Sleep, Food and Screens in the Last 14 Days Before KPSEA and KJSEA: A Practical Home Routine

KPSEA written papers run 26 to 28 October and KJSEA runs 26 to 30 October. The rehearsal is Friday 23 October, the same day schools close, and the first session each morning starts at 8.30am.

That leaves roughly fourteen days. By now most of the learning has been done. What a parent can still change, and change a lot, is the shape of the day at home: when the child goes to bed, when they eat, and how much of the evening disappears into a screen.

This is not medical advice, and every family is different. It is a practical routine that many households find easy to keep, built around one simple aim: a child who arrives at 8.30am on exam day rested, fed and used to thinking at that hour.

Why the routine matters more than one extra hour of revision

A child who has revised steadily for months gains very little from a late night with a textbook. A tired child, on the other hand, reads questions carelessly, misses the word "not" in a multiple choice stem, and runs out of steam in the second paper of the morning.

The papers are timed for the morning. If your child has been sleeping late at weekends and revising until midnight, the next two weeks are the time to quietly pull that clock back.

A daily routine for school days

Schools are still open until 23 October, so most of these fourteen days are ordinary school days. The table below is a template. Move times by half an hour to suit your family, but keep the order and keep it the same every day.

On Saturdays and Sundays keep the same wake time and the same lights out. Use the morning for a timed paper at 8.30am, exactly when the real one will start, and leave the afternoon free.

Sleep: protect the bedtime, not just the hours

• Fix the wake time first. It is easier to get a child up at the same time every day than to force them to fall asleep early. The bedtime tends to follow.
• No late night cramming. If a topic is still shaky at 9pm, write it on a list for tomorrow's first revision block and close the book.
• Keep the bedroom for sleep. Revision at a table, not in bed, if your house allows it.
• Watch the shared room. If siblings share a room, agree that the candidate's lights out is respected by everyone for these two weeks.

Food: regular, familiar and unexciting

The last fortnight is not the time for new diets, special drinks or anything the child has not eaten before. Familiar food, at regular times, is the goal.

• Breakfast every day. Uji, eggs, bread, sweet potato, whatever your child normally eats. The point is that something goes in before a long morning.
• Water within reach. A bottle on the revision table and in the school bag.
• Supper at a steady time. A very late heavy meal makes the bedtime harder.
• Practise the exam day food plan. On the weekend mock mornings, pack exactly what they will carry between papers so nothing is new on 26 October.

If your child has a medical condition, allergies or takes regular medication, follow the advice of their doctor and tell the school in good time. This article does not replace that.

Screens: one rule, applied every night

Arguments about phones are exhausting in exam season, so make one rule and apply it calmly. Our suggestion is simple: all screens off and out of the bedroom at 8.30pm, for every child in the house, and ideally for the adults too.

• Use screens for revision on purpose. A video explaining a Mathematics topic is fine in a revision block. Scrolling is not.
• Mute the group chats. Class WhatsApp groups fill up with rumours and so called leaked papers in exam season. They raise anxiety and the "leaks" are scams. See our warning on leaked paper scams.
• Swap, do not just remove. When the phone goes away, offer something else: a board game, a walk, helping with supper.

The last weekend: 24 and 25 October

Schools close on Friday 23 October after the rehearsal, so the weekend before the papers is at home. Keep it quiet. A short look over notes on Saturday morning, a walk or a game in the afternoon, an early night on Sunday. Pack the bag on Sunday evening, not on Monday morning. Our last 72 hours checklist and the what to carry guide cover the practical details.

During exam week

Keep the routine exactly as it was. Same wake time, same breakfast, same lights out. Do not test your child on the way to the centre, and do not ask for a question by question account of each paper in the evening. A short "how did it go?" is enough. If your child is anxious, our guide to exam nerves in the final weeks has practical ideas.

Grade 6 families who still want a structured plan for the revision blocks can use the KPSEA day by day revision plan, which fits neatly inside the routine above.

If the routine slips

It will, at least once. A wedding, a funeral, a late bus, a power cut. Do not try to make up the lost revision the next night by staying up late. Simply return to the normal timetable the following day. A routine that is kept on most days is far better than a perfect one that collapses after a bad evening.

Frequently asked questions

How much sleep should my child get before KPSEA or KJSEA?

We do not give medical figures. The practical aim is that your child wakes at the same time every day without a struggle and is alert by 8.30am. If they are dragging themselves out of bed, bring the bedtime earlier by fifteen minutes at a time.

Should I stop all screen time for two weeks?

A total ban often causes more arguments than it saves. A fixed switch off time each night, applied to everyone in the house, works better for most families.

My child revises best late at night. Should I let them?

For these two weeks, gently move revision earlier. The papers start at 8.30am, so the brain needs to be used to working in the morning, not at midnight.

Is it too late to do past papers?

No. One timed paper on each weekend morning, marked the same day, is one of the most useful things left to do. Keep weekday revision short and focused on what those papers showed up.

For timed practice across every learning area, the KJSEA Complete Revision Bundle covers Grade 9 and the KPSEA Complete Bundle covers Grade 6. More resources are in the shop.