An Eleven Plus Race

What kind of advice can you offer to your child about his or her performance in the actual examination? Should there be a careful start and a pounding finish – with lots of good work in the middle? Or do you advise to `go for it’ from the start? The Olympics are coming. You may care to use an example from track and field.

Some starts will be standing and others from the crouch position. Before one of the longer distance races the competitors assemble behind a line some distance back from the starting line. The starter gives the orders to move forward. This is the moment when the brain has to be fully engaged. The other competitors have to be ignored and you have to fix your mind on the task ahead.

The crouch start is usually associated with the shorter running distances. Both hands have to be behind the starting line. The starting blocks need to be facing in the direction you wish to run. Starting blocks are used to try to help to get you into a position where you can make an explosive start.

Once you are up and running in races like the 200 and 400 metres you need to take into account bends and curves. You need to remind yourself to run about 15 centimetres out from the inside line of your lane.

When you burst for the finishing line the judges look to see whose chest passes the line first. At the finishing line this is the only part of your anatomy that counts. Would it be true to say that that the bigger your heart the more likely you are to winning?

The training and the papers are all finished. Your last minute advice to your child will include:

• Begin to focus as the time of the start grows closer.
• Keep your fingers off the examination paper until you are told to turn over.
• Remind your child that when the going gets rough, and it may, to try to avoid panicking.
• Maintain a steady pace – just like you have been doing in the practice papers.
• Avoid getting boxed in – keep your position and keep focused.
• Keep your action relaxed and flowing.
• Save your energy and spread it over the whole distance of the paper.
• Tactics means you have to keep your wits about you during the examination.

Your child’s prize? A place in a grammar school!