Feeling Good on the Day.

One of the `rules’ of doing well in examinations is to feel refreshed on the day.

If your child is feeling tired on the day of the examination then it is likely that you have allowed your child to do too much. (How parents like to feel blamed for everything!)

In the closing stages it is probably best, for example, to only do part of a paper a day after coming home from school . In the last few days before the examination look through sections where there have been problems. Discuss solutions - encourage recall and problem solving.

Unless you are very, very fortunate, and you are supremely confident of your child’s ability, try to avoid saying: `Of course you will pass.’ Sometimes temper a statement of this magnitude with a softer approach: `Just do you best - we know that you will do your best to pass.’

Unfortunately the gift of passing a child through an eleven plus examination does not lie in a parent’s hands.

Too much work on too many papers, at the last minute, can interfere with your child’s ability to do a slightly different set of questions. Over the whole spectrum of an eleven plus examination, with between two and four papers, a number of questions will rely on problem solving skills.

We can anticipate that some questions will be asking for a form of analysis. Other questions may be asking for evaluation.

A tired, irritable, overworked child will struggle to analyse and evaluate. In just the same way: `Of course you will pass,’ will hardly be music in a weary child’s ears.