Deb­bie Ja­cob

It's time to nav­i­gate the SEA again. No need to wor­ry. I'm sure par­ents have chart­ed an ex­cel­lent course for their chil­dren, and now it's just smooth sail­ing through that ex­am. There's re­al­ly no need to wor­ry. Your chil­dren have done every­thing they can do, and now what they need the most is your love and sup­port.

Here's my SEA ad­vice for par­ents and stu­dents sit­ting in that lifeboat and pad­dling to­wards the SEA.

1. Light­en up, par­ents, don't crank up the pres­sure, and don't show any fear or con­cern about the ex­am. Re­lax. Be hap­py and show your chil­dren that the SEA ex­am is just a very small part of life. It's not the be­gin­ning or the end of the world.

2. Find a mil­lion ways to make your chil­dren feel spe­cial. Here is where you vi­o­late the show-don't-tell rule that ap­plies for all writ­ing and tell your chil­dren how much you love them. Tell them that you know they have al­ways done their best, and you know they'll do their best on the ex­am. Be pos­i­tive.

3. The clos­er your chil­dren get to the ex­am, the more you need to cre­ate a re­lax­ing en­vi­ron­ment in the house. Cut out the last-minute cram­ming. Read to your child. Read­ing will help your child to re­lax, but it will al­so help to sharp­en those cru­cial com­pre­hen­sion skills. It will help your child to con­cen­trate bet­ter.

4. Don't sweat the small things. Don't get up­set about things that make no sense. Don't look for ar­gu­ments. Un­der­stand be­hav­iour that is a lit­tle off for your child.

5. Do some­thing fun that your child likes to do. See a movie on the week­end. Kick a ball around the yard. Take off pres­sure. Chil­dren who are re­laxed in an ex­am are more com­fort­able, and chil­dren who are com­fort­able al­low all the in­for­ma­tion that has been stored in­side of them to come to the sur­face. I don't care what peo­ple say: no­body works the best un­der pres­sure.

6. Re­mind your chil­dren to trust their in­stincts. I once read that 80 per cent of the time you guess an an­swer, you guess the right one and when you sec­ond-guess your­self, you change the an­swer to the wrong one. There are forces at work that help you to re­call in­for­ma­tion you've stored away. You shouldn't in­ter­fere with that process or ques­tion it.

7. Re­mind your child that a mul­ti­ple-choice test is nev­er about find­ing the right an­swer. It's al­ways about elim­i­nat­ing all the wrong an­swers. Adopt­ing this strat­e­gy en­sures that stu­dents will ex­am­ine all the pos­si­ble an­swers. They won't get caught with eye-catch­ers. They will think through the an­swers and not grab an an­swer like they grab a man­go from a tree.

8. Tell your chil­dren that the ex­am is not a 100-me­tre sprint. It's more like a marathon. They need to con­serve en­er­gy. Don't rush through the ex­am. Don't take short­cuts. Ap­ply all the rules and all the process­es that you and their teach­ers have taught them. Don't try to go faster on the ex­am. Tell them to take their time. Those who rush make care­less mis­takes.

9. On the sub­ject of not rush­ing, make sure that they don't take any short­cuts when it comes to read­ing and di­gest­ing the in­struc­tions for each sec­tion of the ex­am. The in­struc­tions are im­por­tant.

10. When it comes to writ­ing, stu­dents need to make sure that they fol­low a process:

a. Read the in­struc­tions well.

b. In cre­ative writ­ing, start at the be­gin­ning of the sto­ry. If the sto­ry is about a day at the beach, don't back up and start to talk about wak­ing up in the morn­ing.

c. Iden­ti­fy a theme that runs through the sto­ry like a fine silk thread. If the theme is how ex­cit­ing a day at the beach is, then keep the adren­a­line flow­ing. Cre­ate an ex­cit­ing sto­ry with vivid im­ages and im­pact­ful verbs. Try to come up with an in­ter­est­ing an­gle to the sto­ry-an an­gle no one else will take. Every­one has a sto­ry about a shark at­tack or eat­ing bake and shark at the beach. Good sto­ries tell a sto­ry in a whole new light.

d. Make sure the sto­ry has a struc­ture: a be­gin­ning, mid­dle and end. The be­gin­ning gets us in­to the sto­ry quick­ly. It sets the scene and cre­ates a pace. The mid­dle de­vel­ops the sto­ry and the end must have a res­o­lu­tion.

e. Avoid sto­ries that end in a dream. That is a cheap way of find­ing no res­o­lu­tion for the sto­ry.

f. Use all the sens­es when you're writ­ing a sto­ry. Too many sto­ries re­ly on vi­su­al im­agery alone. As much as pos­si­ble make sure the read­er can see, smell, touch, taste and feel the sto­ry you're cre­at­ing. You can't al­ways use all the sens­es but use as many as pos­si­ble. These are the sto­ries that pop and stay in the mind of the read­er. If you're writ­ing a sto­ry about shoes, we need to see, hear, feel and touch those shoes.

g. As much as pos­si­ble, show what hap­pens in a sto­ry rather than telling it. Re­mem­ber, di­a­logue tells us a lot about char­ac­ters and con­flicts. Use it wise­ly.

There you have it: a sur­vival guide for the SEA. Use it wise­ly. You'll all be just fine.