After Paper 1 (GPS): How to Wind Down a Year 6 Child Without Wind-Up

The first paper is done. By the time your child gets home, they will be either chatty and slightly hyper, quiet and slightly flat, or somewhere in between with a snack in hand. All three are normal. None of them mean anything about how the paper went.

What you do on this evening matters more than what they did this morning. Reading is tomorrow. The wind-down is the warm-up.

The first hour: snack, then nothing

Pick them up or meet them at the door with a snack. Not a special snack. The kind of snack they always have. Food regulates the nervous system better than conversation does.

Don't ask how it went. Not in the first hour. If they want to tell you, they will. Anything they volunteer is fine — listen, nod, don't analyse. If they don't volunteer anything, that's also fine. Many children come out of GPS with no view of how it went, because the paper moved fast and they have no time to assess themselves.

What not to do

• Don't ask "how did it go?" They don't know yet
• Don't ask "what was on it?" Specific questions force specific reconstructions, which produces second-guessing and regret
• Don't go through the paper together. The paper is gone. Reviewing what they might have got wrong on a paper they can't change is the definition of unproductive worry
• Don't compare with other children. Don't ask what their friend said. Don't WhatsApp the class group. Comparison spikes anxiety with no upside
• Don't talk about tomorrow. Not until they raise it

What to do instead

Light evening. Outdoors if the weather allows — physical activity flushes stress hormones better than rest does. A walk to the park, a kick-about, a bike ride, anything that uses the body and rests the brain.

Then a normal tea — same time as usual, something simple. The food rules from earlier in the week still apply: slow-release carbs, water, nothing new.

An evening film, a book, a board game with a sibling. Nothing screen-heavy late, but a 6pm screen is fine. The aim is normality.

If they're upset about something specific

Sometimes a child comes home upset because they're sure they got one question wrong. "I think I put 'whom' instead of 'who'." Their evening will be ruined by this one question if you let it.

The script that works: "You did the best you could in the moment. The paper is done. We're not going to look anything up tonight. Whatever you wrote is your answer, and tomorrow is reading, not GPS."

Then change the subject. Genuinely. The conversation is closed.

The instinct to look up the right answer "to put their mind at rest" produces the opposite effect. Now they know they got it wrong, with no ability to change it, and they spiral. Don't open the textbook.

Bedtime: a bit earlier than feels necessary

Reading paper tomorrow. Reading is the longest single paper of the week — 60 minutes, dense, three texts, requires sustained focus. The child who walks into reading rested will do better than the child who walks in tired, regardless of vocabulary.

Aim for in-bed by 8pm, lights out by 8.30pm. A book — their choice — for 20 minutes. Reading at bedtime is reading practice without being framed as it. Choice matters: a book they're enjoying, not one they "should" read.

If they can't sleep

Children sometimes can't sleep on the Monday of SATs week. Adrenaline. The brain still circling. The protocol is the same as Sunday night: lights off, quiet, lying still is closer to sleep than anything else. Don't let them get up. Don't put on a screen. Don't talk to them about SATs. A hand on the back, a glass of water, "you're fine, sleep". Out.

Setting up reading day

Bag re-packed and ready by the door. Pencils sharpened (use yesterday's spare). Water bottle on the side, ready to fill in the morning. Reading paper tomorrow doesn't need different kit — same pencils, same pen, same uniform. The fewer decisions in the morning, the better.

Tomorrow's evening looks slightly different — here's why.