Not Long Now!

[CKMum]

Hi All

Not long now til 12th Sept will be upon us. Hope that everyone is surviving the summer and your DCs are feeling confident and relaxed. I can't believe it has come round so quickly! I haven't heard anything yet from my DS's test centre about arrangements for the 12th, but I guess this might still be a bit early, especially as A and GCSE results have just come out and they are probably frantically busy with those.

Hope you are managing to stay calm - I think it's often a harder, if not different, stress that we go through than our DCs!

Wishing everyone all the very best and I hope that your DCs do as well as they can and are ultimately pleased with their performance on the day.

Blessings!

[cazien]

Same here - time has gone by tooooo quickly! DD is working steadily - not doing too much as I don't want to "burn her out" but making sure she is doing something daily. I think the application acknowledgment said we should hear something by 7th Sept - if not we have to contact the test centre. Can agree I am more stressed than DD just wondering if she is too laid back!

Good luck to one and all - couple of weeks until test, then quite a few more until the results

[turtleglos]

I am feeling much more relaxed this time around, Dd is doing ok and I know that our local school will be ok.
The closer it gets the more things I find that Dd doesn't know as well as I would like and I can feel the tension levels rising.

I will be very glad when it is over though.

[Flash]

We are feeling much more relaxed second time around and are enjoying the holidays and not thinking about it too much. DS should go into the exam relaxed and I know he will do his best.

We will be glad when it is all over and we are looking forward to a tutor free year 6!

Good luck all!

[steppemum]

feeling really low about dd and her chances.

ds is at Marling, we DIYed and it was fine. I always thought dd was more academic, she is a high achiever at her school, and has high NC levels wins maths prizes etc.

So we have worked over the last 6 months on the CEM materials, with no real problems, she can do all the maths and knows all the grammar etc, but she is so SLOW.

But she just constantly scores low in any test I give her. Mostly this is due to not being able to get through enough questions.

We have been doing daily work this week and last, with lots of timed short papers etc, and very, very slowly she is picking up speed and improving over things like making a sensible guesses and moving on.
But in the English paper she did she got every single vocab question wrong. I am tearing my hair out.

I sat down with dh this evening and said we really have to face up to the fact she probably isn't going to pass, and how to manage that, and her disappointment.
Ds is going to be an absolute cow to her is she doesn't pass, despite the fact he did the VR exam which to me was so much easier.

feel pretty low

[Tolstoy]

Steppemum, feeling rather similar about my own DC. He's doing decidedly okay on the CEM papers but for variety I gave him an old style VR test yesterday and despite never having seen most of the types before he absolutely aced it . My own fault really as have lost momentum with this DC and did hardly any prep before the hols.

Also pretty fed up about the timing of the test. They hardly have time to get back into the swing of the new school year before they have to sit it.

We are in Bucks though and our catchment Upper is good.

Just remind your DS ' he who laughs last laughs longest' . Of my lot so far the most knowledgable and in many ways smartest DC didn't pass the test. The one that did best in it is also the least likely to achieve well academically. It is a hoop to jump through little more than that.

Anyway goodluck she may well surprise you and speed up because of an adrenaline rush on the day.

[CKMum]

Sorry to hear that Steppemum. Hope that these last 2 weeks are not too stressful and who knows, on the day itself her speed may be fine. Speed was our problem too, and unfinished tests. Doing little 3 mins tests regularly have helped, and technique in particular (jumping over difficult questions so can answer the ones that follow on). Plus, remembering to fill in answer sheet with guesses if there are lots of blanks before they move onto the next section - may hit the correct answers with some of the missed questions this way - who knows!

Vocab is our biggest struggle - how much to know? Some of the words I have no idea about, let alone a 10 year old! How long is a piece of string...

Hoping that it all goes well for you both. Agree that early on in the term is stressful, and the longer wait! Only had to wait 6 days for results with DD 2 years ago - it's going to be a LONG month!

All the best to you and your DD.

[steppemum]

We did a maths test this morning. She got practically all the ones she did right, which encouraged her so much. But she still only finished half.
We will keep working on speed for the next 2 weeks and then just let her do her best. You are right about technique, I have been drumming into her that she has to fill in an answer even if only a guess, and she is finally picking up on that and getting into exam mode.

My consolation is that ds would have done very badly in another school, he really needed to be in a school where it is cool to be clever. Dd on the other hand is her own person. She is a hard worker too. She will do well academically anywhere. We have an alternative school, still involves traveling, but she likes it, so it isn't the end of the world.

I think it will depend on the day on which words come up on the vocab, and on how much the adrenalin helps her along.

[Stressed?Moi?]

I remember many of my posts being pretty much the same as these so don't panic. I convinced myself that he didn't have a snowball in ****'s chance. He was soooooo slow. He did a disastrous mock test in Gloucester and scored 173rd out of 179 pupils. We believed it to be hopeless. However, what you can't simulate beforehand is the adrenaline on the day. Also, if your child finds it difficult, others will too and your child will be a) up against many others in this very mixed-ability exam (you tend to get into a bubble and convince yourself that they will be up against hundreds of Einsteins and b) many, many of them won't want to go to the school that yours will. There are many variables that you just don't know before the day.

We taught both of ours to scan the paper for about a minute and pick out the ones they are strongest at. Quite often, questions were easier at the back and they ran out of time doing the ones they struggled with.

Apart, obviously from the fabulous Free Rice site, is Synonym Toast which ds used to do on my phone in the car whilst we drove to school.

Keep Calm and Carry On - not much longer now. And it's definitely worth the effort. Even if it doesn't work out the way you had hoped, your child will still have a headstart in their new school after all the work they have done.

[steppemum]

Thanks stressed, that is very encouraging.

I have also just seen again a post I did in April, and someone came on to say their dd said that the maths in the exam was much easier than the maths in the books we are using so I am crossing my fingers, and pressing on.