Channing School - 11 Plus Exam Results

[NLMum27]

I'm afraid I'm with DaoGroupie here rsoni, it is all about preparation - by which I mean doing endless past papers. You have to know the concepts of course, but doing the papers is just as important I think.

[Ladymuck]

Deleted by user.

[MrsChips]

I don't think it's necessary to do 'endless papers'. In the end, that might be counter productive.

A few timed papers makes a massive difference, but after a certain point it's diminishing returns. It's difficult to know what that point is, of course. I know my son was disadvantaged by not doing timed papers before the grammars, but his results in maths didn't seem to be improving the more we did since then - there was always a fixed set of careless errors that I don't know what we could do to eliminate.

Too many papers would be joyless and that might be reflected in their work. An exam marker in a v selective school told me that he was sick of seeing the same-old same-old very rehearsed and not at apt descriptions in compositions. It was very obvious to them. The papers that scored highest had heartfelt and relevant descriptions.

[NLMum27]

I agree with you on English actually MrsChips. I think their work has to be original and not pre-rehearsed, it's just a question of doing a couple of papers to get timing right. For us, doing many maths past papers really helped though. In the beginning there were so many stupid mistakes my dd made so we did lots of papers and gradually found ways to reduce the number.

[Lady P]

When we went to an open morning at Channing in the autumn the Head told us that they only have 56 places on offer for Year 7 this year - due to the fact that girls from Year 6 there will be moving up. I have no idea how many applications they had but obviously it's not going to be that easy to get a place this year ...

[elevenlevel]

Some practice yes but I agree that too much is a bad idea. How to kill a love of learning (with a few children who don't mind doing two hours of papers every single day for fun being the exception).

[ConcernedDad]

rsoni,

Don't get disheartened! DD might have had an off day. Or the selection criteria for Channing may be different from that of other schools. In any case, there seems to be particularly high level of competition for Channing this year.

Try not to pass on your panic to your DD.

In the meanwhile, check out whether there are any schools in your neighborhood that still accept applications. It is not a bad idea to have back-ups lined up.

All the best!

[rsoni]

Thanks! Channing did have 56 places to offer - so I guess super tough.
On a previous point - of course practice (not excess) is a must ... But how can she practise when she has not had a chance to learn all the concepts yet? (E.g.: what is a percentage .. Ratios... Probability. Etc)

No one to blame but DD was in a very challenging place due to the move and I don't think independent schools are taking that into consideration..

[tiffinboys]

But how can she practise when she has not had a chance to learn all the concepts yet? (E.g.: what is a percentage .. Ratios... Probability. Etc)

Hope that parents' stress is not being taken on by the child as well and wish that she gets a place in a good non-selective good school.

[J50]

Thanks! Channing did have 56 places to offer - so I guess super tough.
On a previous point - of course practice (not excess) is a must ... But how can she practise when she has not had a chance to learn all the concepts yet? (E.g.: what is a percentage .. Ratios... Probability. Etc)

I think for many schools you need to have covered much of the KS2 material, so essentially have completed everything that will be done at school by the end of Year 6. In maths for example I had already done this with my son some time ago, we did all the KS2 concepts and more as I like to take it one stage further than you would even expect on the exam. He's in for a fairly boring rest of Year 6 though and probably half of Year 7 (in maths anyway)...