To tutor or not for bexley / kent?

[MerlinFromCamelot]

We did most of our prep DIY. DDs both done well. Passed both Kent and Bexley. If you are looking at Bexley suggest you work on speed especially for maths. We used to look at problem solving together I/e not working out the answers but talking about how would she work it out. (We liked Schofield & Sims) only used bond for VR & Nvr. Reading widely is great, also worth making a vocabulary list.

We too felt strongly that Co Ed was the way to go for us. Both C&S and BGS are great schools.

Good luck!

[dwisdom]

How did you teach English?

[MerlinFromCamelot]

We did not spent too much time on English tbh more on VR. Having said that DD reads widely so her vocabulary was good in any event. We had ordered cloze books but when I looked at them we decided some of the content was much harder than what we needed. DD2 predicted A* at GS for English could not do them!!!??

CGP has a good selection and Scofield & Sims do very reasonably priced comprehension books but check before you buy as the first books in the series are likely to be a bit easy.

[tag30]

Thanks merlinfromcamelot and for your message.
I think I could do it myself but I'm just worried about staying on the right track and knowing all the right materials and topics to work to.
I've decided that our first aim is to nail the times tables so that she is fluent. We've being doing them everyday for a week and she's already 99% on 2, 3, 5 and 10. I've just got the bond practice maths aged 7-8, schofield and sims mental arithmetic 2 and the first past the post mental arithmetic book 1- this looks quite challenging so I'm leaving this till later in the year.
Could you recommend any others for the bexley test?
I like the look of both the co-ed schools in bexley so if she passed whichever she chose would be ok with me.

[MerlinFromCamelot]

I have not used the first past the post books. I think there are much harder than they need to be. Now that the test has been changed it is difficult to know what is going to come up. I think tutors are probably as in the dark as we parents are compared to the old system. We practiced widely and for maths more on speed than higher level maths.

We revised tables in year 4, usually in the car as well as things such as how many meters in a kilometre... grams in a kilo ... 50%=0.5=1/2 It may seem simple but if does help if these facts are solid so they don't have to think too much when working out wordy problems under time pressure.

[reader88]

I also DIYed my DD and started with Bond books at mid 2013. While some might argue Bond is too easy, Bond proves a 11+ bible from our experience - DD learnt most.

After Easter 2014, DD was given all sort of test papers - GL, CGP CEM, First Past Post etc. CGP CEM probably is the most difficult, according to DD. She also tried Cloze and 3D NVR, in which she suffered in the first exercise and gradually improved once familiar with the format of questions.

Her results have been positive - Bexley top 180 and a near full mark in Kent test.

[tag30]

Thanks everyone I'll stick to the bond books and times tables for now then. Grateful for all your input

[Rads2005]

Hi Tag30/Merlin

Our kids are supposed to be proficient in times tables UPTO what number ? 12 or 15 or more ?

[MerlinFromCamelot]

We only went up to 10x random recall as well as inverse operations. Also fast recall of number bonds etc... is helpful. We used to practice these on the way to school & car journeys. It is easy to work out that 10x5 + 2x5 = 12x5

Based on our experience speed and accuracy is important so fast recall is likely to be helpful.