Patricia, Mike and all the other tutors
Moderators: Section Moderators, Forum Moderators
-
Jana
Patricia, Mike and all the other tutors
Patricia,
We are awaiting results and allocation - my daughter sat the Bucks 11 plus exams this year - untutored, we could not find a tutor in Amersham as we only moved into the area five months ago. We come from Kent where the papers, dates and system is very different. She had a tutor there to help prepare for English and Maths which Bucks does not do.
I discovered this site quite late on in our preparation, and it's good that the forum now has a structure that is easy to track by region, based on your suggestion (Mike to Patricia thread). Also the fact that you are providing free guidance is highly commendable, Bucks (and Wirral - Mike) are lucky to have this service. I will certainly be directing next years parents to your section.
I would like to make a further suggestion that will be helpful for future 11 plus Bucks parents - that is why don't you write complete articles (or even series of articles on preparation advice, like the information you are giving under 'free help') and have them posted on the main part of the website so all the commonly sought key information and your experience is in one all encompassing piece.
Over the last few weeks I have followed your forum submissions in particular, as you are a Bucks tutor, and if all this was in one or two articles I would, as a parent, have found it very useful. At the moment the information is fragmented in many different threads and I found myself each morning looking at all the threads to see where you may have contributed to.
Please do not see this as a criticism, see it more of a constructive and appreciative suggestion.
Jana
P.S. It would be nice if more tutors from the other 11 plus regions followed your lead and provided expert advice for their parents.
We are awaiting results and allocation - my daughter sat the Bucks 11 plus exams this year - untutored, we could not find a tutor in Amersham as we only moved into the area five months ago. We come from Kent where the papers, dates and system is very different. She had a tutor there to help prepare for English and Maths which Bucks does not do.
I discovered this site quite late on in our preparation, and it's good that the forum now has a structure that is easy to track by region, based on your suggestion (Mike to Patricia thread). Also the fact that you are providing free guidance is highly commendable, Bucks (and Wirral - Mike) are lucky to have this service. I will certainly be directing next years parents to your section.
I would like to make a further suggestion that will be helpful for future 11 plus Bucks parents - that is why don't you write complete articles (or even series of articles on preparation advice, like the information you are giving under 'free help') and have them posted on the main part of the website so all the commonly sought key information and your experience is in one all encompassing piece.
Over the last few weeks I have followed your forum submissions in particular, as you are a Bucks tutor, and if all this was in one or two articles I would, as a parent, have found it very useful. At the moment the information is fragmented in many different threads and I found myself each morning looking at all the threads to see where you may have contributed to.
Please do not see this as a criticism, see it more of a constructive and appreciative suggestion.
Jana
P.S. It would be nice if more tutors from the other 11 plus regions followed your lead and provided expert advice for their parents.
-
Mike Edwards
Thank you for your comments, they are very much appreciated.
The problem with forum postings is that after six or seven additions the original topic becomes lost.
The original Mike to Patricia posting was to highlight the issue that many of the available resources purchased from the high street are not relevant to the individual LEAs.
There are other postings on the site that have asked for information about the content and structure of entrance tests for each LEA. There may be enough information currently available within the forum for a section to be made advising parents on which publications, including E-papers, are most relevant to each LEA.
For example, I would reccomend NFER and IPS minus the HIKNOS questions for Wirral as, in my opinion, these are the most relevant publications. I would not reccomend Bond or Athey as these publications contain too many irrelevant question types.
I know Patricia has her own views on which papers are most relevant in Bucks.
The problem with forum postings is that after six or seven additions the original topic becomes lost.
The original Mike to Patricia posting was to highlight the issue that many of the available resources purchased from the high street are not relevant to the individual LEAs.
There are other postings on the site that have asked for information about the content and structure of entrance tests for each LEA. There may be enough information currently available within the forum for a section to be made advising parents on which publications, including E-papers, are most relevant to each LEA.
For example, I would reccomend NFER and IPS minus the HIKNOS questions for Wirral as, in my opinion, these are the most relevant publications. I would not reccomend Bond or Athey as these publications contain too many irrelevant question types.
I know Patricia has her own views on which papers are most relevant in Bucks.
Dear Jana
Thank you for your kind words and support, in the beginning I felt like an ogre on the 'bucks format please' thread. I was not going to let go of the fact that incorrect information was being 'banded' about. It just showed that there are tutors out there in Bucks teaching irrelevant material and giving parents wrong information.
However, re submitting info to website, I am in the process of putting together some constructive criticism about the info given for Bucks.
Agree that some posts can go off topic, when I made the suggestion of splitting up the forum into areas I made the comment of someone asking a question and eventually receiving a reply about 'hot chocolate'
Suppose we could all try to keep reasonably on topic and post under new subjects if we want to go off on a tangent.
Patricia
Thank you for your kind words and support, in the beginning I felt like an ogre on the 'bucks format please' thread. I was not going to let go of the fact that incorrect information was being 'banded' about. It just showed that there are tutors out there in Bucks teaching irrelevant material and giving parents wrong information.
However, re submitting info to website, I am in the process of putting together some constructive criticism about the info given for Bucks.
Agree that some posts can go off topic, when I made the suggestion of splitting up the forum into areas I made the comment of someone asking a question and eventually receiving a reply about 'hot chocolate'
Suppose we could all try to keep reasonably on topic and post under new subjects if we want to go off on a tangent.
Patricia
