Parents preparing for the 7+ don't like it when I tell them this...
/Your child is not ready for their 7+ Assessments.
Oh, sorry would you rather I lie to you?
Would you rather that I tell you that your child will be fine?
You see, here is thing. I am currently personally preparing 10 children for their 7+ Assessments. Mostly boys and few girls. We are preparing for the likes of Habs Boys and Habs Girls, Highgate, UCS, Latymer, Westminster and St Paul’s. I know the level that your child should be at. I know the curriculum that they should have covered by now. I know the level of story writing that they should be writing by now. You get my point.
But when I do a Sample Lesson so late in the year for children preparing for their 7+ Assessments for 2026 entry it really surprises me every single time.
These parents contact us because they want support with their children’s 7+ Assessments. They come to us. We would assume that by June of the Year that their child will be sitting their 7+ Assessments, that they will themselves somehow have already covered a robust and vast curriculum with their children. This is rarely the case.
I feel like some parents would like to exert the least amount of effort preparing their child for their 7+ and have the best possible results.
It
doesn’t
work
that
way.
I did a Sample Lesson last week for a child preparing for top schools like Westminster and Highgate. I provided him with a comprehension that I had been doing that week with my students also sitting for Westminster and Highgate. He was unable to read the first two sentences. I had to switch to a phase 3 phonics comprehension. You can’t be reading at a phase 3 phonics level and expect to go into a Westminster 7+ Assessment and be ready to pass. There were many red flags with this lesson. Spelling, writing, maths and verbal reasoning were all an issue.
‘Can you help him get into WM and HG?’ was the question asked to me by his mother.
Sure, if she’s willing to see me every single day for the next 4 months (I don’t have the capacity to do this anyway!). But my point is this. If she’s not willing to put in the work every single day for the next 4 months - he will stand no chance of passing.
Parents don’t like to hear this.
Perhaps these types of parents need to go and work with teachers who will lie to them or who will tell them that everything will be fine. That’s not the type of teachers we are here. We are here to support our students to have tremendous success. Not just in their assessments but in building a love for learning that will last forever. This can’t be achieved with rushed assessment preparation.
