The Parent Book·From the library
The 11+ Year
For parents whose child is preparing for school entrance exams.
A fourteen-minute read · Published 25 May 2026
It’s a Sunday evening in October. Your child, who has just turned ten, is at the table with their vocabulary book, going over the same nine words they didn’t know on Wednesday and still don’t know now. They have been at it since teatime, and their face has gone slightly fixed. You haven’t sat down since lunch. At the other end of the table your laptop is open at what you’ve started to call the file: the timeline, the school list, the entrance dates, the log-in for the practice papers, and the email from the head of Year 5 saying your child is doing fine. You’d meant to make a proper supper tonight. There’s a frozen pizza on the side.
Some version of this evening is happening in many of the families we see at this point in the school year. In some houses the child is six and being prepared for 7+ entry to a competitive prep school. In others it’s a boy of eleven working towards senior school admissions or a scholarship interview, or a girl of thirteen in the Common Entrance term, which for that family has become the longest term of the year. The thing ahead has a different name in each house, but it puts every family under the same kind of pressure.
Put it into practice
What this chapter looks like in practice: one-minute ideas for tonight, things to do together and sheets to print and keep.
Quick tipsOne minute each
- When Exam Prep Takes Over the HousePut the admissions file away three evenings a week, so your child isn’t doing the test for two people.
- The Week Before the ExamsIn the week before exams, protect your teenager’s sleep, meals and some peace at home.
- The Year Out ConversationA year out is your teenager’s decision to make; your part is to ask them calmly what they are thinking.
Seven quick tips on this in the library
To do togetherActivities
- The walk with no agendaWalk with your child at the same time each week, side by side. Some weeks they will talk, and you still go on the weeks they do not.About 20 minutes · with a sheet to print
- A mistake each, at a weekly mealOnce a week, at one meal, everyone says one thing they got wrong, starting with you. Nobody comments on anyone else’s.About 5 minutes · with a sheet to print
- After a mockThe same routine after every practice paper: collect your child, give them something to eat, walk home, and ask nothing about the paper that day.About 30 minutes · with a sheet to print
Five activities on this in the library
To printSheets to keep
The quick tips and activities are for subscribers, and so are the sheets to print. What a subscription includes.
Who else can help
YoungMinds
The UK’s young people’s mental health charity, with a free Parents Helpline, webchat and email, and a plain A to Z of the things parents worry about.
0808 802 5544 · Mon, Thu, Fri 9.30am-4pm; Tue, Wed 9.30am-6pm
Outside those hours the parents line is closed. The urgent routes on this page are open when it is not.
Coram Family Lives
A free, confidential helpline for any parenting or family worry, by phone, live chat, WhatsApp or email, staffed by trained family support workers.
0808 800 2222 · Mon-Fri 9am-9pm; weekends 10am-3pm; closed bank holidays
Outside those hours the line is closed. Samaritans answer at any hour on 116 123, and Shout answer if you text the word SHOUT to 85258.
coramfamilylives.org.uk/how-we-can-help/confidential-helpline
Place2Be
Parenting Smart, written by the child mental health specialists who work in primary schools: short, practical articles and films on friendships, behaviour, worries and routines.
