Brandon Learning Centre: British Education - process, preparation and practicalities

   As we all know, there is more to a school than rankings! They don't show the rich cultural or sporting lives of a school or indeed differentiate between schools with selective and unselective intakes.   Every year, the Sunday Times produces a ranking of all the schools in the UK based on GCSE and A level performance. This year, the 2024 Sunday Times Parent Power rankings have used A level, IB and GCSE results from 2023. Top schools remain constant with a few new arrivals in the top 20 which have made for interesting results for the normal incumbents!  1: St Paul's Girls 2: Guildford High School 3: St Paul's School  4: North London Collegiate (ranked 1st for GCSE) 5: City of London School for Girls (ranked 10th for GCSE) 6: Tonbridge School (ranked 14th for GCSE) =7: King's College School, Wimbledon =7: Magdalen College School 9: Westminster School  10: King Edward VI High School for Girls    Close but no cigar.. 11: Brighton College Surprise of the year - Wycom

One of the challenges a number of our children appear to be encountering when they are taking the ISEB and other pretests is runnning out of time. The maths section in particular can present problems as students try to extract the problem from the test. Try this: Give you child a sheet of word-based maths problems (e.g. three boys bought a six litre bottle of orange squash which they divided equally amongst them, how much did each boy receive?) and ask your child to write out the resultant sum. As your child becomes faster, increase the complexity of the arithmatic. Include: fractions, percentages, measurements. Allocate time to completing the sheet. Use a large kitchen timer which rings when "time is up" so your child gets used to working to time constraints. Talk to them about how they are going to be dividing his time. You can use the timer technique are you practice verbal/non-verbal reasoning.