Hosted by the Mental Health Foundation, this year Mental Health Awareness is focused on stress and how to tackle symptoms such as anxiety.

At KSOL, ensuring that both parent and child have a straightforward and stress-free 11 plus experience is our top priority.

Recognising that mental health is just as important as physical health, our senior tutor Paul White says:

“It is essential that children take regular breaks and receive lots of encouragement when revising for the 11+ exam. It is counter-productive to undertake hours of revision each evening, so try and be realistic in regards to what your child can achieve. Each child is different and therefore progress at different stages.”

In an attempt to make revision as fun and engaging as possible, KSOL’s team of tutors have come up with four easy alternatives to good old fashioned pen and paper!

1.) Word association games are fantastic fun. Begin with a word and watch as the person next to you attempts to suggest a word association in just five seconds. Learning to categorise words quickly is a great skill to improve time management.

2.) Aside from providing hours of entertainment with family and friends, word board games expose your child to regular word pattern recognition, vocabulary and spelling.

3.) Ensure you’ve packed flashcards or Sudoku puzzles for car journeys. When there’s little to do travelling to and from school, completing regular puzzles can improve memory retention, problem solving skills and also reduce stress.

4.) Put the pens and pencils away for the day and find an educational excursion that’s close to home. Revision doesn’t have to be restricted to sitting inside the house, and often children associate this space with after-school downtime which can make it even harder to motivate learning. Whether it’s a half-term workshop or a revision session at the library with friends, change your child’s learning environment from time to time.

For more information and advice on tackling stress and anxiety, click the link. https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/campaigns/mental-health-awareness-week.