Inspiration, Well-Being and Success Tips- Staying Focussed, You are Amazing, Improving Weaker Areas- Week 11

Inspiration, Well-Being and Success Tips- Staying Focussed, You are Amazing, Improving Weaker Areas- Week 11

 

Inspiration, Well-Being and Success tips for your 11 Plus

Inspiration for Students – Staying Focussed

Hello!

You now only have 9 weeks left in this course until you take your 11 plus exam.

Let’s look at keeping focused when perhaps you are feeling a little tired.

We have talked about all the strategies like eating and sleeping well, exercising and how to revise.

As everyone is different you may have to think about what keeps YOU motivated, as it is likely to be different to other people.

How are your scores in the test? Can you use these to keep you motivated?

 

If you are doing well on the tests, then can you challenge yourself to keep your scores high.

If you are not scoring as well in the tests, can you aim to get an extra 10 points in every test every week?

 

Can you ask your parents / caregivers to help keep you motivated?

If you struggle with a certain area, please do not give up even if it is really difficult to keep going.

You have to be competent in all areas of the 11 plus so you can get a good placing in the “ranking” with all the other children taking the exam.

Perhaps you can think about the fact that there are other children taking it and perhaps there are some children who you might want to go to school with? Can you use this to help keep your motivation high?

Whatever, you use to keep motivated, that is fine, just as long as it keeps you going.

Don’t forget whatever the outcome of this whole process, you will have done something amazing!

 

In our opinion we think you are AMAZING if you are doing some or all of these…

  • Working to the best of your ability
  • Working independently
  • Trying hard
  • Learning new skills
  • Acquiring new knowledge
  • Working consistently every week

 Well-being

Repeating Affirmations

We love a book called Good Vibes, Good Life by Vex King and in there he talks about how powerful repeating something which you want to achieve, over and over again.

Now, all we are asking you to think is what would you like to happen?

 

It could be anything:

“I want to pass my 11 plus exam”.

“I want to learn as much as I can”.

“I want to improve my Maths generally and for my 11 plus”

“I will not be nervous in my 11 plus exam”

 

It does not matter what it is, but it must be important to you.

  1. Choose your affirmation.
  2. Say it in your own words as if you are saying it to a friend.
  3. Say it a couple of times per day.

 

“When you act as if the goal is already the truth, your subconscious mind believes that it is and acts accordingly”.

Good Vibes, Good Life Vex King

 

Success Tips 

Review your weaker areas

Your tests last week and over the last few weeks should be helping you identify which are your weaker areas.

 

Take a good look at which are your weaker areas.

Try and work out why this is the case.

Is there a certain area in which your marks are consistently lower?

If you have identified you weaker areas, talk to a parent or even a teacher about how what you could do to improve.

 

Here are some of our ideas:

Lower Marks in English

  • Read anything and everything you can get your hands on, and write out any words you do not know and their synonyms and antonyms.
  • Do crosswords- we particularly love the Waitrose weekend crossword which you can get free if you have a Waitrose card (the Waitrose card is also free). It is the perfect level and brilliant for learning new words.
  • Watch TV- BBC Bitsize on various topics.

 

Lower Marks in NVR

  • Most of NVR is to do with some sort of pattern which matches or does not, so practise pulling apart the question in terms of each element.
  • With the 3D spatial questions such as cube nets- build your own and practise looking at which faces touch when the cube is closed. Then rotate it.
  • Remember to investigate every question thoroughly and never answer until you have looked at all the answer options, even if the first option looks correct! There are some tricks in there.

 

Lower Marks in Maths / Problem Solving

  • Try and identify if there are certain topics which you are struggling with.
  • Once you have identified them, look up as many “how to do” videos as you can and watch them.
  • There are some amazing lessons out there including:

Oak Academy

Dr Frost Maths (higher level topics)

Khan Academy

 

  • Also ask yourself whether you are rushing and making silly mistakes? In other words, you knew how to answer the question, but you make a mistake when you were calculating your answer. If this is the case, then you need to slow down a little / and/or check your answers!

Working to Time

If your test scores are low in one area, try and work out if you are working too slowly and not finishing the test.

 

This is not easy to rectify, but you can get quicker through practise. Some of us are naturally much slower than others at working.

Try and use your skills about where you should be at the half-way point and keep practising speeding up.

It is very important.

Good luck and keep going!

 

 

 

© Skyward Kids Life Skills 2021