Anexity and 11 plus

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raa
Posts: 34
Joined: Thu Nov 13, 2014 12:52 pm

Anexity and 11 plus

Post by raa »

My son has mild anexity. He has got no diagnosis and does not take any medication. He is doing fine in studies. My question is shall we go for 11 plus or not. I am not sure if he can handle the pressure of 11 plus. Please suggest. Thanks
ToadMum
Posts: 11944
Joined: Wed Jan 18, 2012 12:41 pm
Location: Essex

Re: Anexity and 11 plus

Post by ToadMum »

raa wrote:My son has mild anexity. He has got no diagnosis and does not take any medication. He is doing fine in studies. My question is shall we go for 11 plus or not. I am not sure if he can handle the pressure of 11 plus. Please suggest. Thanks
Anxiety?

Why would you cause him to suffer anxiety? If he's successful, he gets a slightly wider range of schools to pick his secondary preferences from. If he doesn't do well enoigh, he still has exactly the same range of schools available to him as he did before sitting the exam.

Mild anxiety not requiring medication and not interfering with his progress at school (and without an actual diagnosis - have you asked your GP to see him at all about it?) would seem to be the ideal candidate for being managed by parents not making a fuss about such things as an exam which he can either take or not take.
Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.Groucho Marx
BucksBornNBred
Posts: 1031
Joined: Thu Aug 13, 2015 4:01 pm

Re: Anexity and 11 plus

Post by BucksBornNBred »

It might be worth considering what kind of things trigger his anxiety? My DS can get anxious in certain situations but he has never had a problem with "intelligence" (for want of a better word) tests, e.g. CATs, SATs, 11+. Some of the subject tests he hasn't revised for on the other hand... :roll:
Tinkers
Posts: 7240
Joined: Mon May 16, 2011 2:05 pm
Location: Reading

Re: Anexity and 11 plus

Post by Tinkers »

I think how he handles the exam will be very much down to how you frame it.

If you make a big deal of it, he is likely to pick up on that and it will probably make him anxious.

If you keep things low key, it’s justt a test, results aren’t such a big deal, just that a good result means he has a slightly bigger choice of schools to put on th CAF, then maybe he won’t feel as pressurised and won’t be as anxious.
Octsmum
Posts: 345
Joined: Wed Mar 08, 2017 11:21 pm

Re: Anexity and 11 plus

Post by Octsmum »

Hi

My DD is sometimes prone to anxiety - notably when we have family events she's made herself 'bothered'. We didn't tell her when the last one was until the day itself! My sister thought I was completely nuts when I mentioned we were considering the 11+.

We managed it by not making too much out of it. We were very happy with all the schools we took her to look around. A grammar school wasn't the end of the world. It was also helped by the regular preparation & by doing mocks so she knew what to expect. How does your child get on at school - in a test for example? What makes him bothered? What are the triggers?

You know your child best.
KingstonMama
Posts: 100
Joined: Sun Jul 09, 2017 8:31 pm

Re: Anexity and 11 plus

Post by KingstonMama »

As others say it depends on the trigger and also think it requires you to monitor hi and see how he goes. My dd can be anxious about some things so I said if she seemed too stressed we’d stop doing the 11 plus entirely. She wasn’t stressed by exams or prep for them though in fact it turned out she liked them. We also made sure we painted our non grammar alternative in a v positive light saying it’d be great to go there so not to worry if she didn’t get grammar.
PettswoodFiona
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Joined: Mon Mar 03, 2014 11:24 pm
Location: Petts Wood, Bromley, Kent

Re: Anexity and 11 plus

Post by PettswoodFiona »

Anxiety is another person’s challenge. Lack of anxiety is another person’s lack of opportunity.

DD would have felt anxious not having had the opportunity to try. She always knew it was a chance but wanted to try. Another friend's DS did want to do the test but the mother wasn’t happy him doing it as she was ideologically opposed, that caused him upset. It is very much about your family dynamics, what your other options are and how you will treat and approach trying vs not getting the required score / failing.
Deb70
Posts: 340
Joined: Sat Oct 13, 2018 5:00 pm

Re: Anexity and 11 plus

Post by Deb70 »

As parents we can avoid making them anxious, but we have no control over how other children make them feel. Our DC was fine, relaxed and confident. But when schools went back in September there was a lot of hype about the test, and in particular at the practice test, where DC reported there were children actually fighting. This made my DC really anxious when he'd never been anxious about anything! In hindsight, I would have prepared him better for exam stress, including sitting him for mock exams.
AML
Posts: 347
Joined: Fri Sep 19, 2014 5:32 pm

Re: Anexity and 11 plus

Post by AML »

raa wrote:My son has mild anexity. He has got no diagnosis and does not take any medication. He is doing fine in studies. My question is shall we go for 11 plus or not. I am not sure if he can handle the pressure of 11 plus. Please suggest. Thanks
Mild anxiety is a normal, part of growing up. A child who is NEVER anxious is more worrying.
loopylala
Posts: 255
Joined: Wed Oct 12, 2016 9:14 am

Re: Anexity and 11 plus

Post by loopylala »

PettswoodFiona wrote:she was ideologically opposed, that caused him upset.
I do wonder why a 10 year old child would be upset about not sitting an exam to gain a place at a school they know nothing about?
PettswoodFiona wrote:It is very much about ... what your other options are
I found it quite eye opening listening to parents who clearly knew nothing about the non selective schools, other than they didn't want their DC to go there. I was also quite surprised about how little they seemed to know about the selective school that, as far as they were concerned, was the school that best suited their DC.
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