Plan To Succeed - Exam Prep
Feeling nostalgic as we start creating our booklets for this summer’s 11+ Exam Prep workshops and are reading back on blog posts from our first ever Plan To Succeed workshop, 2.5 years ago.
October 2021:
Our first Plan To Succeed Workshop this week was incredibly successful, with happy children and happy parents, allowing The Learning Box to let out a big sigh of relief. Out of everything we have created so far, this booklet required extra careful consideration and even more thoughtful execution. We really wanted to make something that was time effective, boosted confidence, covered the enormous scope of exam prep, promoted engagement and enjoyment AND provided concrete areas of development for parents to build on - something simple, in the midst of a complicated area of our curriculum.
Any of you who have engaged in the process of secondary school applications will know that the range of exam preparation and testing types out there are far and wide. The scope is big, the questions unique and the expectations for every school so different. For this workshop, we wanted to hone in on the core of these exams and spend the short amount of time we had together wisely.
We thought long and hard - what are our children most likely to be asked on? What is the most efficient and engaging way to present these questions to our children? How can our children take something home from the workshop that will benefit their future revision in the run up to the exams?
And we did it! Our booklets summarised the key Verbal Reasoning question types that will be found in a VR exam, giving the children the chance to practice each one, understand the key missing information and create personal strategies to support their answering. On the second day, the children were then tested on these questions - giving the teachers the chance to assess whether they have understood this prior learning, or whether this is in fact an area that needs more work. If it is the latter, the children’s booklets contain precise instruction on the area, and many other practice questions to work through at home! For comprehension, we honed in on inference (a key skill that requires understanding and deduction from a text) and vocabulary.
What was so brilliant was that we managed to do all of the above (and more) in a relaxed, fun, conversation-filled and enjoyable environment - the perfect combination of confidence, focus and learning.
Our 11+ Summer Exam Prep workshops have just launched, giving you the chance to sign your child up for some confidence boosting, engaging exam prep!