Eleven plus looming

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I'm aware that this may not be a common problem, but I live in an eleven-plus area in Britain, which means children can take an exam at the age of 10 and then go to either a more academic grammar school at 11, or the general state school. My DD is very intelligent and the psychologist says the grammar has a number of autistic children and has worked very hard to provide a welcoming environment for them. He recommended we put her in for the exam. However, it is inevitably stressful and has a high failure rate. About 2,000 children take the exam (this doesn't include children who have no chance of passing and whose parents don't put them in for it) and there's only 300 places. Last year, 40 children were removed from the exam room in tears. DD wants to go for it and we are doing everything we can to prepare her for it, including a private tutor once a week. But obviously I'm worried. The academic stuff is fine. But I'm not sure if we'll have a meltdown on our hands. We are committed to it, obviously we can't change our minds once DD has been told. But I'm freaking.

Will she get extended time or facilitated testing environment (e.g. a smaller, quieter room)?

If not, I think the most important thing is to get her used to the timing aspect of the exam and to develop strategies whereby she will make best use of her time, such as reading the exam when she gets it and writing down on a note paper which questions she can answer and which ones she is not sure about and to budget her time so that she can get through all the ones she knows in order to move on to the ones she is not sure about. I know I used to be very stubborn and often ended up getting stuck on a problem. Also, if there are written components, make sure she knows how much is expected of her so that she doesn't spend too much time writing longer answers than is necessary.

And most importantly, make sure that her sense of self-worth is not contingent upon the exam performance.

I'm pretty sure she doesn't get any extended time or special facilities. TBH I'm not sure I would want her to have extended time because if she does pass I want her to feel she did it in a fair way, and it would seem unfair when she's so bright.
Thanks for the tips about time management. Her tutor says this is the biggest issue. I will mention these things to the tutor.
I'd really like to be allowed to take her to look at the room where it will happen the week before, but I'm not sure if this will be allowed. I'm going to ask though, but DD may ban me. She's pretty strict with me! and she may say she'll only do it if everyone is doing it...

I think I might get back to her psychologist and ask him what other parents have done in the past. There is an ASD team connected with the council as well, so they should have some idea.
This may be paranoid, but I'd prefer them not to know she is ASD until AFTER she has passed (if she does pass) just in case her exam paper gets dropped down the back of the radiator or something. I know she is no trouble at all in the classroom (it's just the playground - sigh) but I don't want to give anyone a reason to take against her. The schools are hugely competitive.

Funnily enough she sits right at the front of her classroom. Though that may just be because the teacher placed her there, I'm not sure. I'll ask her what she thinks. I have to go to bed now (it's 11pm here). Night GreyMatter, thanks for your thoughts.

I think it's important at this age to let her make the decision (or participate in it to the best of her ability) and to have a lot of discussions about it. Preparing her by telling her what she can expect (that it will be stressful, that she will probably feel she doesn't have as much time, etc.) and asking her how she will feel or what she will do if she does have a meltdown are two suggestions I could make. I know tweens will often say they won't be stressed or whatever, but keep asking the questions in a way that she can figure out the solutions. If she is not able to, present some of the strategies you and other posters have come up with.
She probably really wants to "pass as normal" which is what's behind so many of our kids' behaviours, whether they are NT or ASD or have other real or imagined differences. It sounds like a great educational opportunity, and if she wants to try I would do what you would: encourage her (or at least allow her) to try, and send her in as well prepared as you can. Sometimes experience is the best teacher.
J.

My general approach to hard tasks in life is to work hard and also know that I will figure things out and dominate the _______________ with the pure potent power of my awesome autistic brrrainzzz, and I recommend this approach to your daughter, and definitely go for this opportunity to advance in education, and about the accommodations, if your daughter doesn't think that she needs any and does well in school without them, then don't get any for this test.

I think I can understand your predicament. My daughter is bright, but her emotional immaturity causes a certain degree of "unknown" when it comes to how she will handle stress. She tested high enough for potential placement in the gifted and talented program at school, but we opted against it at this point. I didn't want both socialization AND academics to be tough for her. But I always wonder if that was the right decision. Maybe I should have pushed and had her placed in the more rigorous setting...

