Plans for the next 5 weeks?
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Plans for the next 5 weeks?
Hi all
I have just been thinking about the plan for run down to the big day.
I am not too sure how much to do/not do. Anyone any good ideas?
I was thinking ...
one or two short tests (10-30 questions) midweek
long test weekends
Half term go over techniques, vocab, basic maths
week before test..very little if anything
Any thoughts on this? Too much? Too little?
I have just been thinking about the plan for run down to the big day.
I am not too sure how much to do/not do. Anyone any good ideas?
I was thinking ...
one or two short tests (10-30 questions) midweek
long test weekends
Half term go over techniques, vocab, basic maths
week before test..very little if anything
Any thoughts on this? Too much? Too little?
I am just duplicating what I did last year with DS1.
Every Sunday I give DS2 two tests back to back with a break like Glos-mum says.
We do the corrections and the Tutors short papers during the week. Nothing on Saturdays and as he is doing well I will cut one of the short papers in the week so Wednesday can be free. The short papers only take ten minutes and a couple of minutes for corrections anyway. The main reason I keep doing them with him is to build up his vocab which is definately his weak area.
During half term I will do the Pates papers with him as they are different and variety is the spice and all that.
I deliberately didn't start doing long papers too soon and do them in order of difficulty because I want his score to keep improving gradually right up to the actual test. It worked well last year.
The hardest bit will be the wait between sitting and results. I found it incredibly difficult not to question DS1 about the test which I knew wouldn't be a fair thing to do. I just had to wait for him to come out with little titbits. At home you mark them straight away so it is an instant result.
I will have to practice being
. Not easy I can promise you 
Every Sunday I give DS2 two tests back to back with a break like Glos-mum says.
We do the corrections and the Tutors short papers during the week. Nothing on Saturdays and as he is doing well I will cut one of the short papers in the week so Wednesday can be free. The short papers only take ten minutes and a couple of minutes for corrections anyway. The main reason I keep doing them with him is to build up his vocab which is definately his weak area.
During half term I will do the Pates papers with him as they are different and variety is the spice and all that.
I deliberately didn't start doing long papers too soon and do them in order of difficulty because I want his score to keep improving gradually right up to the actual test. It worked well last year.
The hardest bit will be the wait between sitting and results. I found it incredibly difficult not to question DS1 about the test which I knew wouldn't be a fair thing to do. I just had to wait for him to come out with little titbits. At home you mark them straight away so it is an instant result.
I will have to practice being
. Not easy I can promise you not easy being AT ALL!
Although, for me, easier with DS2 since getting info from him has always been a blood and stone job anyway. Whereas with DS1 it's the full torrent of news ... but always entirely accurate
the waiting gap is vile. I'm so relieved we only have VR to do since the cramming element isn't there as it would be, say, in perfecting story-telling. Plus I'm grateful to be spared the horrors of NVR - I just have to guess them completely. So there are small mercies.
My boy goes to his tutor (a group affair) on saturday mornings, but she is still very much comprehension based. I get a little twitchy sometimes (surely not!) but have to think she's been in the game so long she must know what she's doing.
So, there's the hour a week, some comprehension homework from that, and then I'm doing a couple of papers a week with him. I mentioned the back-to-back thing on Monday after school, to prepare him and he proposed doing it there and then
! He scored higher on the first, than the second which was riddled with silly mistakes. Also because it was at home he didn't leave the long ones til later (though he denied this 
- I was watching him, durr!) and then come the end he just scarpered, not a thought of going back through them and checking. But his aggregate score was pretty high so I wasn't going to plague him. A few hours later he agreed to go through the ones he'd got wrong AND spent ages on (pretty much the same - the 3 codes/4 words one).
So far he is pretty impressive attitude-wise and I feel deserves to get in and would really benefit from the grammar system. If only it were that easy! He is much keener to do the work than his older brother ever was and sort of takes it more responsibly. I'm just waiting for it all to go wrong.
Thank goodness for this forum and somewhere to splurge since we're all in the same boat. I've seen on other counties' forums (fora?) stuff about more entries than ever before, groan. Pates said, at the open day, that it remained pretty constant, with a 7 or 8 applications to one place. Gulp. Don't know what it is for Tommy's?
AT ALL! Although, for me, easier with DS2 since getting info from him has always been a blood and stone job anyway. Whereas with DS1 it's the full torrent of news ... but always entirely accurate
the waiting gap is vile. I'm so relieved we only have VR to do since the cramming element isn't there as it would be, say, in perfecting story-telling. Plus I'm grateful to be spared the horrors of NVR - I just have to guess them completely. So there are small mercies.
My boy goes to his tutor (a group affair) on saturday mornings, but she is still very much comprehension based. I get a little twitchy sometimes (surely not!) but have to think she's been in the game so long she must know what she's doing.
So, there's the hour a week, some comprehension homework from that, and then I'm doing a couple of papers a week with him. I mentioned the back-to-back thing on Monday after school, to prepare him and he proposed doing it there and then
! He scored higher on the first, than the second which was riddled with silly mistakes. Also because it was at home he didn't leave the long ones til later (though he denied this - I was watching him, durr!) and then come the end he just scarpered, not a thought of going back through them and checking. But his aggregate score was pretty high so I wasn't going to plague him. A few hours later he agreed to go through the ones he'd got wrong AND spent ages on (pretty much the same - the 3 codes/4 words one). So far he is pretty impressive attitude-wise and I feel deserves to get in and would really benefit from the grammar system. If only it were that easy! He is much keener to do the work than his older brother ever was and sort of takes it more responsibly. I'm just waiting for it all to go wrong.
Thank goodness for this forum and somewhere to splurge since we're all in the same boat. I've seen on other counties' forums (fora?) stuff about more entries than ever before, groan. Pates said, at the open day, that it remained pretty constant, with a 7 or 8 applications to one place. Gulp. Don't know what it is for Tommy's?
