NLCS and Habs girls 4+ Assessment preparation (2026 entry)– A true story.

Thomas contacted me in June this year. He was super keen and eager when we first started talking. He sent me the most in depth emails about his desire to support his daughter to be offered a place to study at NLCS and Habs at 4+. His daughter is a summer baby and I asked him ‘Why he had left it so late to start?’. He didn’t like that I asked this. He had a million excuses for me. If your child is summer born, you must start earlier, not later. His daughter is one month younger than my own son (who is July born). I started formal learning with my son at 17 months.

We had our Sample Lesson and Tania (my student) really struggled to sit still for more that 1 minute. She didn’t know any phonics. She could count to 10 but couldn’t identify any numbers. Her vocabulary was very limited. She would have regular tantrums in our lessons and I was very patient and calm. The biggest problem Thomas had was that he wouldn’t allow Tania to get things wrong. He also answered for her. There were times in our lessons when she would pause to think and he would just answer for her. When I called him out on it, he didn’t like it. He was super defensive with me. ‘I’m just helping my daughter!’ He wasn’t though.

Thomas would contact me every day – at least 3x a day to get information from me. He really did use his 24/7 contact with me very well!

After 1 month of meeting, the excuses started coming. Tania was unwell. Tania had a party. Tania had a doctor’s appointment. And she started missing a lot of lessons. I knew that they  weren’t doing the learning every day since ‘Tania went to nursery full time anyway’.

Thomas handed his one-month notice last month.

I was and I am very disappointed. All of that hard work and effort from all sides for what?

She is not ready for any 4+ Assessments let alone NLCS and Habs. And the opportunity to support her was just taken away from me.

I do hope that her parents make the decision to not send her to those 4+ Assessments. I really wouldn’t see the point and it would only be detrimental to her and her wellbeing.