11 plus exam tomorrow ....aaagh

[crystaltips]

I know - I know .... " do they still have the 11 plus???"
Answer ... yes ! and my DS is sitting it tomorrow ....
Poor thing - why do they have to put our kids under so much pressure at such a young age ??

My dd is sitting it on Sat morning. I'm letting her have the day off tomorrow so she can go over some practice papers "in peace" and just chill generally. Then on Sunday we're going shopping - just the girls!!!!!

Good luck to your daughter. Which school(s) are you sitting for?

Sorry, substitute "your daughter" for "your son"

We are in Northern Ireland - so the situation is different than in the mainland becuase it has not been abolished yet ( though they are trying to get rid of it ).... it seems to be the exception rather than the rule over there .... be here all the kids are expecting to do it .... unless they opt out.
Good Luck to your DD .... my DS will be half way through now ....
Sigh
Next paper on 21st !! Where we have to go through it all again

we have it here too

Where are you Codswallap?

We have here too my DD1 has already taken 2 papers and has another one in 2 weeks but we've been really laid back about it all. We know that she is unlikely to pass and she is quite happy about the alternative, there is room for less than a third of the children at the grammar school so even if she was more capable it would still be a struggle to get her in. But think the whole thing is too stressful and they've got sats in 6 months as well!

spf - you sound a bit like me - keep the pressure off and just go with the flow .... it's a lot less stressfull!
When I collected DS this afternoon his main concern was that he had scored a goal in his footy match !
Bless!

Absolutely crystaltips, your ds could be the next Becks so who cares about the 11 + so long as they're happy. Who knows what will happen my dd1 could be a rocket scientist or a SAHM like me so long as thats what she wants

Good luck to all the dd's and ds's that are going thro' this whatever happens keep smiling.

crystaltips and jampot,how did your kids get on?
Iam really interested in this topic as my ds is sitting his entrence exam to senior school in jan.
Did you get any extra tuition for your kids, and where you applying for grammar or privat?
Tigermoth are you there?
I read your thread a few weeks ago.

Err! That should be entrance and private.
Obviously I would fail.

HI, charlize. My DS2 has the entrance exam for state grammar in December (in just over 2 weeks, in fact). His primary school gives them practice papers in VR, and at parents' evening his class teacher said it wouldn't hurt to give him some of those test papers you can buy, but we only have some English ones (from when DS1 did it) and he's OK at English, and making him sit down with maths papers at this point seems a bit futile. Que sera sera.

(Mind you it's easy for me to say that because the alternative school is pretty good too - intake "average", KS3 SATs and GCSEs "above average". It's just a bit big - 1400 pupils against 600 at the grammar.)

Hi JanH I know what you mean, It does seem a bit too late now. I wish I'd started with ds tutition a lot earlier.
Hes already improved a lot in just a couple of months so I imagine several more months work would have really made a difference to his mark.
It just never crossed my mind last year.
My ds is also getting verbal reasoning practice in school, and his maths is excellent so I have no worries there.
What is it with boys and english?