Hi,

Just out of curiosity really I wanted to ask what kind of % scores your children are getting when practicing papers at home?

My DD gets 90% + on some of the average papers such as IPS and secondary selection papers but on the Manchester Grammar or Latymer style papers she is between 76%-84%.

Not sure if that is good enough as we are just DIY studying at home so thought it would be good to sense check.
Thanks so much in advance.

IMHO around 80%+ under timed condition will be more or less good enough to pass Stage 1 test.
Around top 40% pass that.

Stage 2 tests are a different kettle of fish and the questions are not likely to be multiple choice.

I suspect Maths, will require the showing of working out and will only get full marks if the answer is right and working out is shown in full.

For Engish, it will involve some sort of creative writing and comprehension question that requires several sentence answers i.e. "what do you think the author meant when he/she ...."

I am struggling with variability - my daughter gets anything between 80 and 95, and there does not seem to be any pattern to it. Drives me mad as i dont know how to help her get a more consistent result.

Any input appreciated

I have the same problem.

You need to ensure that a) all the practice needs to be done in the same setting i.e. in the dining room table etc.
b) timed the same way c)the paper style is the same i.e. compare CEM with CEM

You also need to make sure they are motivated and not just comes from a 3 hr session on Fornite ideally test first Fornite 2nd

Has she done any mock tests offered by the local grammar schools this year, e.g. SGS?

My DD is getting between 80-90% in Maths and between 70-80% in English tests. We are doing a range of CGP, GL, Bond and 10 minutes tests. The Manchester papers are very hard- the best she has got is 80%...

I am worried as she is not consistent, one good day followed by another bad.

Very frustrated as only 5 weeks left.

Same here.

DS scores were inconsistent for a long time but what I found helpful is practising only what he found challenging.
I pulled some resources from internet/books on topics he was struggling with the most and created papers specific for those topics.
We managed to level it out a bit more in the past month and now he scores from 78% - 90% (depending on difficulty and his concentration levels on the day). Still, none of this is a guarantee he will pass or get in to any of our choice grammars.

After doing a whole year of prep with him, I am now heading towards 'what will happen will happen' sort of attitude.

My DD recently did a mock and some of the girls had gotten 100% on both Maths and English compared to my DD 82% in Maths and 83% in English, made me wonder if my DD would be good enough even though I was very happy with her scores given the difficulty of the paper.
I think I have inadvertently demotivated her

Mocks are different and who knows if they are right but someone told me I should be aiming for consistent marks of about 85% for Wallington OOC, so for an in borough place 80’s sound good. Hope that encourages your DD a little.

The way I see it, there are 3 things that will decide your DD's standardised score in the papers, other than her preparation for the test:

How she feels on the day of the test
The actual papers
The cohort

You have no control over the last two; so ensure that she is happy and relaxed and gets in the right frame of mind on the day.