Success is even sweeter at 11 years old

I have had the pleasure of tutoring a group of ten year old's ready for their 11+ examination because down here in sunny Kent we still have the old grammar school system. Teaching them algebra, geometry, statistics and the necessary numeracy as well as the verbal and non verbal reasoning all in time for an exam which happens in the first 3 weeks of them returning after the summer holiday in year six is hard on them, and me. By the time it crawls round to late August and all their friends have been out playing for nearly five weeks, they are ready to stop.
We all sigh a huge sigh of relief as they troll off for the last time and we say our goodbyes, good lucks and hope all goes well.
So here we are, the time of year when the results are published and the children start their calls to me, excited and expectant of the next stage.
They have applied for their grammar schools and await the news as to whether they have got in, but for the moment they bask in absolute success of passing and all the possibilities it will bring.
Forgotten the hours of work when others played, forgotten the tantrums as the work got harder and they stretched to the point of bursting; now is their time and they bask in it.
They talk to their friends and tell them of their success, they tell them of their new found excitement of what comes next and parents sigh a huge sigh of relief as they know, for now, the pressure is off.
"We'll be back!" they say and note the fact I teach GCSE and A level. "There will come a day when we call on you so don't move!" they add and the news spreads like wild-fire, she's done it again, turned worried little ten year old children into confident, successful eleven year olds.
I send out congratulatory cards and wish them the very best, I tell their parents of the huge jumps they have made in their NFER scores, and the schools promote them into top sets, to keep stretching them for that final part of the journey; the final year of the primary where they are now the big fish in the pond. They are getting ready to jump into yet a bigger pond and swim upstream to success which awaits them there and old students come round to tell me and them what its like and they stand, stare and wistfully gaze into distant lands.
Success in the eyes of an 11 year old is indeed sweet and one of the greatest pleasures of my profession.
To make a difference at the start of their lives and know what they have learned will go with them (for I teach them strategies of how to learn and absorb not just tell them what something is) they have learned one of the best games in life - the finding out of how something works and then applying it elsewhere making the learning theirs.