Important things to take into consideration when preparing your child for their 4+ Assessments.

Choose a teacher who has actual experience with the schools that you are applying to.

This is a must.

Year after year, I speak to hundreds of parents who speak to me and decide to either work with me and my team or not. The main reason I hear from parents for not working with me is because they desire a teacher who will come to their homes. This is all well and good and I respect everyone’s opinion. However, the teacher that you do choose to work with must have actual experience with the school/schools that you are applying to. Otherwise it actually makes no sense to me. After the Assessments, I then hear from many of these parents again who call me to tell that they’ve not been successful and they then ask for my help with preparing for the 7+. This again is all well and good but it could have been avoided with a bespoke programme of study with either myself or one of my team.

We do not guarantee entry to any school at 4+. This would be impossible because as much as we are amazing at preparing our students, it is down to them. How they perform on the day, how they feel on the day and how much they actually enjoy themselves on the day.

What we do guarantee however, is that your child will receive the highest quality tuition tailored specifically to the school/s that you are applying to. What we do guarantee is ongoing communication with your teacher each and everyday if it is needed. What we do guarantee is that you will see your child’s learning and understanding transformed. What we do guarantee is that your child will go into their Assessment fully prepared and ready to be able to show their truest potentials.

The 4+ gets more and more competitive each year. With hundreds of children fighting for 30-40 places, it is vital that you get the support that you need.

We will support you every step of the way. For only £200 a month, you will receive weekly lessons, bespoke home learning and ongoing communication with your teacher. I think that it is the best investment into your child’s education that you can make.

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How to choose the best teacher for your child

1. Ask the teacher about their actual experience at the school/s that your are applying to.

Ask questions like:

Do you have experience with this school?

How do you know about the Assessment content at this school?

2. Sample a lesson with them before committing to working with them.

First of all you need to make sure that your child connects with the teacher. You will need at least 3-4 lessons to be able to see this connection or not.

3. Ask them about the curriculum that they will cover.

The curriculum that they will cover will show you if it is exactly what you are looking for. It needs to be a robust curriculum that will nurture your child but that will also take your child’s learning to the next level.

I strongly believe that we offer the best teachers for the preparation of the 4+ Assessments at all Top inner and outer London Schools.

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What sets a child apart from others in the 4+ Assessments?

This is good question to ask.

Hundreds of children will be applying to the school/s that you would like your child to go to. A small percentage will get in at 4+.

So what will set your child apart from the other children?

You MUST know the schools very well and what the specific schools are looking for.

Your child needs to know what the schools are expecting.

If your child knows what they need to be showing, they will keep this in mind and show this in the Assessment.

Of course, your child MUST go in and be 100% their amazing selves.

Choose a Tutor who has already had exceptional results

This is obvious to me but it doesn’t seem so obvious to some of the parents that I talk to.

Common objections that I have for parents not wanting to do lessons with us is that we are exclusively online. When I speak to them again, they tell me that they’ve found a 4+ Assessment tutor who can come to their home. When I ask them if they have experience with the 4+ Assessments at the schools they are applying to, they often tell me that they do not. However, they always reassure me that they are ‘eyfs specialists’ or they have experience working in Reception. That’s great and I’m sure that they are amazing teachers. BUT if they don’t have actual experience with the school/s that you are applying to, how exactly will they know what the school/s are looking for?

Just something to consider.

A lot of parents think that in person is superior to online and it simply is not.

What is superior is a teacher who has real and actual experience with the schools you are applying to. As in has actually been successful in having their students be successful at gaining entry at those schools.

What is superior is a teacher who knows exactly what they school/s are expecting from the students in their 4+ Assessments.

What is superior is a teacher with proven results.

Qualifications and experience are great on paper. The ultimate measure of success, in my opinion is the actual ability to get a student into the school/s that they desire to go to.

So choose a teacher who has had exceptional results and not just because they can come to your house. This means nothing at all.

Don’t sabotage your chances for success because you won’t give online tuition a try.

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The top 3 ways that your child can stand out in their 4+ Assessments

1. Answer all questions that they are asked in full sentences and with as much detail as possible.

A lot of students that I teach at this age, answer with very short answers and don’t go into a lot of detail. I encourage them to say more. With practise and repetition, they will know how to answer any question.

2. Get involved in all of the activities provided with enthusiasm and a fun spirit.

Your child will be asked to engage with a variety of activities. Children who have fun and enjoy the activities and engage with the activities are far more likely to succeed than those who don’t show much interest for them.

3. Persevere with the more challenging tasks.

There will be tasks that will be more challenging than others. If your child can persevere with them and keep trying, this will definitely make them stand out amongst other children who will just move on to something else.

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How to encourage active listening rather than passive listening.

I see this all the time in my lessons.

I can clearly see the children who are actively listening and those who are passively listening.

If your child is an active listener, they will be engaged. They will be delighted with what you are telling them. You will be absorbing everything that is being told to them. If they are an active listener, they will be able to answer any question that you ask them. They will also be able to ask you questions about what you are telling them.

A passive listener is still listening but they are not showing the skills involved in active listening and this is so obvious to me. Children who are sitting there listening but not truly absorbing what is being told to them. When I ask them questions, their eyes glaze over or they are looking around themselves. They won’t be able to answer my questions because they were only passively listening.

Active listening is a skill and one that I teach all of my students how to do and how to do well. It is a skill that is so important in all of the Assessments (not only the 4+!)

Is your child an Active or a Passive listener? How can you support them to be more of an Active listener?

Read every single day with your child

Seems simple enough but there are times that me and my son go a few days without opening a book. It’s so easy to just sit down with your child and open a book and start reading. I now allocate times to reading every day with my son. It is so important to me and I know that it is so important to him. Reading is fundamental when preparing for the 4+ Assessments.

Reading covers so many skills that will be assessed in the 4+ assessments such as listening, responding, analysing, predicting, inferring, summarising, communicating and vocabulary building to name a few.

It is also so much fun to read together with your child. It is one of my favourite things to do with him. To see his face light up when he receives a new book is priceless (he is 16 months old!)

3 Top Tips to support your child with engaging with adults

This is a very important one to take into consideration when preparing your child for their 4+ Assessments. They will need to engage with adults that they have never met before in their 4+ Assessments so it is vital that they practise engaging with adults before going into the actual Assessments. They will be assessed on this so please do practise this.

1. Introduce them to new adults every day.

These adults could be friends of yours that your child doesn’t know very well, these adults could be adults at a coffee shop/ supermarket/ restaurant etc.

2. Encourage them to talk with these adults.

Give your child little challenges each day. Eg. Ask her how her day has been or ask her what she is doing this evening or answer two of her questions.

3. Encourage your child to maintain eye contact.

Seems simple but a lot of children (even adults!) struggle with this one.

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I hope you found this blog really informative and that you are able to apply some of the concepts that I have taught,

Wishing you great success with your 4+ Assessments preparations!

Maria