Quinn Learning Hub - Primary Tutor

Day out at the zoo with mam and dad and the clan

Yup! 😂

Great work multiplying by tens

Working towards formal exams. Whether GCSE, A level or 11 Plus, here are my top ten tips:

1. LOTS of practice. You may need to do a bit of reading or watching videos to get started, but spend as much time as you can actually attempting questions. Don’t leave it until the exams are in sight; little and often, throughout the year, is the way to go!

Tip 2: Revise lots of different topics in rotation

Try to revise each subject for a short time every day so that you keep a variety of topics fresh in mind.

Tip 3: Try some exam questions, fill in the gaps, then go back and try again. As soon as you feel reasonably confident with a topic area, start working on exam (or exam-style) questions.

Tip 4: Understand the mark scheme

Learn to interpret the marking scheme, That way you’ll develop a better understanding of which marks you would and wouldn’t have got, and you’ll be able to improve your presentation to maximise your marks.

Tip 5: Gradually reduce reliance on notes and formula sheets

When you first start to revise it’s fine to keep your notes and formula sheets handy and refer to them if you need to, but bear in mind that you’re going to have to work up to managing without them. Set yourself a target of not looking at your notes until you’ve done as much as you can of the current set of questions without them. Then you can allow yourself a peek, then put the notes away and see if you can get any further on your own.

If you’re struggling to remember some of the rules and formulae then make yourself some flashcards – making your own is more effective than buying someone else’s – and use those to help you learn them.

Tip 6: Explain what you’re doing. Imagine that you’re explaining to another student how to do the question, rather than just trying to find an answer. The more clearly you can do that, the more likely you are to do well.

Tip 7: Don’t throw away easy marks

On the difficult questions at the end, it’s often quite easy to get the first mark, so try to write down something relevant even if you have no idea where to take it after that! Just ask yourself, “What CAN I do with this information?” Often there’s a mark available for simply taking a step in the right general direction.

And on questions that use any of the words “prove”, “show” or “verify”, remember to always finish off with a statement echoing what the question said, or you might miss out on the last mark.

Tip 8: Build up to exam conditions

Gradually work up to doing the papers under exam conditions: no notes or formula sheets, and observing the time limits.

Tip 9: Keep an eye on the clock

Don’t worry about it when you’re just starting to look at exam papers, but by the time you get into the last few weeks you need to bear in mind how long you can afford to spend on each question.

Don’t spend 10 minutes wrestling with a 3-mark question; leave it and just come back to it at the end if you have time.

Tip 10: You don’t have to do the questions in order

When you’re working through a whole paper, start off with the questions that you like the look of! If you can get the first few marks under your belt without too much difficulty then it will help your confidence with the rest. It will also help to prevent you from wasting time getting bogged down on a difficult question early on.

LANGUAGE - LANGUAGE - LANGUAGE!!!

Using Strive-for-Five Conversations to Strengthen Language Comprehension in Preschool through Early Years.

Engaging in frequent, meaningful conversation during the early years of schooling is foundational for children's literacy development. Specifically, developing oral language through daily conversations is essential for language comprehension, and eventually, reading comprehension.

Once a child enters reception with poor language skills compared with their peers, the gap just continues to widen. Conversations need to be responsive to children and challenge their thinking and language use.

Strive-for-Five conversations have five turns:
1) adult > 2) Student > 3) adult > 4) Student > 5) adult.

Example:

Adult:
Why do animals hibernate?
Cameron
They want to get away during the winter.
Many conversations would stop here with a ‘good boy!’
Here the adult challenges…
Adult:
Why do you think they want to get away during the winter?
Child
They don't have food.
Adult:
Yes, some animals hibernate because food is hard to find during the winter. So they eat a lot when food is available and go into a long deep sleep.

Language comprehension is the ability to understand and use language orally. When students have strong language skills, they are better able to understand conversations, books read to them, or books they read themselves. Strong language comprehension also sets the stage for comprehending later and reading comprehension—or reading for understanding—is our ultimate goal But for that to happen, children need to start developing important skills early in life.

