No-one cares about your child’s transfer test as much as you do

The content of the transfer test isn’t rocket science so we strongly recommend that it is a parent or a grandparent who takes control of the test preparation. This child-centered approach means that you can grab opportunities for talking through questions or doing a quick test when your child is ready to learn – after football and before Scooby-Doo – or whenever. You know when is best for your child.

That way, you can fit transfer preparation in to your busy family life.

 

Is ploughing through a bunch of one hour past papers, months before you’re ready, really the best way?

Transfer Ready’s unique system of stepped practice papers work alongside your child’s primary school to reinforce what is being taught in class, and help your child to recognise the style and structure of transfer test questions. Each Transfer Ready stepped test is the equivalent of one hours tutoring.

But Maths was never my thing – I’m not sure how to best teach my child!

Don’t worry – we understand and whenever there is a tricky topic, we have hand hints in the answers to help you work through the question with your child. And maybe even try to let your child teach you – by doing this they will become more confident about their grasp of a topic.

But – we don’t believe that you should be teaching your child – leave that to the primary schools who do for six hours a day, five days a week. You will just be getting them ready for the transfer test. This is where many tutors waste many hours – by re-teaching material which your child already knows.

Instead, your child needs to consolidate this knowledge with practice – and exam-style targeted practice at that.

Our recommended programme for using TransferReady stepped practice tests:
Step1 papers
20 mins Preview the paper with your childThis is going through the test a couple of days before they sit it and talk through the style of the questions. Let them see the paper and don’t discuss answers but rather ask questions such as…

  • What do you think this question is about?

  • How would you go about answering it?

Do not talk about answers at this stage, just about the questions. Then put the test away for a couple of days.
40 mins Sit the paperYou should find a quiet time and allow your child to sit the paper. Let them take as long as they need but check with them after 20 minutes to check that they’re not panicking.
20 mins Review the paperBefore marking ask your child how they thought it went – what was do-able and what was challenging. Mark the paper together and discuss any misconceptions and gaps in their skills or techniques. Make a note of these and work on them in the coming week before moving on to the next paper.
Step2 papers
5 mins Step 2 papers will re-inforce the Step 1 material while adding a new third of the course. You should still talk through the papers with your child as a preview but this should have now reduced to about 5 minutes. They should, by now, be treating the Transfer Ready tests a bit more like real tests.If your child ever looses confidence, this is the step to regain it, but begin to ease off.
45 mins Quiet time – sit the paper – build confidence and speed.
20 mins Mark and review the paper. Continue to work on gaps in their knowledge and ways in which to improve their exam technique.
Step3 papers
3 mins Step3 papers are very closely based on the style and structure of actual SEAG papers. This trains your child to answer the questions that they will meet in their transfer test, and not just general KS2 knowledge that other brands of practice tests cover.We want your preview now to be very short, maybe highlighting a couple of previous areas for improvement.
50 mins The Step3 papers are closely based on the full SEAG papers, with the repeated content removed. This has two advantages – it still lets us complete a Step3 test (including review) in under 60 mins and it helps concentrate focus on any problem areas by eliminating duplication.
15 mins Mark and review the paper. Continue to iron-out problems and improve exam technique