Continuing our successful partnership with Natasha Twine: Verbal and Nonverbal Reasoning Specialist since 2018, Yellowbird Education is pleased to announce our 2024 workshop dates.

Our Reasoning Workshops are designed to teach children how to approach Reasoning and CAT questions for a variety of schools. These include schools in the 11+ London Consortium, ISEB exams and for those children sitting exams set by GL Assessment and CEM. 

All too often students approach reasoning papers with random guessing, having been given no guidance on how to tackle the questions. Whilst it is true that some children have a natural ability to spot patterns, that does not mean that those who don't are a lost cause – they simply need to be shown the way!

DETAILS

FULHAM PREP 2024 Dates: 28-31 May, 15-18th July, 19-22 Aug, 27-29 Aug (3 days), 21-24 Oct, 28th-31 Oct

Times: AM (9:45-1:00) and PM (2:00-5:00)

Venue: Fulham Prep School, 200 Greyhound Rd, London W14 9RG

Suitable for: Students who are current Year 5 and will be in Y6 in Sept 2024, ONLY
Max. students: 12 per group, with an assistant working alongside Miss Natasha

How it works

There are some key concepts that we will focus on that will help children to succeed with reasoning exams.

Verbal Reasoning methods

The children will learn methods and techniques for solving a variety of question types, including numerical and alphabetical pattern recognition; code breaking; word structure and building.

Vocabulary skills

During the workshops we will work on developing the children’s broader vocabulary skills, both in and out of context. It is important that children have techniques to fall back on when faced with unknown words. We’ll look at how words are built; identifying a verb, adjective and noun form; identifying root words; understanding prefixes and suffixes; working with homophones, homonyms and homographs. 

We aim to give the children a set of vocabulary skills that they can use going forward that will enable them to broaden their vocabulary and get the most from every new word they learn. These skills will help the children to succeed in both verbal reasoning and comprehension, and will be useful in questions involving cloze exercises, word connections, and synonyms and antonyms.

Non-verbal Reasoning methods

The workshops will focus on the children’s understanding of the fundamental spatial operations, including rotation, translation, and reflective & rotational symmetry. We will learn a number of skills to help them break down a multi-step problem, decipher codes, identify operations, and avoid falling into traps and trick questions.

3D & Spatial Reasoning 

Having secured an understanding of the 2D spatial operations, we’ll look at how these can be applied to 3D problems such as working with cubes and nets, and fold and punch questions. Even children who find it impossible to visualise a 3D shape in their head can solve these problems once they have some visualisation tricks under their belt!

Exam skills

Throughout the workshops we’ll be discussing a variety of exam techniques and will be making the children aware of the various methods used to test their reasoning ability. We will discuss multiple choice answering, working to a tight time limit and adaptive computer testing.

With small classes of a maximum of 12 students in a group, each child will have ample opportunity to ask questions and work at their own pace, whilst benefiting from the thoughts and questions of other members of the group. 

Please note: The material used in this workshop will change each month so students can join multiple times throughout the year to maximise their preparation for exams. Material will repeat for back-to-back weeks such as Easter, August and at October half-term.

We strongly believe that verbal and non-verbal reasoning can be taught and that children who become familiar with this type of testing will do better on the day.