http://www.pjweducation.co.uk en-gb pjweducation.co.uk 2010-8-29T00:00:00Z pjweducation.co.uk http://www.pjweducation.co.uk/page4.htm#74058 Parental Preparation Yes you read it correctly just as students have been working super hard throughout the year in preparation for their forthcoming exams parents need to make sure all loose ends are tied up too Checking Paperwork Firstly make sure you have received confirmation from any schools to which you have applied. The schools in the area in which I work Greater Manchester often state that all information should have been recieved some two weeks before the day of the test. Of course this may change year on year so its vital that all information is read and acted upon. If you dont have everything you need then contact the school or authority. Checking Your Route Last year numbers increased rapidly in terms of those sitting entrance exams. Some schools had to add extra examination days and some worked afternoon sessions as well as mornings. Suffice to say with many more students sitting the exams it makes sense that you plan your route to the school or test centre. Make su... 2010-8-29 16:22:11 http://www.pjweducation.co.uk/page4.htm#73063 Mock Tests The second week of mock tests has gone by successfully with students practising full sets of papers with brand new questions previously unseen. What have I noticed as Ive watched students complete these The over riding point would be that of completing the multiple choice answer grids correctly. Some students barely make a mark in the small rectangular box others will scribble over it sometimes into an adjoining box and others will either miss questions out or place answers to questions in the wrong box. All of these must be ironed before the big days. The last thing you want is for your child to get the correct answer and then marl it incorrectly on the day. Tips to Help Effective Checking many students think that checking means working through the problems a second time. Lets be realistic theres no way youll get through them all twice so make sure you focus your checking. Get your child to ask themselves these questions when they have finished every paper. 1. Do I ... 2010-8-17 11:41:18 http://www.pjweducation.co.uk/page4.htm#69627 Paper Work Time The summer term is nearly over and for those of you taking exams in September now would be a good time to turn your attention to sending off for application forms for those schools in which your are interested. Many schools now even have the various forms on their websites and by following a few simple links you can download them and print them off. For those of you in Greater Manchester just navigate to the 11 Plus page on this site and I have links set up to many of the schools which should save you some time. Get Your Photos More and more schools are now requesting passport size photos of students due to sit examinations. Im not sure exactly why this is although I have a few theories nonetheless find out if your school requires it and get them done nice and ready Important When you have completed your application forms try to get some type of confirmation that they have been received. Some might allow you to complete the forms online and submit them which norma... 2010-7-5 23:28:40 http://www.pjweducation.co.uk/page4.htm#68505 Time continues to race by and as we head towards summer and those long holidays its important to plan out your final weeks of practice. Many students will face exams early in September of year 6 so what can you do to be properly prepared 1 Make sure that at this stage you are really getting to grips with practising the test in a form as close as possible to how it will be on the day. Make sure that you know if your child has to sit exams in standard or multiple choice format. 2 Plan out your practice through the summer and talk to your child about this in advance as the weather gets better it can be difficult to get motivated so I always suggest planning some study time in the morning followed by fun time in the afternoon. 3 Make sure that you get your child to try and sit through an entire test day scenario this will show them what it might be like on the day and for how long they will have to concentrate. In the Trafford area I run mock days each Saturday 7th 14th and 21st of Au... 2010-6-21 14:36:01 http://www.pjweducation.co.uk/page4.htm#67600 Well what a busy week Ive had and all my students too. This week we have been tackling more full verbal reasoning papers aswell as having to practise of some nonverbal too. In addition to all that several of the schools in this area Trafford have their own English papers so weve started to look at those formats aswell Using Multiple Choice Grids Many schools and areas around the country are turning to these now as they do not require someone to mark them. They can be fed through a scanner and marked in minutes. But you must get your child to practise filling them in correctly. How do you do this Well the best way to show possible errors in terms of knowing the correct answer but putting it in the wrong place is to have your child mark all the multiple choice answers on the test paper. Then get them to put each answer on the multiple choice grid. Make sure that they do this as they go along. So for example they would answer question 1 on their paper then mark its corresponding answe... 2010-6-10 12:42:43 http://www.pjweducation.co.uk/page4.htm#66797 At this time of year as we head towards summer it is time to start thinking about individual schools applications and details of any differences which there may be. Types of Exams its really important that students become familiar with the correct types of exam so that they do not spend additional time on the day trying to fathom out exactly what needs doing. So find out if the school that your child is sitting for uses standard format examinations or multiple choice. Some schools in the area in which I live use a combination of the two so in this case it is vitally important to find out exactly what each paper might look like. Standard formats require students to work out the answers and then write them in the space provided. Multiple choice formats require students to put their final answers on a specially designed grid which is often then fed through a computer and marked in this way. How do you find out more Try contacting the schools at the first instance many will be willin... 2010-6-2 14:54:57 http://www.pjweducation.co.uk/page4.htm#66181 Welcome to the first entry in this blog aimed at helping parents and students prepare for the 11 Plus and similar entrance examinations. Why blog Well simply put it makes sense. As I work through the week preparing students for their exams in this coming September and October I thought it might help others if I let you know what areas were practising on a weekly basis and questions which my students raise. So what have we been up to this week This week weve been finishing off about the thirtieth type of verbal reasoning question and trying out some practice papers. If you havent begun looking at verbal reasoning yet now would be the time to start but youll have to look at lots of different types before trying test papers this will give students the best chance of succeeding in their practice tests. A common question that came up this week whilst finishing off our verbal reasoning exercises was Mr. Williams arent these maths questions The questions we were looking at involved ... 2010-5-26 15:05:04