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Secondary education

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Indy school pretests and interviews

31 replies

nokissymum · 20/09/2011 12:06

what are they like and what form do they take ? Is the pre test one child at a time or done in a group ? For the interview, do they call candidates in one by one and parents wait outside or are parents invited in too ? What was the atmosphere like, was your dc bitting their nails ? What would you have done differently to prepare your child given your experience. Please share your story as we will be venturing down this path soon. Thanks.

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nokissymum · 20/09/2011 16:00

An eye! How odd....what did ds say ? Grin

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soda1234 · 20/09/2011 15:53

My son went through this process for 2 schools. In each case the pre-test was in October of yr6, and consisted of maths, English and reasoning papers. All applicants (I think about 3/400 of them) sat the test at the same time, at the school.
Letters were sent out v.quickly (within a week), successful candidates were invited for interview (took place in middle of November).
At one school ds was seen by his potential housemaster, fairly informal chat (I think they talked about cricket).
At the other school he saw the Head, who had a model of an eye on his desk and asked ds to talk about it!
For the pre-tests I took him in, parents and boys were given a brief talk by the Head, then I left and collected him a few hours later.
For interviews, each only lasted about 15 mins, I just waited/chatted to other parents/had a cup of tea. I certainly wasn't invited in to the interview and can't imagine that parents ever are.
Hope this helps!

nokissymum · 20/09/2011 12:59

We havent firmly decided on our choices yet so just wanted to get the general feel for them from a wide range. Good luck with yours! I shall definitely be more nervous than ds, probably shaking.

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pointissima · 20/09/2011 12:53

Which schools? They vary.

No experience since we will be doing these this year too; but I think that the written/computerised bit is generally done in a group (with each child working separately) and the interview is individual. I'm pretty sure that parents are not generally invited into the interview: if there are lots of children from the same prep they may go in a group from school; otherwise parents just drop and collect

The absence of parents probably improves the atmosphere- I shall be more nevous than my son.

nokissymum · 20/09/2011 12:51

Anyone Grin

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nokissymum · 20/09/2011 12:19

Bump

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