If your child is around two and a half to three, and you are wondering when to start 4+ preparation, here is my honest answer. The school choices begin at two. The skills work begins at three. The formal preparation …
Parents ask me this question more than any other in the autumn before assessments. Sometimes from worry. Sometimes from quiet confidence. Always from love. Here is the honest answer. “Ready” at 4+ is not a single threshold. It is a …
If you only have time and energy to focus on a few things in the year before 4+ assessments, here is where I would put it. Five early learning skills that, in my experience, predict 4+ outcomes more reliably than …
London prep schools all assess at 4+, but each has its own emphasis. Knowing what your specific schools test, and how, helps you prepare smartly rather than broadly. Below is the framework I use with families. Five skill areas, each …
Parents often expect the 4+ to involve a paper, a pencil, and a tense thirty minutes of testing. The reality is gentler, but every activity is doing a job. Here is what your child will actually be asked to do, …
There is a right way and a wrong way to prepare a four year old for an assessment, and the difference shows up clearly on the day. Here is the approach I have refined over twenty years and hundreds of …
Every parent I meet at this stage asks me the same question, in slightly different words: “What are they actually looking for?” And every parent is also slightly afraid of the answer, in case it turns out to be something …
If you have a three or four year old and you are even thinking about a London prep school, this is the guide I wish someone had handed me. Not the panicked Mumsnet version. Not the school marketing version. The …