Here’s a counter-intuitive fact: children who have a lot of unstructured, boring time often do better in the 11 Plus. Why? Because boredom breeds creativity and problem-solving. If you schedule every second with tutoring, they’ll crack. Let them stare at a wall, build a pillow fort, or rearrange their toy cars by colour. One successful parent I know banned all screens on weekends and forced her son to do jigsaws. The kid’s non-verbal reasoning score shot up because jigsaws train the same pattern-recognition part of the brain.
The night before: don’t do a “last supper”
The night before the exam, do not revise. Do not do “one more practice paper”. That’s like running a marathon the day before a marathon. Instead, eat a pizza, watch a silly movie, and go to bed early. On the morning of, feed them a high-protein breakfast—eggs, porridge, bacon. Avoid sugar cereal unless you want your child solving logic puzzles on a rocket ship to jittertown.
How to Pass The 11 Plus Exam - Full & Detailed Solutions - 11+ Practice
And please, for the love of all things holy, don’t drive them to the exam while playing “Eye of the Tiger”. I know a dad who did that, and his daughter was so hyped she forgot to read the instructions and wrote an essay about her cat instead of answering a comprehension. She still got into the school, but only because the cat essay was actually brilliant.
