Eleven Plus Connections

I remember reading about Scheherazade. The story goes that there was once a betrayed Sultan who vowed to cut off his wife’s head at dawn and take a new wife every day.

Scheherazade arrived after a large number of wives had met grisly deaths. She was very clever at telling stories. She was able to prolong the day of her execution for one hundred and one days. By which time the king had fallen in love with her and could not bear to be parted.

Naturally the story has been embellished over the years – and stretched to one thousand and one days – and three sons later.

Now many of us have around one hundred days left to the eleven plus examinations. There is a bit less time for those children writing in October and November.

So if any mothers want to preserve their sanity – and their heads – why not take a little time every day to tell their children a wonderfully exciting story. You could mould the story in the way the great soaps of today work – by leaving each episode in the form of a cliffhanger. As the tension towards the eleven plus examinations grows you will be able to make your stories and tales so exciting and stimulating that your children will hang on your every word.

This is important as families need strong connections as the examinations approach. You want your children to be able to turn to you and say: “Oh please, mum, please let me know what happened.” You will be able to smile mysteriously, draw your children into your arms, and tell them tales of how hard you used to work at school.

They will look at you in awe and whisper to each other about how hard you worked at school. They will be enthralled by your story telling. You won’t be `mum part of the furniture’ you will be `mum the magnificent’. What a lovely thought.