Blog

Victoria Burrill is the author of our new English for Key Stage 2 series. As former Head of Year 6 and now Head of English at a London prep school, Victoria has extensive experience of preparing children for 11+ and 13+ exams and shares her invaluable advice for any child looking ahead to an English comprehension exam.

A student once defended himself to me with the statement, “But you can’t revise for English, Miss, because you don’t know what’s going to be on the exam paper!”  A small tear began to well up in the corner of my eye as he spoke. Of course you can revise for English! The preparations might look very different to revising for history or science, but you can prepare very thoroughly to equip yourself with and refine the skills needed to excel at the 13+ Common Entrance English papers (and any other exams for that matter).
 

Susan Elkin is an author and journalist, with extensive experience of theatre reviewing and 36 years’ teaching experience. She is also the author of our new English for Common Entrance range.
 
Children are often asked by teachers and textbooks to write reviews of shows they’ve seen. Yet, it’s quite a sophisticated skill and one which many adults would find quite difficult.
 
How can you, as parents, help your children to review the shows you’ve taken them to?