What is wrong with my child?

[ByOliveReader]

or maybe something is wrong with me and I am being overly dramatic.

We live in an area where the 11+ test is still in place. Your child will sit the exam unless you raise an objection, and 95% of children sit the test.

DD goes to a good state school and is doing well. Her reports have always been good: 'meeting or exceeding the required level.'

Like most of her class, she attended an after school 11+ prep club at her school, and we did the required homework / reading etc. We had tapered our expectations because it is so very competitive, so we were realistic that this was going to be a challenge for her and didn't want her to be disappointed.

She failed the exam. She was ill when the results were published and by the time she returned to school (10 days later) no one was talking about the 11+.

I didn't pay any attention to her score - which was low - until a month later when the subject cropped up during a parent Whatsapp chat.

The local grammar schools post a list of anonymised test results for all entrants and based on this DD's score was in the bottom 2 percentile.

Among the cohort of 5000 students, who took the test, there will be children who would have received no tuition; children who are 1 year behind their peers in terms or reading; children who've been neglected.

I still done understand how she could have scored so poorly. I checked with the exam board and there are no issues with the marking.

However, in the past few weeks, I've been asking her to complete CGP Maths 10 minute workouts and she is only getting half of them correct. Which is in contrast to a year ago.

What could be causing her to perform so, so poorly?

Following a meeting with her teacher, where I discussed the results, they did a screening test and think she might have borderline / mild dyslexia. She has an assessment planned for next year.

I cannot help feel I have let her down because I don't know how to help her. Has anyone gone through anything similar? I am really anxious for her and want to help her any way I can.

Lots of famous authors failed failed the 11+ it's not about reading and imagination, it's about reasoning. I think it's miserable children have their childhood ruined studying for grammar school. Most of jobs requiring verbal reasoning will be replaced by ai before long so I wouldn't worry too much. Try and help her with social skills - that will be useful

Thank you. I didn't fully grasp the difference between normal school and the standard expected for the 11+ until we were well into preparing for the exam.
Hopefully, it was just the stress and expectation that caused her to do so poorly. I really hope we can address this going into high school.

I hope my daughter did the same. 😀

I understand you are worried about this.

So, what it is worth doing is trying to isolate the problem.

Is it that she is very anxious in exams? Her primary may well do end of year assessments or spelling tests or similar. Speak to her teacher - the teacher will know if she is the kind of child who goes to pieces in exam type situations.

Is it that she struggles to read for various reasons? My son had problems reading and he read very slowly because he was slow moving his eyes. He did daily eye exercises prescribed by an optometrist and it (slowly) improved.

So take her for a vision test and a hearing test. Most obvious things first.

When (if) those come back fine, talk to the teacher. How actually is her maths/English progress? Has she been getting exceeding or is the teacher only just getting her to "meeting" age related targets by the end of the year and with a lot of support?

Depending on what answers you hear take action.

If she is anxious in exams type situations find some easy ones for her to practice n do that she starts to get over the anxiety. Work on breathing techniques etc.

If she has vision problems get her glasses or do the exercises. Hearing problems similar.

Thanks. She obviously isn't suited to a grammar school but she is in the bottom of a cohort of 5000 odd children. Its pretty similar to a cohort studying for the GCSE. I am just anxious if she performs similarly for her GCSEs - although that's in the distant future.

Thank you - this is what I plan to do. It was a relief to throw away all her 11+ books and to let her have her evenings to just relax, watch TV, read and play.

Your primary school should be able to do a dyslexia screening, if that's what you are thinking. It will tell you if it's likely or not.

She has terrible comprehension skills. It was one of the areas that was flagged up by her tutor and we worked extensively on this area but with very limited success.

Sometimes she will get it right but 30% of the time she will read a text about Bob the farmer, Tom the butcher and Ian the postman and she will give an answer like Tom is the postman, Bob is a policeman and Joe is the postman.

She will get 8/10 in 2 or 3 comprehension exercises and 2/10 in another - very inconsistent.

I told you that your tutor should have signalised that she is. E.g. not doing well within time. Or other reasons. The tutor should have informed you after 3 months about her chances

Oh don't worry. This means nothing. My son had problems with comprehension in primary and in y7 literacy he was marked as way above average age. Top 3 out of 225 kids in the year. I got an email congratulating me and what a hard work we have done by encouraging him to read a lot I was tempted to respond that the only thing he reads is a script in Minecraft chat.😂 Anyway, he was always brill at math and in the last test he got only around 60 perc. God only knows why. So honestly it means exactly nothing

She knew the timetables by heart, it was an example of the work she had put in to get to this stage. Some children doing the 11+ test probably didn't know their tables yet performed better than her. This is what I am struggling with, she did the work and we provided the support but in the end it was for nothing.

But knowing your tables by heart is not (despite what some teachers will tell you) a sign of being good at Maths. There is a lot more about problem solving, seeing patterns and applying knowledge. I could never get my tables but I developed tricks so I could solve multiplication as fast as anyone who did know their tables; in addition I was very good at thinking through problems.

And I suspect a lot of her classmates were "secretly" being tutored. My children were in a totally comprehensive school area, and the majority had some kind of tuition.
Also if she wasn't ill she may have underperformed on the day.

