It struck me yesterday that there are about 90 (and a bit) days left for the first of the 11+ exams for the season. So is it time to start preparing in earnest (and panicking !!) ? I was wondering what other parents were up-to, so I picked up the phone and called a couple of parents from the school to gauge the mood and pulse. The responses I got were - "It's too early to start"...."My kids are busy with the holidays and will start when schools re-open", "I have not thought about it yet"..."Yes of-course. Right", I thought as I put the phone down (that was supposed to be tongue-in-cheek in case you did not get it). That was lesson number one - don't trust the feedback you get from other parents, specially the pushy ones!
So, how do you find out if it is time to panic? Well, there is an easy answer. And like countless times before, the world's largest free-to-use computing network comes to rescue. We all know we can use Google for searching, but did you know that you can use Google for searching what others are searching ? (if that makes sense). Its called "Google Insights". If you look up the search trends for "11 plus papers" on the site, the results show a marked spike in the months of August (as shown in the figure below). You can see the live graph at here.
I expected the results to be seasonal, but the massive spike in the months of August came as a surprise. You will also notice that the spike has been progressively increasing over the last three years implying more and more people are searching for these terms which translates in more applications for these schools, i.e. the competition is getting tougher.
So is it time to panic ? I think the answer is a resounding Yes !
Della
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