11 Plus Exams Forum

So DS can make toast (and cups of tea and sandwiches) and recognise a range of animals very descriptively but I am seriously running out of ideas to get him to practise writing short (dull) pieces with impeccable grammar and spelling with little or no time for forward planning.

What are other people getting their DCren to write? This afternoon DS is giving directions from our house to school (inspiring, eh?)

What about describing your garden, or his favourite park, or his best friend's house?

Yet to try on any of this with ds at all but maybe I will start to write a list as well

2015 is looking too close now even though it is the sitting after next.

Thankfully we didn't have to do this! but unless DC has specific problems with literacy I might suggest that you don't do too much practice too early on as the danger must be as you suggest that it gets so boring there is danger of switch off and any spark of imagination is lost.
As for grammar and spelling - could you take pieces from interesting books, insert common mistakes in punctuation, grammar, spelling etc. and then get DC to correct it? Or take work from their year 4 folder ( if you still have it) and get them to improve it?

KB wrote: Or take work from their year 4 folder

Year 4 folder?
No - never saw such a thing.

DS hates writing with a passion which can only be imagined. The very act of holding a pen or pencil has always been a form of torture to him (he has a particular hatred of "colouring in.") Getting him to write at least a couple of paragraphs twice a week has helped so I am kind of stuck with the lots of simple ideas theme for the foreseeable future.

No garden here, I'm afraid, but we have done a couple of "What can I see from the window" and tonight we have had "What I want to be invented by 2020" which was quite fun

This might help:
http://www.tes.co.uk/teaching-resource/ ... t-6001385/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
You would have to register though.

We've been doing this, too! We've done various food, drink, days out, animals, people and places!

It's hard to know what depth they will be looking for, especially with the instructions, as these aren't generally terribly descriptive.

I reckon it they will be very time consuming and to mark as well as rather subjective!

I assume in CSSE paper they won't be asking fiction in creative writing as they are so much important in terms of content. Every children is unique and they do develop in their own phase. So, it's hard to judge one's creativity in fiction writing.

If you take CSSE's sample paper they have asked instruction and information text in their writing assessment. It's not really hard for a child o meet the success criteria in their writing if they are attentive in school. The best thing to do is try to pull out as much you can from your DCs about everyday on-going happenings at school.

I personally feel like CSSE are very clever to introduce the writing assessment as part of their 11+ format as this is the only measure to differentiate any child from others. So, this is really vital and crucial for us to make our child unique to stand out in the crowd.

When you write instructions and information vocabulary places a major role. The children would be able to write appropriate and technological words in these piece of writing.

For example, when you write instructions to make a cup of tea, instead saying sprinkle the sugar(most children use sprinkle because it's sugar... we can't blame them!)they could write add the sugar. Then again it's more important to insist our children to use time connectives in very beginning of each sentence and the same time they need to arrange their writing in chronological order.

For any piece of writing--- This is what I ask my DD to do
Success Criteria:
1. Capitals and full stops.
2. Think about the tense they need to use.
3. Try to answer all the questions( when, where, why, how, what) in their every piece of writing.
4. Grammar, punctuation and spelling.
5. Always an introduction should be there for any kind of writing.
6. If they are writing in paragraphs: For fiction - try use descriptive words and need to keep the reader's attention through out the story and should make emotions for their character, also each paragraph has an point and they should be able to explain why with supporting evidence in their writing.
7.For Non-fiction- Clear and concise piece of writing with headings and subheadings also make sure that their writing is full of present tense for information texts.
8. Finally, there needs to be a conclusion.


I always ask my DD to write everyday recount of that day and ask her to come up with better words instead of said, got, and, because, then and etc. This would really improve their writing in no time. Try encourage them to read varied books, magazines, newspaper article and letting them to watch documentaries. Soon, they could able to grasp range of interesting vocabulary according to the topics. Encourage their confidence in writing arguments, debate and requesting and most important thing is when it comes writing treat them as adults and stretch their knowledge in any areas as much as you could able to.

Good luck to everyone...

Don't worry, we all are marching for the same goal.

Thanks,
Crusoe.

I am trying to guess whether this September's CSSE English creative writing will be using the same format, eg a piece asking for a description-presumably of something most children are familiar with as I can imagine it would be rather socially divisive to get them to descrie a plane journey or their pony-and instructions. Or will it be eg persuasive writing, a recount or a letter? These are harder as the pieces are only a few lines long really!

Hmmmm!