, or not reading/answering the question properly / silly mistakes.
e.g. English / Humanities - not knowing the content, or being to naïve in her answers, not using Point-Evidence-Explain.

What area do you feel most competent to help with? Can you find a tutor for the other? I can do maths/science no problem but don't have a clue how to help with English so we're getting external help for that.

Thanks.
They do have My Maths. I'm fairly sure she can use it for general practice rather than set homework.
I will check out the books and other maths websites.
She's all drama and creativity so it's going to be a bit of a slog!

Ten We did try to help her revise, her older brother was doing GCSEs at the same time so there was plenty of help available. In retrospect I can see we weren't hands on enough. She had beautiful revision timetables drawn up, even down to planning what she was having for lunch each day! I think it lulled us into believing she knew what she was doing. Lesson learned!
I don't want to her do tons over the summer but I don't want her to start Year 8 at the bottom

Geography KS3 BBC was something DS used. Also it's easy to watch things like Planet Earth on DVD.

On youtube look for the Why Why Family. They do great little science explanations in cartoon form.

Audio books are great for expanding vocabulary if she is not a great reader. Go for older/classic books.

Ok if you’ve got a mymaths login, then when you login look on the menu on the left hand side for ‘booster packs’. If she got about expected level for her KS2 SATs and has struggled in Y7 then the ‘Five boosters’ should be about the right level (you can have a look at 4 or 6 to see if that’s a better fit).
There are individual lessons within each topic (e.g. algebra) or you could go straight to the bottom of the lessons where there is an ‘OW’ (online worksheet) which is a general test of that area to assess whether she needs more practice. She could then do the lessons and try the OW again to see if she has improved.

It would give a bit of structure to what you are doing with her.

beautiful revision timetables drawn up

Classic work avoidance!

Thanks Another. BBC is a good idea
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Noble* the time table brought a lump to my throat. One lunch was Heinz tomato soup, another beans on toast. She put all the things she could make herself

I'm feeling really guilty for not managing her a bit more. She has older brothers and they are so self sufficient I just take it for granted.

I will note your comments on My Maths. The structure is what I need rather than me saying to her ' go and try some maths'

Having just seen DD's y8 maths test, we will be working on drawing graphs and reading off them correctly over the summer.

Plus possibly, 'not missing out questions your Mum knows full well you know how to do'.

"beautiful revision timetables drawn up"

Classic work avoidance!

Actually Ds1 had a lovely timetable done on Google Docs complete with a carefully chosen handwriting font. He stuck to it, religiously. He is like me, he likes list, order and ticking things off.

He is finishing up year 10 mock GCSEs. We'll see what his results are but I tested him for facts in all areas of history GCSE (from homemade flashcards) and other subjects and he definitely did revision.

MyMaths is great for going over concepts. I found that when Ds1 was back in year 8/9 we did a KS3 revision book for English, mainly just discussed the areas, got him to mock up letters, stories based on pictures. I gave him a printed list of physical features to use as character descriptions. I challenged his vocabulary choices.

He has had a printed list of sentence openers in his planner since year 7, something like - firstly, secondly, alternatively, furthermore, in contrast, as a result, consequently, despite, additionally etc as English has always been his weak point but this helped in other areas of school too.

If you are doing edexcel look for Pearson revise series ks3 for maths. Also Collins workbooks for science. They come in year 7,8,9.