The pressure to succeed felt immense, especially with so many expectations from family and friends. I remember the nights I stayed awake, reviewing practice papers and trying to memorize formulas. It felt like my brain was overloaded, and sometimes I wondered if I could handle it all.

On the day of the exam, the nerves were at an all-time high. I made sure to have a good breakfast, but even that didn’t calm my jittery stomach. Walking into the exam hall, I could feel my heart racing. The atmosphere was tense, and I could see others fidgeting or whispering to each other, which didn’t help my nerves.

Once the exam started, I focused on my breathing and tried to keep my mind clear. I paced myself through the questions, but there were definitely moments of panic when I encountered tricky problems. It’s a blur now, but I remember forcing myself to stay calm and trust in my preparation.

When it was finally over, I felt a huge wave of relief wash over me. I had done my best, and that was all I could ask for. Waiting for the results was tough, but when I received the good news, it made all the stress worthwhile.

Looking back, the experience taught me a lot about resilience, time management, and how to cope with pressure. If you’re going through this process, just remember you’re not alone in feeling stressed, and every bit of effort you put in will pay off in the end.

I moved to Kent as an adult and after having kids was shocked to discover the Kent grammar system.

I have 2 bright kids and don’t believe in single sex education and wanted the kids to be able to go to a local school, and receive a comprehensive education suitable for their learning level.

I discovered this isn’t easily possible in my rural area. What to do??!?!

I couldn’t bear to have single sex school, & I really dislike the grammar concept, so I surely must choose comprehensive.

BUT we live in very rural area, my closest local comprehensive school ( & we would be eligible for KCC transport as over 5 miles away) doesn’t have the correct academic level, they don’t even offer the 3 sciences at GCSE ( KCC state double sciences is good enough, but I’m expecting my kids might do science at uni level), and the other subjects don’t have the top achievers, what to do?

I refuse to tutor the kids, kids should be kids playing, not doing extra work.

But the parent guilt when they are sitting the 11+ is sooo high as all their friends have had tutoring for years and mine have only recently looked through the ‘familiarisation’ papers. Am I a bad parent to not have paid for them to be more prepared?

I visit all the nearest schools, grammar & comprehensives and actually like some of the comprehensives, but am told I won’t get in based on distance.

Both kids manage to pass.

Is there any choice other than grammar? as Grammar is selective they will get in even though the schools are further away ( & transport is available as KCC have kept a public bus open just for this route)

A comprehensive that is the closest school to the other side of my village seems to be the perfect answer, a mixed comprehensive with grammar stream.

Excellent! except there is no way to get there, public bus cuts axed this route.

After 2 years of campaigning we have now have rerouted a private bus company to include our village, finally a bus to school, expensive but a solution. My oldest is doing brilliantly now in year 9, my youngest will join in September.

Soo much stress, and it doesn’t have to be this way. If Grammar system didn’t exist, my closest school would have a representational mix of academic levels, and therefore be suitable for my kids, and most likely there would also still be a bus to the other closest school ( that my kid attends) as KCC would be not be paying for a bus route running to the grammar schools as these wouldn’t exist.

My 10 year old’s school class were split down the middle with children who have just failed the 11+ devastated. This system is damaging the confidence and mental health of our children at age 10 years…. Why are we doing this to our kids, it doesn’t have to be this way.

Kent Test results come out tomorrow, so I don’t know yet whether my daughter has been ‘deemed suitable for grammar school’, but I do know that the fear and anxiety that has been building inside her as we approach results day is terrible for her mental health. I know she will succeed and be happy in any school, but she is not able to see that at the moment. She will be crushed if she has not passed the required mark for her preferred school. I will just be glad that it’s over.

It’s absolutely wrong. I don’t know one parent who supports it but if you don’t put your child forward, you’re effectively telling them you don’t believe in them, and if you do, you’re often setting them up to “fail”. Most places do without it, Kent should too.

I’m scared i wont pass 11 plus

I went through this test process with my eldest daughter a few years ago and she’s now in Year 9 at secondary school. It was a really tough time as she thought she was a failure because she didn’t pass the test. It’s far too much pressure to put on the shoulders of young children and the system needs to change!

It is so intense and competitive to prepare for the 11+ and then to go through the exams. In my county (Warwickshire) junior school teachers almost don’t mention it — all the competition is driven by parents and secondary schools. I remember my son wrote a checklist for the day of the 11+ exam. the final item was ‘have hope’ which he had added. It still makes me sad thinking about that.

Today is Kent Test results day… He refused to leave for school, then refused to get out of the car and go into school. There has to be a better way.

I wasn’t aware of the grammar system when I chose to move to Kent 20 years ago, long before marriage and starting a family, I hadn’t even considered the educational challenges posed. It’s been a whole year of stress and angst in our household trying to prep for a test aged 10.

A friend’s daughter had to be withdrawn from the test because her nerves were so bad that she was actually sick. It is a test that is supposed to judge brain power but how many little children have exam nerves and don’t do themselves justice? This is not a system that works for ten year olds unless they are resilient.

Every year, as the year 6’s prepare for the 11+ a sense of panic pervades the playground. My son is eight and starting to feel the pressure already. I would love to just opt out if the whole thing and trust that grammar schools don’t actually improve outcomes, as the evidence suggests, but there’s a lot of pressure from the rest of the family not to take this “opportunity” away from him. It’s doing both of our heads in.

I have seen my two kids go through the Kent Test in the past two years, and can only stress how flawed the system is, and how damaging it can be to children. My daughter was lucky enough to ‘pass’ last year, but the process was one that made my wife and I extremely uncomfortable as to what we were putting her through. A few nights before the test I had looked at the search history on her internet tablet. The last search read, “How to cope when you’re panicking about something.” A ten year-old.

On several occasions in the weeks before she had asked would we be ashamed of her if she failed? I told her that it would be the test that failed.

My son found out last week that he was not ‘deemed appropriate’ for grammar school education. He passed the overall mark, but marginally missed in one of the three components. He is quite a stoic sort of lad, and when we opened the email together, he immediately told us he was fine, he was happy. Later that night he came downstairs, and confessed that when he said he was happy he hadn’t been truthful. He sobbed. He had wanted to go to the same school as his sister.

The next morning on the way to school he had to answer the dreaded question of how he had done in the test half a dozen times, by well-meaning friends in our village. God knows how many times he faced the question that day in school, as many of his successful classmates, most of them intellectually on a par with my son, celebrated. No doubt he did as I had seen him earlier, shrugged his shoulders, gave a thumbs down, and said, “I failed”.

Tom turned ten in July – he’s a young ten, and fairly immature compared to some of his classmates. I have never been more proud of him, and saw a new emotional maturity in him as he faced that horrible day, a day that divided him from most of his closest friends and peers. I know that all of the successful kids were boys and girls who had been coached to pass the test. Some of them were tutored twice a week for up to three years! Many of their wealthy parents had decided that it was worth the expense, because if they failed the test they would send their children to a private school, something that would make the investment in tuition seem paltry.

That morning, as I saw my son’s forced smile, I knew it was us that had failed Tom. We were wrong to decide coaching was immoral and that a few practice tests in the last weeks of the summer would suffice. The test creates an economy of coaching, and despite every attempt to make it tuition proof, this continues. Looking at Tom’s peer group, I can only say this system creates a situation where the wealthiest kids will pass more often than the less wealthy, regardless of ability.