Is your daughter aware that you are concerned she might have a meltdown? I think for me, the most troubling part of the whole thing would be that my kid would have a meltdown and end up feeling like a failure because of it. For that reason, I think I would likely want to discuss my concern with them to see if they share the concern, and also to do some pre-emptive "and if that worse-case scenario happens--which it probably won't--it won't be a big deal. I will be proud of you for having the courage to try."

I also understand your reasoning for questioning whether or not you should tell them her diagnosis before the test. I sometimes don't tell people until after "whatever" because I feel like when they hear the diagnosis, they automatically assume she is going to be more difficult than she really is. The drawback to that is that you can't ask for accommodations, such as sitting at the front of the room for the test (or whatever they might need) and then they are at an unfair disadvantage.

Realize I am not giving you anything helpful here, but I do think I get where you are coming from. Best of luck to you.

Thanks to everyone for commenting. I don't know if my daughter has considered what will happen if she has a meltdown, and I haven't raised it with her as I've been wary of creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. Meltdowns around schoolwork are extremely rare because she generally is working above the ability of the rest of the class anyway, so there's no pressure. It's not a particularly academic primary school either. I think it's possible she hasn't considered how stressful it might be and I haven't wanted to put the idea in her head. However....
I'm definitely going to request a meeting with her tutor at which DD is not present so I can discuss this with her and they can do some preparation focussed on this. The tutor also runs a mock-exam in May so I'll have a discussion with DD after this to see how she felt it went, etc.
There was one meltdown at school about a SATS test because she couldn't understand a question which had been presented oddly and became fixated on it. I think I will re-discuss this with her at some point as Postcards and Inthistogether say, asking what she will do if something like re-occurs.
Thanks again to everyone for their thoughts. We've known about DD for some time but she was only diagnosed a few months ago as the process is a very long one here, so I haven't really had any contact with other parents of aspies. We haven't joined any support groups as we both work and are unsure how helpful they would be (can see other threads on here about people with high-functioning kids being in the same group as people whose kids have more difficulties), but this is a really good alternative.

just to let all the friendly commentators know that DD passed her exam! Thanks everyone for their input on this. I did go to the council and she was allowed a quiet room by herself to do the exam in, and she visited it the week before to have a look round and took pictures of it.
So she will be going to the more academic school and she is very happy about it. Obviously she moved straight into fretting about whether or not she'll be able to cope at the school (free floating anxiety strikes again)... but we went and had a look round and they were very welcoming. The teacher with responsibility for special needs let us come after the school had closed so there were only a few kids around and it was nice and quiet. DD will be starting next September.
I didn't really realise what a strain it had been on her until after we got the results, less than two weeks after the exam. We were obviously waiting for them to arrive and she said the other children at her school who had taken the exam were on edge too and were all talking about it. We got the results through the post and were very pleased. Then she told me her mouth hurt and when I looked she had MASSIVE mouth ulcers. They'd obviously been there several days, maybe longer.
But anyway we've all calmed down a bit and I'm so relieved, I was dreading her not passing and having to tell her and making her feel like a failure.

Excellent! Sounds like she was well-prepared to cope for exam situation. I'm happy for her and hope the program will be a great fit for her. Each experience builds coping skills for the next one that comes along.

Great News!

Congrats!

(BTW, I'm jealous, my son is only yr 3 but I'm already fretting about secondary. He's a smart boy, but seems to lack focus)

I'm glad you went in and looked at the room. I'm NT and was quite the ace exam taker at school, but I always found that looking at the place helped me tremendously. Even at university I would often visit the room before end of semester exams (I attended uni in the US).

Congrats.

This worked for me, to a certain extent, in college (US public school, probably nothing like the caliber of what you are discussing but still I was stressed to the limit).

Get her to believe that, since she passed the screening exam, she can hack it there. What she has to do is not "be smart enough." What she has to do is continue to work hard and be dedicated to her studies. If she needs to improve anything, it will be stress tolerance, not intelligence. The first bit was useful to me; the latter bit would have been (unfortunately I didn't figure it out until, oh, recently).