Help Please VR BUCKS

Eleven Plus (11+) in Buckinghamshire (Bucks)

Moderators: Section Moderators, Forum Moderators

Post Reply
11 Plus Platform - Online Practice Makes Perfect - Try Now
sarahh
Posts: 4
Joined: Sat Aug 13, 2011 9:04 am

Help Please VR BUCKS

Post by sarahh »

Hi was wondering if anyone had any advice. My eldest son is due to take VR paper in October on Bucks. Practice has been going well his strength is the vocab the codes and maths take a little longer and some times this can panic him.
He is seeing a tutor once a week for a practice paper with 4/5 other students , doing 1 or 2 practice papers at home per week also general maths and word practice -about 1 hour a day. All was going well and he was finishing tests with 5/ 10 mins checking times scoring about 90% . Started the susan Dougherty papers about 2 weeks ago and it has all started to go downhill scores have been 73,70,68,63 and 58 today!!

Really not sure what to do tutor seems a bit vague and says this happens to everyone not to worry and maybe ease of things a bit! This all makes me worry even more.My son by his own admission can lack concentration and panic's if something is difficult are these paper harder? He has been doing the IPS and AFN ones.He is worried things are going down but is happy to carry on with practice and is very focused on the Grammer school he wants to go to.

My son suffers from Asperger's syndrome although this does not seem to be effecting him too much as far as i can tell.

My gut feeling is to look into doing some extra practice test in proper exam conditions with other students i have a few options in my local area.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
mitasol
Posts: 2756
Joined: Wed Feb 27, 2008 9:59 am

Re: Help Please VR BUCKS

Post by mitasol »

Hi sarahh.

Welcome to the forum. I'm going to move your post to Bucks where you may get better feedback.
Guest55
Posts: 16254
Joined: Mon Feb 12, 2007 2:21 pm

Re: Help Please VR BUCKS

Post by Guest55 »

Sarahh,

Have you asked for any special arrangements for him? For example, a separate room or extra time?

Patricia is the VR queen so search for some of her posts on the order of pratice tests.
patricia
Posts: 2803
Joined: Mon Jan 30, 2006 5:07 pm

Re: Help Please VR BUCKS

Post by patricia »

Dear Sarahh

Firstly take a look at the following link with regard to diability and the 11 plus. Have you applied for extra time?

http://www.buckscc.gov.uk/assets/conten ... _Entry.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

In respect of tests, is your tutor actually teaching your son method and techniques or just "babysitting" whilst tests take place?

AFN and IPS are easier than the real tests. Susan Daughtrey [Bright Sparks] are of a similar standard to the official tests. The first few scores for Daughtrey are reasonably acceptable, I always aim for 90%. What order have they been completed in as each pack is graded, therefore 4 and 8 are the hardest, with 1 and 5 being the easiest.

Codes and some maths will take longer to complete, therefore I tell children not to panic, however there are specific Method and Techniques to help. [something your tutor should be covering] It is encouraging to see Vocabulary and Maths are his strenghs as Vocabulary is the biggest problem.

I understand children with Asperger's syndrome need structure, so an hour a day of parental help may be appropriate. [would not be recommending such a regime for children who do not need extra help]

What other tests do you have, what else has been completed?

Mock tests at this stage would only be beneficial if he has mastered all techniques, otherwise it mat be demoralising.

Patricia
sarahh
Posts: 4
Joined: Sat Aug 13, 2011 9:04 am

Re: Help Please VR BUCKS

Post by sarahh »

Dear Patricia

Thank you for your reply, I will have a look at the link. Yes we have applied for extra time and a break although it would mean him going into a separate room with a few other students and there are a number of disadvantages to this. I was planning to make a decision in September once a saw how practice tests in class went.

The tutor has gone through techniques with him and he seems to have a good understanding of these although i am not sure he always follows the rules especially with codes. He gets fed up and negative about the questions that take a little longer and is having difficulty learning not to panic.

He has done the SD tests in roughly order of difficulty - test 1 - 73, T3 -70, T5-68, T2 - 63, T7 -58 so 3 tests left to do.

I need to purchase some more tests and have been recommended the tutor ones, do theses come in order of difficulty? He was getting between 85 -97/100 on the AFN (did 8 tests)which he did in June /July. He found the IPS short tests ( did 8 )tricker getting 40-45 / 50 on these but with very little checking time left. He does prefer the longer tests so I was planning to stick to full length tests.

The last few test results have knocked his confidence and he is is becoming a bit negative about this whole process although says he is still focused on what he needs to do but can't always motivate himself to do it!

I am not quite sure how to build his confidence up again and which tests to do next - he is due to do SD paper 8 next week with a small group.

Thank you

Sarahh
SingleDad
Posts: 80
Joined: Thu Mar 10, 2011 5:00 pm

Re: Help Please VR BUCKS

Post by SingleDad »

Hi Sarah,

Patricia will no doubt provide some useful advice.

I thought I'd let you know about my experiences to date.

I've followed the advice given by Patricia (and others) on this site, including the order in which papers should be sat. Whilst my daughter had been getting some good scores upto Bright Sparks, some of her Bright Sparks scores did indeed dip a little. Her Bright Sparks scores were:

Test 1 - 68
Test 2 - 75
Test 3 - 68
Test 4 - 63
Test 5 - 75
Test 6 - 69
Test 7 - 72
Test 8 - 74

You'll see that 3 of her first 4 tests were a little worrying. I found the following helped before I continued the final 4 tests, which did seem to improve her scores:

> I did not communicate any of my worry to my daughter. I congratulated her on her effort and told her that as long as she did the best that she could, that she should not worry at all. Whilst I may (quietly) worry, I do think it is easy to forget how much pressure we are piling onto our children with this preparation.

> I listed the types that she was having difficulty with, and went over techniques for those types again. I also focused on giving her questions from those types. I found a re-visit to the IPS papers good for this.

> For those Bright Sparks questions she got wrong, I would ask her to do those corrections. But then I would go over that question with her, irrespective of whether she got it right the second time.


She completed her first Walsh test paper this morning and achieved 72 out of 80.

The point I hope I'm making is that this is a difficult journey, both for parents and their children, and there will be dips. But don't let that demoralise you, or especially your child. We need to patiently persist, take on advice from others, and keep our children motivated during those dips.

I hope this has been of some use, and wish you and your child good luck over coming days and weeks.
sarahh
Posts: 4
Joined: Sat Aug 13, 2011 9:04 am

Re: Help Please VR BUCKS

Post by sarahh »

Thanks really help full to get feedback from others - your advice re re visiting questions that where wrong is good idea I will do that over the next few days? Did you get her to re sit any of the papers she struggled with?

Sarahh
SingleDad
Posts: 80
Joined: Thu Mar 10, 2011 5:00 pm

Re: Help Please VR BUCKS

Post by SingleDad »

sarahh wrote:Thanks really help full to get feedback from others - your advice re re visiting questions that where wrong is good idea I will do that over the next few days? Did you get her to re sit any of the papers she struggled with?

Sarahh
Hi Sarah,

I've not got her to re-sit any of the papers. However, if time allows, I hope to get her to resit the questions (not papers) that she got wrong. I hope to complete all the remaining Walsh Papers over the next 7 (ish) weeks. By the time I do correction work, I may not have time to do whole papers again.

Having said this, I think I would get her to re-sit a paper if she became demoralised. I'd do this in the hope that, given it's a second attempt, she gets a good score - which in turn lifts her spirits. In this case, it's probably wise to leave some time before re-sitting a paper, rather then doing it straight away.

Regards
Post Reply