Aethel wrote:
Deb70 makes an interesting reply.... please do not buy into the panic that “everyone is doing tons of mocks”. Such statements only go further to whip up anxiety, which is something the OP explicitly states she wants to avoid!
I couldn't agree more, and this was my strategy last year: do a bit of practice but no tuition centres or mocks. Relax over summer.
Come September and all the children who'd strenuously denied having tuition (mums too) suddenly were admitting they had been tutored up to the eyeballs, sitting monthly mocks and all sitting multiple eleven plus exams at different schools.
There are sadly now more and more people with this kind of strategy, so that "normal" bright kids who really should be in grammar schools, are getting pushed out by these aggressive helicopter parents who want little Johnny to go to grammar school at any cost, believing the more they train their kids, the more right they have to a GS place.
My child failed (just) but thankfully qualified via selection review, but going through that review was horrible and not something I would wish on anyone.
The OP may want to avoid getting into the whole tuition lunacy, but not doing it may cost them their child's place. Good luck