121 tutor, group tuition, DIY - what to do?
Moderators: Section Moderators, Forum Moderators
Re: 121 tutor, group tuition, DIY - what to do?
Everyone has their own opinions on 'volume of work' 
Seems that I often come across parents who think it is fine for a child to spend 2 hours on the wii and 3 hours watching TV at the weekend, but not reading or doing 'work'!
Maybe one hour a week will get a child into Grammar school but I wouldn't want to try it and see! My opinion is that it is better to fly past the mark than just miss it.
I work very hard myself and always have done, you could call me a workaholic (I have 2 jobs, my own business, 5 children incl. 2 little ones and no relatives nearby!). Fortunately my dcs are pretty similar and are not the sort to laze around.
My ds1 (Year 7 CH) happily works hard at school (and on the bus
) then spends about 2 hours every evening working on homework. He'll always do 'Bonus questions' etc, that's just how he has been taught to be. Sometimes this is much longer and he will work till nearly 11pm, for example if he has a French test the next day 
This is on top of Arabic tuition 3 evenings a week and other clubs. In the holidays he is never quite as happy or fulfilled and always at a bit of a loss what to do with himself. He goes on the wii, watches dvds, and quite frankly seems slightly depressed. He's always happy to start his 'work' routine again.
My ds2 is also thankfully happy to work. In fact he's done quite a bit this week so I didn't really set him anything today - but he got out a 'Brain Workout' puzzle book and did loads of that himself, of his own accord.
I wouldn't worry too much about the Bond English score though. I know children occasionally get dire results at English 4th papers when they are doing fine otherwise! Firstly about 40% of the paper will have been irrelevant to the 11 plus, secondly, some of the comprehension answers are so obscure that most adults wouldn't get them right! (To be honest, 70% of the VR test wouldn't have been relevant either!).
I would suggest First Aid English as an excellent book to work through, and there are comprehension exercises at the back too.
Seems that I often come across parents who think it is fine for a child to spend 2 hours on the wii and 3 hours watching TV at the weekend, but not reading or doing 'work'!Maybe one hour a week will get a child into Grammar school but I wouldn't want to try it and see! My opinion is that it is better to fly past the mark than just miss it.
I work very hard myself and always have done, you could call me a workaholic (I have 2 jobs, my own business, 5 children incl. 2 little ones and no relatives nearby!). Fortunately my dcs are pretty similar and are not the sort to laze around.
My ds1 (Year 7 CH) happily works hard at school (and on the bus
) then spends about 2 hours every evening working on homework. He'll always do 'Bonus questions' etc, that's just how he has been taught to be. Sometimes this is much longer and he will work till nearly 11pm, for example if he has a French test the next day This is on top of Arabic tuition 3 evenings a week and other clubs. In the holidays he is never quite as happy or fulfilled and always at a bit of a loss what to do with himself. He goes on the wii, watches dvds, and quite frankly seems slightly depressed. He's always happy to start his 'work' routine again.My ds2 is also thankfully happy to work. In fact he's done quite a bit this week so I didn't really set him anything today - but he got out a 'Brain Workout' puzzle book and did loads of that himself, of his own accord.
I wouldn't worry too much about the Bond English score though. I know children occasionally get dire results at English 4th papers when they are doing fine otherwise! Firstly about 40% of the paper will have been irrelevant to the 11 plus, secondly, some of the comprehension answers are so obscure that most adults wouldn't get them right! (To be honest, 70% of the VR test wouldn't have been relevant either!).
I would suggest First Aid English as an excellent book to work through, and there are comprehension exercises at the back too.
-
fm
Re: 121 tutor, group tuition, DIY - what to do?
How much work is really dependent on your individual child and how much you want them to gain a grammar school place.
My students do an hour one-to-one, one hour testing and two hours' homework. This is sufficient for the bulk of them to gain entry, although most are at good state primary schools.
A few will do less as they will manage my homework in less than 2 hours. Some, however, need more than this. That's where parental choice comes in. I have, in the past, told parents that their borderline child could make entry if the child increased his/her effort to bridge the gap. Some have taken the attitude that, if the child needs to do more than everyone else, then perhaps he/she shouldn't be going to grammar school, and have not done the extra. While I would not argue with this point of view, unfortunately I find it is often really the case that parents don't believe you, do expect their clever child to pass without this extra effort and are devastated when the child doesn't pass. Oddly enough the ones who do the extra and still don't pass are more accepting of the result, feeling they could have done no more.
So basically I would agree with Um--better do more than necessary to overshoot the mark than try to work out what is sufficient. Sufficient for someone else's child may not be sufficient for yours so there is little point in following someone else's regime.
I would, however, dispute the value of First Aid in English as a first port of call for study. While I would accept it may improve a child's general English to a degree, there seems an over-concentration on idiomatic English and I can't see much of it being of specific relevance to the KE exam. It is very reminiscent of the work I did for 11 plus but that was 46 years ago.
