What did you learn through this process?
Moderators: Section Moderators, Forum Moderators
Re: What did you learn through this process?
Definitely agree with all of that!
Our DD is currently at state school and we have no experience of Independent, so it was all very scary! I found lots of what I read on this board useful to begin to get an idea of what was going on in terms of preparation.
We decided to only do a term of exam prep, and make it quite an intense one, as that it how we felt our DD works best. It's different for each child. If we'd done it for years as many seem to, she would just have been bored of it. We felt it was important that she simply understood how the tests worked and knew how to 'show off' her knowledge to gain as many marks as possible (ie showing workings out in maths and looking at how many marks for the question). I tutored her as we couldn't afford a tutor (I'm a primary teacher so have a vague idea!). There are so many resources available - free online ones and books.
We also did lots of visiting of the three schools applied for - took all opportunities such as open days, taster day, complimentary tickets to concerts etc.
We're lucky that our daughter is very social / outgoing so the interview wasn't going to be an issue, but equally, we 'practiced' possible questions simply so she'd thought about them. However, we didn't want to give her 'correct' answers so left it at that!
It's all seemed quite intense and, although we felt we had done what we could, we really weren't sure how she'd do so the waiting for results was hard!! However, we did lots of reward stuff, recognising that DD had worked really hard in preparation. It was definitely worth doing it all, although we only did it because we felt that she might have a chance.
We also had back up plans if it didn't all work out. These were one's she didn't want, which motivated her even more!!
Our DD is currently at state school and we have no experience of Independent, so it was all very scary! I found lots of what I read on this board useful to begin to get an idea of what was going on in terms of preparation.
We decided to only do a term of exam prep, and make it quite an intense one, as that it how we felt our DD works best. It's different for each child. If we'd done it for years as many seem to, she would just have been bored of it. We felt it was important that she simply understood how the tests worked and knew how to 'show off' her knowledge to gain as many marks as possible (ie showing workings out in maths and looking at how many marks for the question). I tutored her as we couldn't afford a tutor (I'm a primary teacher so have a vague idea!). There are so many resources available - free online ones and books.
We also did lots of visiting of the three schools applied for - took all opportunities such as open days, taster day, complimentary tickets to concerts etc.
We're lucky that our daughter is very social / outgoing so the interview wasn't going to be an issue, but equally, we 'practiced' possible questions simply so she'd thought about them. However, we didn't want to give her 'correct' answers so left it at that!
It's all seemed quite intense and, although we felt we had done what we could, we really weren't sure how she'd do so the waiting for results was hard!! However, we did lots of reward stuff, recognising that DD had worked really hard in preparation. It was definitely worth doing it all, although we only did it because we felt that she might have a chance.
We also had back up plans if it didn't all work out. These were one's she didn't want, which motivated her even more!!
Re: What did you learn through this process?
Minor point- my DC was asked at every interview about his badges. Which was great it gave him something to talk about.
