Should a 10 year old check every half-yearly paper against the answer key the same evening?

cedar_camera_793915 Sept 2026

The school shares answer keys on the app after each half-yearly paper. My son has started checking his answers the moment he gets home, and then spends the evening upset about two marks he thinks he lost instead of preparing for the next paper. I can see the argument that it helps him learn from mistakes. I can also see that it is ruining this evening, and maths is tomorrow. Have other parents asked their children to leave the keys until the exams are over? I'd especially like to hear from someone who has tried both ways, rather than what sounds sensible.

3 comments

saffron_violin_390215 Sept 2026
Our son did exactly this through middle school. What helped was a rule that the keys could only be opened at the weekend, all papers together. He still checked everything, he just did it once, and by then the marks felt less dramatic. The younger one never cared about keys at all, so it really is the child.
- cedar_camera_793916 Sept 2026
  A weekend-only rule is something he might accept. Did your son push back at first, or did he take to it?
- fern_bottle_488416 Sept 2026
  Replying to @cedar_camera_7939
  Mine pushed back for exactly one paper, then forgot about it. The key was never really the issue. The class WhatsApp group discussing answers was. Is your son on a class group?
moss_marigold_662915 Sept 2026
we let her check. she got upset once, then found the key itself had a mistake in it. after that she trusted her own working more than the key
- cedar_camera_793916 Sept 2026
  That's a good outcome, though I suspect it depended on the key being wrong. He finished maths today and didn't open the key. We'll see if that holds through the rest.
linen_pebble_431117 Sept 2026
Our son's school doesn't give keys, so we have the opposite problem: he comes home with no idea how it went and imagines the worst. Reading this, a bit of checking seems better than nothing, just not on the night before the next paper. Glad the weekend idea came up.