PAUSE AND PONDER

Think about your conversations with children. How many turns do your conversations with children typically have? Do they contain just three turns or the goal of five turns?

Taken from the Reading Teacher
Volume77, Issue4

Adapted from Strive-for-Five Conversations: A Framework That Gets Kids Talking to Accelerate Their Language Comprehension & Literacy copyright © 2023 by Tricia A. Zucker and Sonia Q. Cabell.

Why is reading fluency so important? If you struggle with reading fluency there is over a 90% chance that you will strugle with comprehension of the text. If you need to focus on reading words you cannot focus on higher order thinking and creativity.

Importantantly, the gap between fluent and non-fluent readers continues to widen throughout the academic year, such that by the end of any year group the strugling reader is reader far less fluently than the age appropriate reader was reading even at the start of the year - they won't catch up withou targeted provision.

As a reading specialist, contact me if I can help.

Working on /e/ and /f/ sounds. Two letters to make one sound.

Working with a year 7 today, who I last taught in reception. Great to see that he still remembers all his phoneme sounds -
Oa- goat in a boat …
Igh - fly high, etc

We’re going to have a great time developing his reading!

Practising your non-verbal reasoning?
Have you heard of SNAPSS?

SNAPPS is a brilliant trick to tackle non verbal reasoning.
Our year 5 11+ course is well under way reiterating the basics and providing hints & tips such as these, giving your child the confidence and ability to succeed - even on the tough questions!
Drop me a message for more info.

This week my students, of all abilities will be exploring my new game purchase - Prime Climb. Where's the Math?
So far it has had a big thumbs up from Elliott, Mia, James & Jay!

I highly recommend it!

This game is so rich in mathematical ideas and helps kids practice their operations, but it also helps them explore one of the deepest ideas in all of mathematics: the prime numbers

Goal of the Game
The goal of Prime Climb is to land both your pawns on 101 exactly.

Rules
Players take turns until someone wins by landing both pawns exactly on the 101 circle. You are never allowed to move a pawn past 101. All players begin the game with both pawns at the Start circle, which counts as 0.

Let's look at the colors of the first twenty numbers on the board. What do you notice about the colors?

All the even numbers are orange. The only numbers with purple are 7 and 14. And all the multiples of 5 have some blue coloring.

Crucially - The coloring of the number indicates the factors of that number! The number 10 is orange and blue because it is divisible by 2 (orange) and 5 (blue)! Similarly, the number 12 is orange, orange, and green because 2*2*3 gets you 12. So the coloring of a number indicates its prime factorization, the set of prime numbers the multiplies to create that number.

This will help your kids practice their multiplication facts. What is 7*9? Just look for the number with one purple section and two green sections! I bet they notice that each number has its own color coding, and that no two numbers have the same color code. That's enough for an 8 year old.

Questions to Ask
"What ways can you use the dice you just rolled?"
There might be times when a timely subtraction is just the trick! What if you are on space 27 and you roll a 3 and a 4. You could add 3 and 4, getting up to 34. Or, you could subtract 3 to get down to 24 and then multiply by 4 all the way up to 96! What an elegant move. The more you can prompt your child to find those moves, the better.

Speaking of 24, you can always ask questions that get kids thinking about multiplication. The color scheme is your friend here. You can ask: "What numbers multiply to 24? How can you use the colors of 24 to check your answers?"

If your child is struggling with multiplication, this is a great way to get your child to find pairs of factors that multiply to a specific number. And the handy multiplication chart that comes with the game is a fantastic resource for kids who need to see more connections between the numbers the multiply and the products that arise.

Lastly, on your own turn you can always brainstorm out loud about your own options. "I want to get to that 37, but I'm back here on 15 with a 7 and a 2. How could I move there?"

