5 Mistakes You’re Making Preparing for the 4+ Assessments
/Myself and my team speak to thousands of you each year. We hear many, many things. Many of you do things exceptionally well when it comes to preparing your children for their 4+ assessments and many of you are making at least one - if not more of these mistakes.
If you realise that you’re making one or more of these mistakes. Please don’t be hard on yourself. We all make mistakes. It’s part of life (and if you’re not making mistakes, there’s a very good reason for that!)
Mistake #1
Overlearning with your child.
Although a lot of learning does need to take place when preparing for a 4+ assessment, you have to be careful not to do too much. Many parents that we speak to want to do learning when they feel like it. It doesn’t work that way. Nobody cares if you feel like it. What matters is that your child feels like it. There is no right or wrong here. The only way to know if you are doing too much is if you notice resistance in your child. They definitely should not be resistant. They should be open, happy and fully receptive to the learning being provided.
Mistake #2
Not doing enough learning with your child.
The polar opposite of mistake #1, we see this one all the time too. Parents will tell us, ‘Oh, I work all day!’ and ‘Well, they’re in nursery/pre-school all day!’ and ‘That’s what I’m paying all that money for isn’t it!’
Your child is your responsibility and if you make the decision to apply to a school such as Westminster, NLCS and Habs (boys and girls), you better understand clearly that no nursery or pre-school will fully have the responsibility to prepare your child to be successful. Understand that you must put in the work yourself. 3.5 hours per week to be precise.
Mistake #3
Panic-mode
Going into panic mode is the default superpower of our brains. Your brain thinks panicking is useful. It is not. We all panic and we all catastrophise. We all think the worst will happen. It’s how we have been raised and conditioned. Well it isn’t helpful in this process. If you feel panic, your child will sense that and they will start to worry too.
Mistake #4
Compare and despair
Never compare your child to anyone else. Just don’t do it. I don’t care that so and so down the road is ‘already reading chapter books’ and your child is ‘still’ learning their phonics. Just focus on your child and where they are.
Mistake #5
Listening to rumours
99.5% of what you will hear will be pure lies or simply what someone else experienced. Drown out all the noise. And focus. You will lose energy focusing on what so and so told you.
Avoid these 5 mistakes and if you catch yourself making one of these mistakes, be kind and compassionate with yourself. Brush yourself off and get back to focusing on what is important here which is preparing your child to go in and have the highest possible chances for success in their 4+ assessment.
