Any experience of / tips for the RGS Guildford Yr 6 pre-test?

[OlennasWimple]

Just that - DS is sitting the pre-test in January, but not sure what to expect...

TIA

[ilovegreen]

On the day, standard set of English, Maths, VR papers and short interview (in pairs). They make it very relaxed, and serve nice lunch.

The school advises you don't need to tutor, but that you should practice some VR past papers if not done at current school.

[OlennasWimple]

Thank you! We aren't even in the UK at the moment, so have to do everything ourselves...

[TuttiFrutti]

We did this last year and I seem to remember there was non-VR as well as VR papers.

The interview was quite straightforward. They told us "we're interested in who they are, not what they know" and it did seem like that to ds.

I would take the advice that you don't need to tutor with a pinch of salt. At the very least you need to do lots of practice of past papers. 72% of pupils applying are tutored on average, so if your ds isn't, he is automatically at a bit of a disadvantage. Having said that, I know plenty of boys who weren't tutored who still got in.

[OlennasWimple]

Thanks - no scope for us to tutor, given that there aren't tutors here with knowledge of the English school entrance exam process, but I'm ordering lots of practice papers from Amazon and will make him work through those... I used to curse the fact that here they sit formal exams every year at state school, but at least he has that experience under his belt.

[surreygoldfish]

Agree v nice and relaxed day for the exams/interview. We didn't tutor just did practice at home using Bond books mainly.

[EllieHJ]

Pre-test was just Maths, NVR and English. My son thought it was hardish but the Bond books were helpful - the 10 min books are great to do for quick work. Also look for the GL Assessment packs on Amazon they do variety ones. We didn't tutor and came from State Primary so it was a lot of work but worth it. The question they asked in the first interview was 'who would you like to have dinner with if you could have it with anyone' (it might have been different for others though! He loves his new school. Good luck.