Here are some examples:

Example 1.
With pawns on 4 and 26, you roll a 3 and a 9. You could:

Add 3 to move your pawn from 4 to 7, then multiply by 9 to move your pawn from 7 to 63.
Multiply by 3 to move your pawn from 26 to 78, then add 9 to move it from 78 to 87.
Add 9 to move one pawn from 4 to 13, and multiply by 3 to move the other from 26 to 78. Since 13 is completely red, you would draw a card.
You CANNOT add the 3 and 9 to use a 12. You CANNOT multiply 3 and 9 to use a 27. You have to apply the numbers on the dice one by one.
You CANNOT add 9 to 26 to make 35, and then multiply 35 by 3, for if you did, you would go to 105, which is off the board. You must stay on the board at all times. (It’s not enough just to end up on the board at the end of your turn.)

Example 2.
You roll double 2s, with a pawn on 78, and an opponent pawn on 42. This means you have four 2s that you must use. You could:

Add 2 (80), divide by 2 (40), add 2 (42), and add 2 (44). Note that even though you passed through a spot where an opponent had a pawn, you do not bump it back to start, because you did not end your movement phase on 42.
Add 2 (80), add 2 (82), add 2 (84) and divide by 2 (42) to end your turn at 42 and send your opponent back to start.
Divide by 2 (39), add 2 (41), add 2 (43), and subtract 2 (41) to end at 41, and draw a card.
Example 3.
People sometimes ask why you would ever subtract or divide. As you play more, you’ll see opportunities where subtraction and division open up great moves. Here is a case where you might want to divide. With a pawn on 64, you roll a 2 and a 3. You could:

Divide by 2 (32) then subtract 3 to end at 29. Since 29 is completely red, draw a Prime Card.
Divide by 2 (32) and multiply be 3 to end at 96! Division gets you closer to 101 than any of your other options.

There are some links here explaining the rules:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWhVw3mTpPU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fchUvoVMX3A
https://mathforlove1.wpenginepowered.com/games/prime-climb/how-to-play/

I am watching The One Percent club. Required viewing for my 11+ students! (Recorded obsv, you should be in bed by now).

We should definitely get this one!

Great work today, James, using resources to learn about tenths and hundredths, then ordering decimals. Smashed it!

Let's take a look at some of the verbal reasoning coding questions.

My 11 plus students are getting to grips with these question types and more.

Need help - Happy to have a chat, no obligation.

I'm really enjoying meeting my new 11 plus students this term. Every day I get a call to ask if I can help. What I see mostly is that the mental arithmatic and foundational knowledge isn't secure. That's usually our starting point.

Are you confident with numbers?

Mathematics is a subject that seems to split the world of learning into two: the confident and the frightened. I spent my childhood afraid of maths. Understanding why/how numbers work is key to being able to compute and solve problems, as an absolute knowledge of times tables and the use of the four basic Maths operations.

As a child I struggled with maths. Some of the problem was being afraid to say I didn't understand; part of the problem was the teaching style. As an adult I now see that numbers are logical, relational and I'm not frightening any more!

Now I make it my aim in tutoring to instill a love of, ability ability and confidence in maths for all pupils.

The 11+ examination in maths is a challenge to most pupils. It is usually set at a standard that is more difficult than the Key Stage 2 exams that pupils take towards the end of Year 6 but yet it is normally taken just as the child enters Year 6 – leaving a gap in both knowledge and ability. Some of the 11+ maths topics dip their toes into Key Stage 3 maths, such as the more difficult parts of ratio and algebra. Many pupils are therefore challenged to shift their maths skills up a whole year in order to be at an appropriately confident level for the 11+.

When commencing 11+ we need to ensure students know their times tables fluently, with automatuc recal, can confidently use all the four maths operations (+ – x ÷) and choose the correct one(s) for questions in multi-step or problem-solving word format. Then, take a look at the place value of numbers and what each digit is worth up to 100,000,000 before you tackle the more demanding topics of fractions, decimals, percentages etc.

Parents, be aware that the 11 + exam takes considerable commitment and a consistent approach. One hour with a tutor will not get your child prepared. Most evenings they should be doing some work 11+ related.

I'm dedicated to helping as many children as I can be as fully prepared as possible.

Lyn x

Sam Edwards Sarah Quinn Evan Quinn

My Dad.

Had great fun Wednesday with Henry, playing Who wants to be a Millionaire.

Working on metric conversions.

We won the million!