Patricia Dead, headteacher, the Daiglen School Essex

The sun’s out and the long school holiday is looming large, which means it’s that time of year when, across grammar school counties, thousands of Year 5s will spend much of their summer break preparing for the 11+ and other defining exams.

So how best to navigate this tricky time? Patricia Dear, headteacher at The Daiglen School in Essex (which has a mighty ten grammar schools), has years of experience in this field. Here, she shares her advice for all.

Practice makes perfect

Practice is the key and we offer our pupils as many opportunities as possible to experience a wide range of past papers and spend time going through the questions and answers with them in great detail. This helps them to identify exactly what is being asked of them in a question and how detailed their responses need to be to achieve the right mark.

Find out from your child’s teacher exactly what they need to work on in the different areas. Teachers can always suggest helpful activities, websites, apps and books to support them.

Keep life balanced

It’s really important for us to strike a balance between encouraging the children to work really hard, complete homework tasks and take their exam prep seriously, whilst still taking time to relax and enjoy their interests outside of academics.

We don’t forgo any of the foundation subjects on the timetable during exam prep season as we feel that arts and sport, trips and enrichment days are important outlets for the children. We also share this message with parents regarding additional prep at home, asking them to be mindful of not overwhelming the children with undue pressure.

More than exams

Securing places for our children at their chosen secondary schools is not just all about the written tests, our support for them extends to helping them with interview techniques and providing detailed references which really showcase all of their talents. Our children’s results in recent years have really proved that our formula works as we have an impressive track record of pupils gaining places at not only their first place schools but also receiving multiple offers to choose from.

We have had excellent feedback from the receiving schools with one of the local independent schools calling us to commend the Daiglen candidates on their superb performance in the 2023 entrance exam. As well as the offers of places, this year over 50 per cent of children who sat exams were offered academic scholarships.

Dealing with disappointment

When the letters from senior schools begin dropping through letterboxes, it can be a very emotional time. Balancing the celebrations for some, whilst sensitively managing those who were not successful, is important.

For pupils, or parents, who struggle with the news, we are here to talk; to advise them of alternatives and to praise the pupils’ efforts and the successes they have had.

The Daiglen School

11+ How best to prepare your child!

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