What is important is trying to give her the best chances from here.

Go to a specialist to test her and then a decent tutor to benchmark against her peers. Few tests. Not one. One swallow doesn't ....

Don't worry. I know a lawyer who moved to Kent for grammar school. She bought a house to be in two catchments. Her very much tutored son didn't get in. He got in to private. She paid a lot for his school. He ended up with 8-9 at GCSE.

The good news is that you have identified that there is an issue early enough to take some action - better than finding out in the GCSE mocks. Action doesn't have to involve stressing your child but starts with a lot of investigation and questions. Try to pinpoint exactly where the problems are - is it across the curriculum or just maths or just English. You can ask the teachers their opinion and that is one of many pieces of info you need. Tutors might help with some objective comparison with age group standards.

More information can only help and then you can try and work out if she just needs a little more focus on helping her learn - although it does sound as if you have already tried that. If it is not that then you need to look online at the traits of learning difficulties that are not immediately obvious such as ADHD. There are online quizes which are not a diagnosis but will give you an idea if you are looking in the right direction. Sometimes answering the questions will help you recognise behaviours that you haven't noticed. As you have already mentioned you need to check for dyslexia, discalcula and look for exam anxiety. Sadly there can always be more than one thing going on.

Once you have more detailed information it will help you decide which direction to go for help.

Good luck

My youngest passed the 11+, but honestly from practice papers he could just have easily been in the bottom percentile. It was a year later when he was diagnosed with dyslexia and ADHD. Sometimes it really is just about what happens on the day.

In hindsight I have absolutely no idea how he passed without a prompter in the exam, or without coloured paper/overlays.

Do you have a local Explore Learning?
or similar? Sign up and they will assess her and you can see where she actually falls in terms of the curriculum. The school’s feedback was clearly incorrect, so you need an external party to assess where she’s at, so you can understand the foundation you have to build on.

We did this and it was key to really seeing where DD2 was and her strengths and weaknesses. According to the school she was meeting expectations- but those expectations were very very low!

I was going to ask if she understands what she's reading as it sounded like her reading skills were OK. Is it both receptive (understanding) and expressive language she struggles with? Is her understanding of verbal language better than her understanding of written language? My DS used to struggle with both, still struggles with expressive language in writing, but does a lot better verbally. This can mean exam outcomes are very different to classroom ones as his teacher can grade off his verbal explanations on some things. There are several specific learning disabilities, dyslexia is the most well known. My DS may have dysgraphia, he's autistic and we haven't pursued a further diagnosis yet, working through some interventions first. He's very stubborn when be decides he can't do something and what was thought to be dyscalculia very much wasn't, now toping his year in maths, and dyslexia still not sure, but getting less likely all the time.

Dysgraphia is a specific learning disorder in written expression referring to (a) the language-based difficulties involved in constructing meaningful and effectively structured expressive writing and (b) ongoing weaknesses in spelling and punctuation that affect a student's capacity to express their ideas with clarity.

Dyslexia is a learning difficulty that primarily affects the skills involved in accurate and fluent word reading and spelling. Characteristic features of dyslexia are difficulties in phonological awareness, verbal memory and verbal processing speed

There's also things like receptive language disorder and some other communication disorders. Working memory and processing speed can show much more during tests because of time constraints. They're often associated with Autism and ADHD, but not always. Sometimes like my DS you need to find the way they can learn, which might not be the way school teaches. I taught him to count on the swings. He would have been in the bottom 1% at the start of primary school. Once I find a way in he's usually improved quickly, but it's finding the way in, finding the thing that works that has been hard. There are specific interventions for different specific learning disorders so it's important to know what exactly the problem is.

If you can afford an assessment an educational psychologist might be useful to help work out what's going on.

Yeah was going to suggest this.

Thank you... you have captured exactly how I feel. I thought she would be in the middle somewhere but to be in the 2 percentile...

I can only guess she found it harder and gave up or misread questions and instructions. I am terrified for her: how will she cope at high school, with GCSEs.

She was fine when she left the exam, 'it was easy,' she said. I am hoping the school will help me get to the bottom of this.

She was getting around 50% in test papers - it varied - some days were better than others. Still doesn't explain being in the bottom 2%. I am speaking to her teacher later this week - hopefully today.

Hi - I'm concerned about her score and ranking, rather than getting into grammar school. Its just a large cohort that I hope it doesn't mean she is intellectually in the 2 percentile for her GCSEs. I am assuming it will mean she will fail them all.

How is she doing in all the other tests she does at school?

I understand your concern but the 11+ is one very specific test. She could have just had a very bad day. If she was struggling that much surely the teachers would have flagged it.

Of course investigate and get an assessment done but it is a lot of focus on one test. I’d be looking at the broad range of tests she does at school.

"She was fine when she left the exam, 'it was easy,' she said. I am hoping the school will help me get to the bottom of this"

This is worrying. I would suggest she totally misunderstood the questions.
I would if you can get an experienced tutor go over some exams with her to see if there is a comprehension problem. But it could well be an "exam technique " issue which is usually pretty easily solved (certainly by GCSE).