Getting ready for London independent school assessments

The other day I heard a friend had taken her three-year-old to an assessment for entry into reception in September 2017. I was relieved it wasn’t me.

When we went through assessments three-year-old Big Girl, who starts school this year, seemed to love assessments and wanted to go to more of them, but I found the whole process much more stressful.

I felt I spent a month mainly cooking pasta bolognese and taco in the late afternoons. My main aim was to ensure she had meals she loved and ate enough for dinner and didn’t have a too busy schedule, so she would have time to rest and get a good night’s sleep before an assessment.

I heard from friends that assessments could include puzzles, number and letter recognition, counting, building blocks, drawing, matching, categorising, identifying patterns, writing the name and more, and with a growing focus on preparing little ones for starting school, I found myself becoming increasingly interested in ensuring we had educational toys at home.

In terms of puzzles, Orchard Toys has been my go-to brand. They do several jigsaws featuring letters and numbers, which are good for talking about these topics, and I’ve reviewed some samples from Orchard Toys in the past year, which have been spot on for preschoolers.

Apart from puzzles, which appear to be a regular feature at assessments, I also adore the Smart Snacks Number Pops from Learning Resources (see picture at the top), which are ideal for practising numbers and counting with preschoolers who love pretend play.

In addition to this, I think it’s been good to have building blocks and construction toys such as Duplo, which has been very popular in our house.

Building blocks can be pretty basic–the style that are often sold as baby toys–but to make it extra fun, I love the Smart Snacks Stack and Count Layer Cake from Learning Resources, which I asked to review. The cake also fits in with pretend play, and makes practising to build a tower and number recognition fun wedding-cake themed activities.

I also discovered last year that identifying patterns is an early maths skill, and I’ve recently noticed Hot Dots Jr has a card set designed for practising sequences. This is the type of toy I would look for when Baby Boy reaches this stage, but it’s also fun to incorporate patterns into other activities, such as baking.

Good luck to everyone doing assessments this year!

Tags: Building blocks, Duplo, Education, Hot Dots, Independent prep schools, Learning Resources, Maths, Orchard Toys, Pretend play, School assessments, Sequences