Feeling like I’ve massively let my son down

[PossiblyDreaming]

I live in an area of the country with grammar schools. It’s a pretty impoverished area too and the non-grammar schools are pretty rough. My 9yo ds is in year 5 (end of August birthday and youngest in his year), is on the waiting list for a ASD assessment as he is painfully shy, didn’t speak at school at all until about 18 months ago, awkward, very clumsy and has a lot of very stereotypical ASD traits.

However, he has been constantly praised by his teachers as being incredibly academically gifted. He’s reading full adult novels which he loves and his maths is brilliant. I thought I’d better get him some 11+ tuition just to be on the safe side but he’s now had 4 lessons and is losing all confidence as he always scores the lowest when they do the practice tests. He used to happily do practice papers at home but now as soon as he comes across a question he can’t immediately do in his head he starts sobbing, saying he’s useless and there’s no point even entering the exam as he’ll never pass. I’ve never put any pressure on him at all btw, it’s all come from the other kids at school who are taking it, one of whom it seems has been told that if he fails and has to attend the local comprehensive he’ll get beaten up everyday by other kids and never learn anything as all the lessons are devoted to crowd control.

All the other kids entering have been having regular, one on one tuition since at least year 3. I stupidly assumed that as he was naturally bright he’d just need to learn a bit of exam technique and it would be fine. I feel like I’ve let him down so much by not doing this. I could have afforded to do it, I just had no idea how competitive it was. Ten kids applied for every place last year . I went to that grammar school and did my 11+ with zero tuition and at the time pretty much everyone else did too.

Any tips for helping him cram for it without making it out to be a big deal?

Get him a different tutor. Or stop tutoring if that doesn't work. Speak to his teacher and learn all you can, he might pass anyway if you remove the stress. Have you asked his tutor why he's scoring so low?

I’d continue with current tutor but try a different tutor (ideally one with experience of ASD) too so he has an extra lesson a week for a few weeks. Then let him pick one or other tutor. It could be that he needs a different approach. Are there any books you could get him that he could also work through as well? Or websites? You could try that too if you think he will work well like that. Does he need help allocating time to study it? So you agree a time when he will study and you police it for him so he gets plenty of time to do his prep work?

I’m doing some work on BBC Bitesize with him, just to go over the principles. All tutors are completely booked up for years apart from the group that he’s currently in. I’m sure he’d be much better with one on one tutoring but there’s simply no one available that’s currently offering that. I should have got it all booked up years ago but just had no idea quite how competitive it all was.

Find out exactly what the local grammar exams entail and then find the right practise books (VR/NVR/Maths etc and do one paper a week at home with him. Teach him exam technique. keep it very simple. E.g. Today what we are practising is exam technique. I want you to work through the paper, and as soon as you see a question you don;t understand, all I want you to do is put an asterisk (or dot) beside it, take a deep breath and then ignore it. Look at the next question. if you can;t do that, put a dot beside that, breathe in,out and look at the next one. If you do this, you will have succeeded in our mission for the day and you get (time on X box/hot choc whatever.)

A huge part of 11 plus success is exam technique and a huge part of exam technique is staying cool when you come to stuff you don;t know.

Next day, go slowly through the questions he can't do. Can he do part of them? Does he know why he's stuck? Then go to somewhere like Khan Academy (free online) to see how he explains things. He;s very good at going through each stage very slowly, so you work out what bit you got wrong.

Reassure him that he is clever and that if he doesn't get into the grammar he is still as clever as he always was it's just that that one exam on that one day wasn't right for him. Reassure him that there are loads of ways to succeed in life and going to grammar is only one of them. Remind him that over half all students at Oxbridge are from comps these days. Etc. Just arm him with facts that bust the stupid fear mongering.

If you are bright (I bet you are!) you can tutor him for 11+ yourself. A paper a week, no pressure. The social anxiety of group work won't help him. If he's anything like my ASD son, he'll think everybody else knows all the answers. Not realising that A knew one answer and B knew another, and he is comparing one of him to all of them combined. If the tutor group is not increasing his confidence, remove him from it. It's counterproductive.

@hivemindneeded I know they’re the CEM papers so I’ve got loads of practice ones to do with him. He just gets in such a flap doing them. The maths particularly allows a really short amount of time for a lot of questions that need proper working out. It’s also all multiple choice but he flat out refuses to consider circling answers for questions that he hasn’t worked out if he runs out of time. It’s just an absolute no go and I don’t know how to encourage him to just do it anyway.

I haven’t heard of Khan Academy, thank you. I’ll look it up.

Just keep explaining that there is a skill called 'exam technique' and one of these skills is to just do all the questions you can do easily first and then go back and look at the others. Just keep reassuring him that this is one of the things they are testing: can you apply 'exam technique' so you don't get stuck on a question you don't understand. It's probably harder for a child with ASD as they like to do things in a certain way, but DS2 managed it as do lots of capable ASD pupils, so he can do it.

You could also ask him to do it as an experiment - try one maths paper not using exam technique and another paper using it and see which paper you get the higher score on. Maybe sit down with him, going over each question and when he struggles, say: OK, exam technique (or ET) that one - dot or star by it and then move on. It's about getting him familiar with the notion so he realises it's not wrong or a failure to miss something out and return to it.

This sounds like a confidence/anxiety issue, as much as anything. Perhaps he’s getting in a bit of a tizzy because of the pressure and then it gets hard to concentrate and think clearly, which makes it worse as he can’t get to the answer, and so it goes on in a vicious circle.

Maybe some ways to calm and centre himself would help, and if there’s time, some therapy?