‘Prepping your child for the 11+ over summer is a unique kind of hell’

It’s not just stress of the test but the middle class hysteria too,

Home school’s out for summer, but while you’re celebrating, spare a thought for parents like me who are having to spend the next six weeks prepping a child for the dreaded 11+. As if the unique hell of teaching times tables and explaining bioluminescence while trying to hold down a full time job wasn’t bad enough, I’m now faced with a summer of teaching additional maths and verbal reasoning to a 10-year-old boy who would rather be freebasing Fortnite.

I’m not sure what’s worse, living in a county which has postponed the test until the end of October due to coronavirus, thereby prolonging the agony, or sticking with the original date despite all the participants having missed a term of school.

As the scary website reminds parents in my area in BOLD CAPITALS, our day of reckoning is on Sep 5. It’s not just the test that is stressful to prepare a child for − with all those complicated questions about 2/5 of Amy’s teddy bear

‘I’m now faced with teaching a boy of 10 who would rather be freebasing Fortnite’

collection being expressed as a decimal (0.4, in case you were wondering). It’s the mass middle class hysteria that goes with it. Do not even think of reading a Mumsnet thread on the subject − you’ll literally end up a nervous wreck, worrying that failing this thing is essentially a one-way ticket to the nearest correctional facility.

You’ll also be faced with a phalanx of smug parents claiming their genius children weren’t even tutored and still got in. Spoiler alert − these people are pathological liars. They are the type of parents who also claim their mini Einsteins “enjoy” things like non-verbal reasoning and watching Countdown. You can always tell they went to Oxbridge − because they are guaranteed to mention it in any online post.

My son, who has been tutored since the beginning of Year 4 (fail to prepare, prepare to fail and all that), recently took some practice tests where some children in his cohort scored over 95 per cent. Although unlikely to ever be in that percentile, even he had the nous to ask: “Why on earth are they doing the mocks if they already know they are going to pass?” It seems this God-awful, arbitrary assessment can bring out the dunce in us all.

In my beloved son’s case − an 11+ in hair wax application and playing in attacking midfield would be preferable. Yet unfortunately there are no prizes, educationally at least, for well-roundedness or strength of personality when trying to get into a selective secondary. Instead, it’s all about whether you know four synonyms for rectify (amend, fix, redress, remedy) or whether you can work out the size of one of the angles in an octagon (135 degrees).

I know how I’d rather be judged, but hey, I’ve never passed an 11 +.