This is it, superhero – one week left. You have a gift of time to dedicate to your child’s grammar school preparation. Keep going, keep going! Are you continuing to find gaps in your child’s knowledge and skills? Are you continuing to focus on each one as you discover it, and explore all possible ways to help your child learn it? Are you smiling and loving the adventure?
Excellent.
In this last week, it’s time to take full advantage of time and put in four hours a day. Include a maths & English test, or a VR or non-VR test – anything your child will have to do on any one day. That will help them manage time, energy and focus, as well as giving their brains a chance to swap between the subjects they will be tested on on in the real exam. It may also be worth getting them to sit the tests on the morning and the afternoon to simulate the real thing – you are not normally given a choice of time, you will be allocated a time that could be a.m. or p.m. Best prepare.
Figuring this out as a parent, I spread my net wide as to where I found and used resources. I used as many as I could find and afford. I bought books: Bond, Ae, letts, CGP – I would have loved to have bought my own books on how to sit multiple choice tests, rather than just sit them, as well as the eleven plus centred writing manuals, but they didn’t exist at the time, which is why I ended up writing them, to fill the gaps that existed for me; practice tests from websites and amazon; used sites like TES and primary resources for amazing free teacher resources, trawled the web for challenging and different ways to learn; subscribed to maths sites like ixl, as well as using general websites like parentsintouch, theschoolrun and youtube (monitored).
So…over to you. What will you read and do with your child this week? What progress do they need to make? Remember, you don’t have to know everything deeply beforehand – you can learn together with the spirit of adventure. I used to say to my son and daughter that I wasn’t sure I knew everything or anything about percentages, algebra, how to emotionally move someone in writing, etc., but I was very excited to learn together how to figure it out and practise it until I did. Seeing it as a shared learning journey can sometimes help your child relax – if you’re willing to try, then they can be, too. There’s no problem with not knowing because you can learn it and then you will know it. The only danger is not knowing what you don’t know. This is why finding those gaps and celebrating them is so important.
Make the most of your last week of summer holidays – when it’s all over, you’ll know it was worth it. Education changes lives.
Stay learning, stay 11plushappy, Lee
