This week all our students completed one of our new full length CEM style practice papers under timed conditions. They completed papers 31A, 31B, 32A and 32B and we made sure that just in case there has been any sneaky copying going on in past tests, no student sat next to another student completing the same paper!
Top score for paper 31A was 94%, bottom was 56%
Top score for paper 31B was 72%, bottom was 50%
Top score for paper 32A was 80%, bottom was 42%
Top score for paper 32B was 79%, bottom was 50%
These are all very encouraging scores at this stage and we made sure that all the children were happy and motivated by their results. Of course there is always room for improvement and we will now endeavor to regroup the students where we can target extra focus on specific areas where they all have a weakness.
We also took the opportunity to have a lengthy feedback session with each of our parents. It became clear that lots of the children are completing practice papers at home and aiming for super high scores over 90%. Of course, on some papers, these sorts of results may be achievable, but on more challenging papers, this is not really possible and it is so important that the children (and their parents!) really understand this, otherwise it is so easy for them to become demotivated at a seemingly lack of progress.
Feedback from some very able students over the last 3 years has been that the actual CEM 11+ tests in our region, Gloucestershire, were really very challenging. Those students were disappointed not to be able to complete all the questions within the tight time constraints and some questions were just too difficult for them. None of those students believed that they had achieved a good enough score on the day, but when the results came out they had gained entry into one the country’s leading grammar schools.
We advised parents of the order in which to complete practice papers, starting with more straightforward material with more emphasis on accuracy as oppose to speed, and to work through any mistakes with their child.
Snippets from this week’s homework:
