11 Plus Exams Forum

Hello everyone...Just registered on this wonderful forum...need your help and advice. My son attends a Grammar school and we are worried about the end of the year exam which starts from 14th of May....Does it cover the entire Year 7 syllabus? How does he cope? How do we prepare him for this exam?
Your ideas and words of experience would be really helpful and beneficial at this crucial stage.
Thanking you in advance
Best Wishes
chin123

Chin123 wrote:Hello everyone...Just registered on this wonderful forum...need your help and advice. My son attends a Grammar school and we are worried about the end of the year exam which starts from 14th of May....Does it cover the entire Year 7 syllabus? How does he cope? How do we prepare him for this exam?
Your ideas and words of experience would be really helpful and beneficial at this crucial stage.
Thanking you in advance
Best Wishes
chin123

Please, please don't worry about year 7 exams - they really have only just started and the GSs tend to break them in gently. What is covered will probably vary by subject and it might be better for him to start coping on his own - I reckon most of the exams will be quite short .

TBH I wasn't even aware of my kids doing exams at the end of year 7 and they bumbled through fine (before you all think I am a lost cause, I have now registered that one of them is doing A levels and one is doing GCSEs this year )

Completely agree with what Herman says...time to get him to start coping on his own. The school will give him guidance on what to revise and how to do it. It will be low key and certainly not 'crucial' in any sense. And if the worst happens and he makes a total mess up of it...well, lessons will be learned, no doubt, in time for the year 8 exams .

.

My year 7 ds has got exams also. We sat down and wrote out a revision timetable. It roughly equates to a couple of 30 minutes sessions per evening depending on other homework. I didn't want to overdo it. (Does this seem reaonable?). I gave him some tips on revision (ie. making notes) and have left him up to it.

I wouldn't worry too much about year 7 exams. The one thing that might be of concern is if the result determines any sets for year 8 - eg. Maths in our case. However, if they aren't in the top set at Grammar school it doesn't really matter - they may get an A rather than an A*

I didn't find year 7 (or year 8 or year 9) exams any good for helping DS1 learn to revise. The subjects which would have required extensive revision (e.g. History, Geography) did not examine him on the whole year's work, only on the topic they were doing at the time. Maybe the school will have to re-think this policy now that modular GCSE exams are going to disappear.

I'm still waiting for DS1 to do more than 30 minutes' revision in one go, and he's now in year 11!

suzanne wrote:I wouldn't worry too much about year 7 exams. The one thing that might be of concern is if the result determines any sets for year 8 - eg. Maths in our case. However, if they aren't in the top set at Grammar school it doesn't really matter - they may get an A rather than an A*

Actually, plenty of DCs at grammar school get a C for GCSE and some don't pass at all.

I meant they might not pass a particular GCSE rather than not pass any at all (that would be a shock I think)