Sunday, May 12, 2013

This year's 11 plus exam

Good news! It seems KCC have decided to leave the format for this year, so we will have the three areas as expected with a story of some kind rather than the possible change to grammar and punctuation. This does mean if your son or daughter still resists story writing, or has problems getting something down on paper to a level 4a standard and he/she is borderline, this will go against them.

Regardless of whether KCC had changed or not, the level of English is important and all grammars like their students to be at level 4a/5c so there is a building block on which they can hang their expectations, not only in English lessons, but also in all the other subjects where writing is a component part.

If you feel you need to address their level of English and would like to know a good book to work from, then I would suggest you look at CGP books where you will find the range of 11 plus support materials they have produced.

Thursday, May 9, 2013

September 2013 11 plus intake

To those of you who have already responded to m y letter with an email, thank you very much and I will be getting back to you shortly.
I have had a question about the completion of the tests;

When do you want these sent back to you by, because they are doing SATs at the moment?

If you could get them back to me by the end of this month that would be great. I can then look at them and pair students together with similar strengths and weaknesses.
I will contact all those of you who have responded over the next couple of weeks and give you details of the course costs, contents and frequency of classes. Until then, I do hope the weather holds and the wind subsides and they all do well in their end of year exams.

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

The downloaded test for Year 4

In one of the confirmation emails I received a question which I thought was a good one to be answered for you all;

I have downloaded the test papers and will post them as soon as ****** has finished them. I do have one question  about the papers.
It does give you a set amount of time do do the test. Do I have to time ****** for this amount of time or can he carry on until he is finished?



The answer to this is, allow him or her the 50 minutes [they don't have to do this all in one sitting] and if they haven't finished place a mark at the point they reach and then let them finish. At the moment it really doesn't matter how long it takes, just what they can and cannot do. We will work on exam techniques later but at the moment these tests are daunting enough!!


Yes, to another question I received, you can mark them which is why I enclosed the answers for you to go through once they have done the work. You don't have to go through the papers with them afterwards or worry, you really should clear up the areas he/she didn't get right, this will happen automatically throughout the course with me.


Any other questions please come back to me and I wil do my best to answer them, but in the meantime,


Watch this space


and more articles will be posted.