I would agree that you could skip much of Bond English as also being irrelevant to the KEGS exam (e.g. alphabetical order, idioms, compound words, tenses) but I think the spelling, parts of speech and vocbulary work are useful, and the comprehensions valuable because they are so challenging. Yes, some of the questions/answers are a little obscure and ambiguous but I would say a very small percentage. The reason some children score badly in these is often because they don't answer the question asked. They answer why instead of how, or who instead of why, or give very vague, insubstantial answers, or refer to the wrong part of the text altogether, even when told otherwise. I find if you keep ploughing through them, not accepting substandard answers, most child will eventually raise their standards. They are certainly not beyond an intelligent 10 year old with good reading skills because I have had some very high calibre work from children, unaided by parents. If your child is not scoring well in the comprehension part, then that is all the more reason to keep doing them. The whole point of tuition is to identify weaknesses and address them.
At one time I would have not worried about the state of a child's comprehension as it was a small amount of the overall mark (about 1/15 until this year) but last year I suspect it accounted for 1/3 of the English which makes it 1/6 of the overall mark in the new scoring system.
My students do an hour one-to-one, one hour testing and two hours' homework. This is sufficient for the bulk of them to gain entry, although most are at good state primary schools.
A few will do less as they will manage my homework in less than 2 hours. Some, however, need more than this. That's where parental choice comes in. I have, in the past, told parents that their borderline child could make entry if the child increased his/her effort to bridge the gap. Some have taken the attitude that, if the child needs to do more than everyone else, then perhaps he/she shouldn't be going to grammar school, and have not done the extra. While I would not argue with this point of view, unfortunately I find it is often really the case that parents don't believe you, do expect their clever child to pass without this extra effort and are devastated when the child doesn't pass. Oddly enough the ones who do the extra and still don't pass are more accepting of the result, feeling they could have done no more.
So basically I would agree with Um--better do more than necessary to overshoot the mark than try to work out what is sufficient. Sufficient for someone else's child may not be sufficient for yours so there is little point in following someone else's regime.
I would, however, dispute the value of First Aid in English as a first port of call for study. While I would accept it may improve a child's general English to a degree, there seems an over-concentration on idiomatic English and I can't see much of it being of specific relevance to the KE exam. It is very reminiscent of the work I did for 11 plus but that was 46 years ago.
I would agree that you could skip much of Bond English as also being irrelevant to the KEGS exam (e.g. alphabetical order, idioms, compound words, tenses) but I think the spelling, parts of speech and vocbulary work are useful, and the comprehensions valuable because they are so challenging. Yes, some of the questions/answers are a little obscure and ambiguous but I would say a very small percentage. The reason some children score badly in these is often because they don't answer the question asked. They answer why instead of how, or who instead of why, or give very vague, insubstantial answers, or refer to the wrong part of the text altogether, even when told otherwise. I find if you keep ploughing through them, not accepting substandard answers, most child will eventually raise their standards. They are certainly not beyond an intelligent 10 year old with good reading skills because I have had some very high calibre work from children, unaided by parents. If your child is not scoring well in the comprehension part, then that is all the more reason to keep doing them. The whole point of tuition is to identify weaknesses and address them.
At one time I would have not worried about the state of a child's comprehension as it was a small amount of the overall mark (about 1/15 until this year) but last year I suspect it accounted for 1/3 of the English which makes it 1/6 of the overall mark in the new scoring system.
Re: 121 tutor, group tuition, DIY - what to do?
I also found the comprehensions on the Manchester Grammar School website really useful. I used them particularly when I was devising "mocks" in August/September as they took 10/15 mins each. (in fact I found some really useful resources on the Manchester Grammar site in the past papers section)
-
Turtlegirl
- Posts: 521
- Joined: Mon Mar 14, 2011 1:54 pm
Re: 121 tutor, group tuition, DIY - what to do?
Thanks for all the tips - you are all so helpful! Have just had a go on Free Rice myself - I'd seen it before but hadn't thought about it in this context. It's much more fun that New First Aid in English!
Re: 121 tutor, group tuition, DIY - what to do?
fm is definitely the expert here! Bond do 4th papers (and 3rd and 5th) Comprehension which as the name suggests 
focus only on comprehension tests rather than the mixture found in the 4th papers English, if that is what you are looking for.
However I would venture to say that as a textbook, First Aid offers a handy resource for vocabulary building (synonyms/antonyms), spellings and (although this is not strictly an 11 plus topic!) punctuation.
I do have a bit of a personal mission to enable children to reach adulthood knowing when to use an apostrophe
many sadly don't.
focus only on comprehension tests rather than the mixture found in the 4th papers English, if that is what you are looking for.However I would venture to say that as a textbook, First Aid offers a handy resource for vocabulary building (synonyms/antonyms), spellings and (although this is not strictly an 11 plus topic!) punctuation.
I do have a bit of a personal mission to enable children to reach adulthood knowing when to use an apostrophe
many sadly don't.