The final week: stop teaching
Nothing new goes in usefully in the last week, and attempting it tends to unsettle rather than help. The week is for consolidation and calm.
- Light review only. Revisit things already known, so the sessions end in success rather than frustration.
- One timed paper early in the week at most, and none in the last day or two.
- Sleep first. A well-rested child performs better than a tired one who did an extra hour. This is not a platitude; it is the single largest lever left.
Talk about it plainly
Children read adult anxiety extremely well and usually assume they have caused it. If the household treats the assessment as a large and dreadful thing, the child arrives believing that.
Say plainly that they will do their best, that the outcome is one input into where they go next, and that nothing about it changes what you think of them. Then talk about something else.
The night before
- Pack whatever is needed and put it by the door, so the morning holds no searching.
- An ordinary evening and an ordinary bedtime. Not an early one, which mainly produces lying awake.
- No last-minute quizzing, however tempting. Nothing gained is worth the message it sends.
The morning
Breakfast, unhurried timings, and a calm handover. Leave earlier than feels necessary — arriving with time to spare removes a category of stress entirely.
Keep the goodbye brief and confident. A long, emotional send-off raises the stakes at exactly the wrong moment.
During the paper: two things worth rehearsing
These are worth saying out loud beforehand, because in the room a child needs them to be automatic:
- A hard question is not a disaster. Skip it, keep moving, come back if there is time. Papers are built to contain questions most children find hard.
- Answer everything. A blank scores nothing; a sensible guess might. Rule out what is obviously wrong first.
Both are covered in more depth in our guide to exam technique.
Afterwards
Resist the debrief. Asking what came up and how it went, question by question, only invites a child to catalogue what they think they got wrong — and their impression is usually a poor guide to their actual performance.
Ask if they are alright, tell them you are proud of them for sitting it, and let it go. If there is a second paper on a later date, this matters more still: a child who has spent a fortnight replaying the first one arrives at the second already tired.
Common questions
What should a child do the day before the assessment?
As little preparation as possible. New material learned the day before rarely lands, and the attempt tends to unsettle rather than help. A short, easy session on something they are already good at, an early night, and a normal evening will do more for the result than another paper.
How can a child manage nerves on the morning?
Keep the morning as ordinary as possible: the usual breakfast, the usual routine, and no last-minute revision at the kitchen table. Nerves are normal and not a sign that anything has gone wrong. Telling a child that the feeling is expected, rather than trying to talk them out of it, usually settles it faster.
What should we check before assessment day?
Confirm the venue, the arrival time, and what your child is permitted to bring directly with the official SEAG guidance, as arrangements can change between cycles. Do this in the week before rather than the night before, so that anything unexpected can be sorted out calmly.
Read next
- Preparing for the SEAG Transfer Test without burnout
- Spelling and punctuation — the quiet marks
- How to answer comprehension questions
Dates, scoring and assessment details are set by SEAG and can change — always confirm the current position on the official SEAG website. Our key dates page lists the 2026–27 milestones.