Resting over the summer holidays?

[hornetgirl]

I went to the open evening at school yesterday. I went to chat with my DS's year 5 teacher and his soon to be year 6 teacher about holiday work to prepare for 11+. I have already bought a load of CEM practice papers and was planning 1 each of maths/Eng/VR/NVR per week with reading on the other days.

Both teachers urged me to let DS rest over the holidays and relax a bit. I was astonished, after all the hard work put in this term, we have an 8 week holiday then Bexley and Olave's 11+ within two weeks of the start of term. How can they be advising rest? I thought I was being unduly lenient with DS already.

I am still planning to make him do 1 hour a day Monday-Friday - reading or practice papers throughout the summer. Is this really that unreasonable?

[mystery]

Do whatever you feel needs to be done. Your primary school doesn't necessarily know that much about the tests your child will be sitting or the kind of scores they need for success. And it's you and your son that have to live with the results, not his year 6 teachers.

But have a good holiday too. It is possible to combine the two things. And don't set too much store on the results - a well prepared child can still flunk it on the day.

I explained this badly to my child though as I was wanting to say that I didn't care about the results and why a poor result was not a reliable measure of "ability" but I ended up worrying them that they would panic on the day and get everything wrong! That was not my intention!

My rule is never to speak to primary school teachers about the 11 plus. It always leads to doom of some sort.

[MmeOgg]

My rule is never to speak to primary school teachers about the 11 plus. It always leads to doom of some sort.

^^ this.

Most state primary school teachers have very little awareness of the 11+, won't know dates or content and quite possibly aren't aware of the admissions criteria or whereabouts of local selective schools.

Do what you feel is helpful over the summer - but do give your DS plenty of time to relax and enjoy himself.

[Tolstoy]

My DS had a taster day in his new class Y6 and they were encouraged to continue with some learning over the holidays. This may or may not have been in connection with 11+ but it is a known fact that the 6 week break does mean some unlearning goes on. Mental arithmatic can quickly go off the boil, worked in enough pubs in my life to realise that. Fine under normal circumstances but if you are expecting DC to do a timed exam a couple of weeks after returning to school then it would be an injustice to encourage them to switch off completely.

By all means discourage parents from using all day every day to cram in extra work but to do no work at all is absurd. Yet another way off giving heavily tutored DC, who will certainly not take time off, an advantage over the naturally academic.

[LostInTheShuffle]

I started a thread earlier this year on "Tiger parenting for the 11+" (http://www.elevenplusexams.co.uk/forum/ ... =5&t=40960). A couple of people posted that some children devoted 5-6 hours each day to 11+ preparation during the summer.

Compared to that, 1 hour a day is sounds highly reasonable. FWIW, my DD worked steadily last summer (also preparing for a CEM as her first exam).