11 Plus Exams Forum

I am debating whether it is a good or a bad idea to send DS to school on the day before his 11+ exam. Would it be better to keep him at home and be fresh for the next day? Hubby is not so sure. He thinks that having a normal day would keep DS in better spirits than sitting at home studying or watching telly. Any tips from your experiences will be most appreciated. Thanks.

Going to school keeps things normal, he isn't going to learn anything new one day before, if he doesn't know it now.

Also you'll need school authorisation for the day off really, and I doubt they would agree, so it would likely be an unauthorised absence.

Send him in. Absolutely agree you should be as normal as possible, if only to reassure him that it's not off ar amount importance. It won't make any difference to how he performs (twins, both qualified)

I think it depends on the child and how many of his classmates are sitting, and whether you are a believer in last minute revision.

I didn't send ds. He had some hyper-anxious kids in his class, and I didn't want them to affect him. And we got a lot of last minute revision and techniques covered, as well as some down-time without siblings around.

But I could see that if he was the sort that could get anxious by himself, then school would have been a good distraction.

School head knew what we were doing but essentially said that we needed to say that he was ill to avoid problems.

+1 it depends on the child and circumstances.
Another idea for an authorised absence is to visit another school. Some parents put it down under this heading.
On the day of one of the tests, which was in the afternoon, I kept him in. Other children went to school. I just thought he could relax at home doing whatever he wanted.

There are lots of children sitting for 11+ in his year group. I rarely ever take DS out of school unless he is really unwell. So far he is ok but he too has some hyper kids in his year group. I might need to keep a close watch on their influence on DS these last few days. They stressed him out before summer with stories of having finished their preparation and being miles ahead of everyone in the few mocks they did. It will ultimately depend on how he is feeling I suppose. Thank you for all your honest opinions.

Keep everything as clockwork. Children do like and are used to routine. Better that than blaming it on something extraordinary. Just keep after school times quite normal which may seem bizarre after working hard for a wee while! It will be over before you know it.

DD has a test at 1.45 on the 16th, she is going into school for the morning. We want things to be as normal as possible. However for Kent test on 12th we have an early start due to the test centre they've given us not being our closest so no Giides the night before but that is our only change to normal routine.

we didn't, he went to a private school in year 6, what an absolute waster of money that was..we did quote a lot of last minute revision the day before. Especially NVR,

My children went to school on the morning of the test.