A week to go - how's everyone feeling?

[Maddiebean]

cool, calm and collected/sick to the back teeth of it/nervous/dreading it/quietly confident/gut spewingly nervous for their child/couldn't give a stuff about it?

Such is the lot of the 11+ parent - nevermind the children

Good luck maintaining the calm surface people. Not long now!


<waves to stalker friend K>

[Chococat]

Hello Maddiebean!

Where has the year gone? Has your daughter enjoyed her first year at secondary?

For various reasons we made a late decision to put our son in for the 11+ and have only been preparing him since the beginning of June with an hour a week tutoring. We started doing practise papers the last three weeks, but I'm wishing I had started earlier as he would have benefited from doing all eight of the GL Assessment papers. He is doing pretty well considering the late start, but timing is an issue in all but the English. I'm hoping that, on the day, he may work quicker in proper test conditions!

[Maddiebean]

Chococat!! I forgot you were going to be in the same boat as me again! Dd has had a really good first year thanks, definitely the right school after all the fretting How about your girls, have they had a good first year?

Don't worry about your DS, as long as he is used to the test format he'll be fine. I don't think anyone ever completely nails the timing, my DS finds the non-verbal almost impossible to do to time and dd was the same - she did well on the day so fingers crossed the boys will be the same

[PanicMode]

This is my second year in succession - I cannot WAIT for it to be Thursday evening next week!!! Then I have a three year break before DSs 3 and 4 take it.....I'll be refreshed by then!

It's helping to see my son loving his first week at Skinners - it's inspired my daughter to do some work. She was getting a bit relaxed about it all, and although she's feeling very nervous, her most recent practice papers have been good, after a week doing 11+ summer school with her tutor. I was a bit worried in August when her scores were all over the place.

Fingers crossed and good luck to everyone for next week.

[susanass]

Mentally drained! Thankfully my dc is feeling excited at this point . Not sure whether it's nervous excitement or genuine excitement. Hopefully the latter. Can't say the word excitement springs to my mind at this point in time. One minute I feel confident, then next moment, not confident at all. No matter how well prepared they are, who knows how it will go on the day. That's the worst part for me and I'm sure for everyone else. Good luck to everyone!

[mumsdarling2]

Though we have done what we could, I can't get rid of the feeling that we have missed out a few more things. DS is fed up and wants to get it over with. So do I for that matter. There seem to be tons of super bright kids in DS's school. If that sample is anything to go by, the real competition on the day will be massive.

[Chococat]

My daughter's have had a good first year too Maddiebean, thank you.

After Sunday I'm not making my son do anymore preparation. He has worked really hard the last three weeks, even though I am having to bribe him with sweets or extra game time to get him to sit down and do any work!

Best of luck to all children taking the test next week.

[chimera-ma]

Easing up now. A couple of Bond exercises and a bit of English revision tomorrow; revisit NVR strategy Monday; puzzles Tuesday. That's it.

DC is scoring well in most areas but has "butterflies". I'm worried about his being nervous on the day and rushing too much...

Good luck, everyone!

[PettswoodFiona]

By this time next week I will be thinking, one test down, three to go...Just got back results of mock test which were encouraging. One area of weakness in maths has been identified and we are working on that (thanks to Carol Vorderman's how to teach your children maths as I have forgotten it all!). I think apart from that little bit of triage, there is not much more we can do now so we are just taking deep breaths and DD is reminding me she likes tests so is looking forward to it. I am so blessed. I think this summer has been a good summer, ditching the tutor we had for a couple of months was the best thing we ever did and I have enjoyed planning work and spending time with DD at weekend to go through it and then re-planning, despite working full time. I won't miss the nagging worries, knowing DD can have seriously off days, the 'what if we'd managed to find the right tutor' concerns. Instead I will become obsessed with pass marks and distance cut offs etc etc. joys of the 11+ journey!

[Maddiebean]

Ah Carol Vordeman, she's so smug on the cover I want to bin the book but she is so useful! The grammar one is good too.