'reward for working well' before OR after the test?

[ConfusedFather]

Yes fantastic article that emphasizes again the importance of praising effort (and experiencing failure) in education.

[Stokers]

The author of the article, Carol Dweck, has written a number of books on this topic. I have read Mindset and can recommend it highly. It goes into more detail about the effects of praising effort vs ability and techniques to redress any imbalance.

[salsa]

If you enjoyed the article you may like her book.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/?ie=UTF8&keyw ... 0h1lpz47_b" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

You can listen to the author on the BBC.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b062jsn7" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[mystery]

Maybe my children are just lazy, but with both I have / have had to give frequent small rewards (whatever I agreed with them would motivate - and it varied, sometimes small sums of money and they saved up for something they really wanted, other times small items they wanted or screen time etc etc) along the way for eleven-plus work, doing it without a fuss etc etc.

Closer to the time DD1 liked looking at the heap of stuff she had worked through and us parents going, "Wow that's a lot of hard work you have done etc etc."

There'd be the occasional click moments where speed or accuracy or a difficult topic was conquered and they were motivating too. I only found that true self-motivation started up about a week before the test!

[neveragainmum]

I plan to reward with a trip to a toy store directly after last exam to buy much wanted expensive update playstation to reward for all ds hard work over a prolonged period, I am very proud of ds efforts and maturity. I will not feel it necessary to reward if the results are good as going to a great school will be reward enough. And I would rather in the instance of 11plus reward for the effort, as not many other situations do you still not probably gain with hard work and determination, common in the 11plus unfortunately.