Verbal reasoning
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Verbal reasoning
In the year 5 cat test my daughter scored 106 in her vr, whilst achieving 119/115 in quantitive and nvr. The head said she was borderline, (to pass the 11+) and the VR score would let her down if we needed to appeal. I was disappointed as she used to do so well and I thought she would be going to grammar. She will sit the Dartford Test and possibly Bexley Test.
She has just sat and done her first online vr (demo, this site, tutors) took 35 mins. moaned continually that she couldn't do them so wasting a lot of time and got 86%. She also has just done the Bond fifth papers in verbal reasoning this morning, again didn't stop moaning they were too difficult, left out two complete sections of 5 questions (e.g. find the two letters that will end the first word and start the second and the compound words, I found these difficult trying to do them under pressure!!) In the Bond she scored 71 out of 100, took longer that 50 mins.
It got her laughing in the end, both of us, as she was a real pain doing the tests moaning and then got really good scores...
Is this good, it seems good to me..... does she stand a better than borderline chance.
She has just sat and done her first online vr (demo, this site, tutors) took 35 mins. moaned continually that she couldn't do them so wasting a lot of time and got 86%. She also has just done the Bond fifth papers in verbal reasoning this morning, again didn't stop moaning they were too difficult, left out two complete sections of 5 questions (e.g. find the two letters that will end the first word and start the second and the compound words, I found these difficult trying to do them under pressure!!) In the Bond she scored 71 out of 100, took longer that 50 mins.
It got her laughing in the end, both of us, as she was a real pain doing the tests moaning and then got really good scores...
Is this good, it seems good to me..... does she stand a better than borderline chance.
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perplexed
It sounds as though she should give it her best shot as she is in with a chance. You need to use as "confidence" building an approach as possible. The reason why she does all the moaning and procrastinating could be that she is embarrassed at you finding out what she can and cannot do.
You need to take the approach that the "testing" you are doing is to find out the types of questions she needs to learn how to do, rather than it being about how she will do in the real thing. There is no easy connection between all the practice test scores and the real thing so you should both treat it as a learning exercise.
Find out a bit more about the Headteacher's appeal - maybe else where on this forum, and from the head herself. It would seem a shame if the Head's judgement of your child's ability is based on one set of testing. Has she said that she would appeal if you child was a marginal failure, and that she thinks your child is in the top 25% of the population or not? What other evidence would she use at the headteacher's appeal? In Kent the Headteacher can appeal before the 11+ results are made known to the parents. the parents then also have a right of appeal after the results are made known.
You asked about Bradbourne in another e-mail. Afraid that I haven't looked into this school for a long time, but at the time I did look at it neither the Ofsted report nor the results were great, and it was always undersubscribed. there are other non-selectives in Kent that are better than this but are probably too far from you. Don't you have some true comprehensives in your area?
I do know of someone who goes there now and whose mother is trying to stop her fall into the "wrong company" (shoplifters, egging her on to forge notes from parents to avoid games lessons etc) ...... but I don't know that is much help as we had the same thing at my superselective fee paying independent school. She is however really enjoying it!!
You need to take the approach that the "testing" you are doing is to find out the types of questions she needs to learn how to do, rather than it being about how she will do in the real thing. There is no easy connection between all the practice test scores and the real thing so you should both treat it as a learning exercise.
Find out a bit more about the Headteacher's appeal - maybe else where on this forum, and from the head herself. It would seem a shame if the Head's judgement of your child's ability is based on one set of testing. Has she said that she would appeal if you child was a marginal failure, and that she thinks your child is in the top 25% of the population or not? What other evidence would she use at the headteacher's appeal? In Kent the Headteacher can appeal before the 11+ results are made known to the parents. the parents then also have a right of appeal after the results are made known.
You asked about Bradbourne in another e-mail. Afraid that I haven't looked into this school for a long time, but at the time I did look at it neither the Ofsted report nor the results were great, and it was always undersubscribed. there are other non-selectives in Kent that are better than this but are probably too far from you. Don't you have some true comprehensives in your area?
I do know of someone who goes there now and whose mother is trying to stop her fall into the "wrong company" (shoplifters, egging her on to forge notes from parents to avoid games lessons etc) ...... but I don't know that is much help as we had the same thing at my superselective fee paying independent school. She is however really enjoying it!!
Thank you perplexed for your time and effort to reply. I actually went to see the head today, she is new and only joined us this Sept. She said my daughter was in with a very good chance and the appeal is not written off. Which is not the impression I got from the previous head. Although this head said she didn't have the figures to hand at the moment and would have to look at her previous reports etc. to decide on an appeal. As my daughter is predicted 5's she said that was a good indicator. Her three cat scores do make her in the top 25%. She has told me I should list Dartford Grammar then Wilmington (as apparently this is the only one of the two which will take appeals). Then my third non selective choice is very difficult. I hear what you are saying about Brandbourne. I also worry whether my daughter will reach her full potential there as this is one of the claims in the ofsted. It looked so bright, friendly and slick when we visited.... it is only now that I have looked at the ofsted. A good school not too far is the Leigh City (changed its name now) but that is very hard to get into I couldn't list it as my third, as this could then leave me with no schools. My local school is Hextable, it seemed so unruly when we visited, this is a mixed school. If only we could list more schools, to cover ourselves e.g. Bexley Selective Schools. I am finding this a very hard decision. Anymore comments appreciated.