Less than 1 month to go !

[MedievalBabe]

The Diamond Hunt is run by Beards Jewellers and Maggie's Cancer charity. You have to get a guide from either place at £10 and then go and hunt. There will be extra clue givers around town where you can buy clues at £5 a go. If you find a box it won't actually contain the diamond but an IOU which you take to Beards for the diamond along with the guide as proof you have paid and supported the charity. They will be hiding 10 diamonds around Cheltenham.

You can get more on http://www.beards.co.uk/diamondrush" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; .

[Kismet]

Hmmmm. Our scores are still up and down. I think these mocks are really variable though, Sunshine. My tutor and I were both a bit unsure about the mock DS took as the format and content weren't quite as expected. That's besides typos in the paper and unexpected duplications in the multiple choice answers. Ours was useful for the overall experience but not necessarily as an indicator of projected result (I hope)

Diamond run sounds interesting. May look into that. I find it odd to think that if DS and I are lucky, we could end up meeting some of you lovely ladies in real life at school next year and will never know it

[Debims]

We got the results of DD's mock results last night. She had found the test difficult and has slipped down the rankings since her last test in June so can't deny I'm a bit disappointed, though I do know not to take the results too seriously - she is clever enough to know the real thing is what really counts! What I don't understand is that the number of pupils she was marked against varied across the four papers - how can that happen? I was never good at maths but surely if there is a group of children sitting in a room taking the same test, then the same number should be getting the results? Confused...

[sonasona]

Hi, can I ask which mock exams you refer to here?

[Tinnyknickers]

Hi all, this is incredibly reassuring. DS has been doing a little each week day alternating between VR, NVR, English and Maths. Mostly he has been scoring over 80% on each paper although the timing is still a bit dubious. We did one mock test which was a complete disaster but there was a young lad there who disrupted the complete session. DS didn't even answer 30 of the VR questions. We are doing more intensive work next week and then, when school starts again, will do a little in the evenings.

I just want the whole thing to be over now. While having the exam earlier can be good, the whole summer holidays have been over-shadowed by 'the test'!

Great support, thank you!

[Sunshine 11]

Totally agree Tinnyknickers (love the name by the way) it does seem to have dominated the holidays but my they have whizzed by ! and now here comes the rain

[Tolstoy]

Little hint as have a fondness for Gloucs. Practice maths problem solving as that is where the timing is tricky.

[MedievalBabe]

I am working on strengths within maths, so which areas she is strongest and weakest. Then aiming her for those questions she knows she can answer easily knowing she can generally get most marks and then skipping the ones she struggles with. The idea being that she uses her time to answer wisely and once answered the questions she is confident with she moves back to the ones she finds harder.

[Stressed?Moi?]

Little hint as have a fondness for Gloucs. Practice maths problem solving as that is where the timing is tricky.

Cheers Tolstoy. We now seem to be doing little else as they are true minute munchers. I hate the blooming things.

[Tolstoy]

They certainly are and he ended up not finishing about 8 of them . Hoping he will have made up for it in the NVR. I spent a week getting him up to speed with the maths curriculum and only realised a couple of days before the test that he wasn't great at transferring the knowledge to problem solving. His mental maths was a bit slow which didn't help. We found something on the internet but all a little too late unfortunately.