Eleven Plus Food (14/01/09)

Children need to be healthy before the eleven plus. The correct food and taking part in will all play its part. On the Chris Evans show on Radio 2 yesterday there was an announcement that the best physical exercise a child or an adult could do was swimming and bouncing on a trampoline.

This will offer some parents a problem. They will not only have to buy a house close to a grammar school, but will need to add swimming polls and access to a well made trampoline. Eleven Plus fees will rise with the addition of a personal swimming coach and an Olympic trained trampoline trainer. This will make for an even busier life for many parents.

Monday:
School
School netball team until 4.15.
Into the car.
Swimming training.
Into the car.
Eleven Plus tutorial.
Into the car.
Home.
School homework.
Food.
Take the dog for a walk.
Clean the rabbit cage.
Bath and Bed. (Somewhere in the schedule reading and listening to a lecture from mum.)

Tuesday
Change netball for drama.
Swap swimming for trampoline.
Change extra lesson for eleven plus paper.
Change taking the dog for a walk for “Why me?”
The rest of the week must pass in a blur. No wonder mothers have to multitask!

To fit healthy food into the already overloaded schedule must take a monumental effort. We know that a snack in the car between school and the next activity must exclude certain foods. No more:

White and brown bread or flour
White pitta bread
Naan bread
Croissant
Cream crackers
Water crackers
Crisps
Buttery popcorn
Ice cream
Chocolate
Sugary fizzy drinks
Cakes
Doughnuts
Sugary sweets like wine gums and jelly babies

We have to ensure that the eleven plus candidate has plenty of:

Fresh Fruit
Dried fruit
100% pure fruit juices
Tomatoes
Carrots
Beetroots.

Parents sharing an eleven plus course with their children will need fortitude and vision. Who said it was easy to be an Eleven Plus parent?