King's Scholarship Exams

Luckyone1, I’m intrigued what hurricane wind had blown you up this Eton way out of the blue at this extremely late hour? I mean, once upon a time, not very long ago, parents were already preparing for Eton even before their son was born!

I know this is not of much help to your cause (sorry) but barring a miracle, it is almost impossible to win a King’s Scholarship at this very late stage with absolutely no prior preparations at all. I believe whoever that advised your son to take the KS exams probably meant well because that is the only way of gaining entry at age 13 seeing you have not registered your son before age 10½ and assuming your son is not eligible for the New Foundation Scholarship (for state school boys).

Advising to sit the KS exams is one thing but realistically succeeding in winning one is quite another thing. Please be under no illusions - the King’s Scholarship exams according to an Oxford don are the toughest for a 13-year-old s(he) has ever seen. The level is of an Oxbridge First Year standard. Quite a few Oxbridge graduates have said they couldn’t do some of the questions.

Potential KS winners would have been preparing for the exams for at least two years in a proven prep school. These same prep schools have more or less become feeder schools to College over the years. They are usually situated within a 60-mile radius (or less) within London. At the top of my head - Westminster Under School, Summer Fields, Papplewick, Dragon, Sussex House, etc.

In the last eight to ten years, increasing number of successful boys come from the Far East including Singapore, Thailand, Korea, Japan and China. Unless the rule changes, I foresee College being occupied by at least 50% ~ 75% in the next 25 years by boys from the Asian continent.

Coming back to your question, OP, I think it is totally pointless to move your son to a prep school for 1½ term. For a start, a proven prep school like those mentioned above would not be doing much teaching in the final term. This is a time for ironing out the creases that may still be lingering in a boy’s mind and to refine all that has been taught and learnt.

As for personal tutor, again, I don’t think this is of much good. Sorry! A personal tutor may be a specialist in his/her subject but it is very unlikely that s(he) would be up to scratch with the other subjects at KS level. I have often heard of this phenomenon of personal tutors specialising in KS exams but in real life, I’ve never met a single KS who has had a personal tutor. Let’s just remind ourselves what the examiners are looking for:

”the examiners are keen to reward boys who show real ability, even if in only a limited field.”

In short, a boy who needs a personal tutor for whichever subject sadly, has no “real ability”. Worse still, his life would be a misery if by a twist of fate he did find himself landed in College living in the midst of ferociously high-flying boys . But if you still want to try personal tutors, I wish you luck and hope a miracle does happen.

OP -- has your son been told he can take the KS exam even without having a conditional offer? I thought KS exam was only for boys with a conditional offer.

Lucky that is the question you need answering for languages, what level his present school is teaching them at. I think languages are one of the main areas where excellent accelerated teaching may make a big difference in attainement levels between similarly bright candidates. There will also inevitably be some bilingual candidates with a relative advantage for the MFLs. Your DS by hard work could at least improve his level with language tutors. I think he and you need to work out much extra time he has outside school for various tutors and extra work, taking into account that it would be self defeating to make a sizeable dent in the free time he has to develop his own reading or interest in say maths.

I think syllabus is less of a concern for KS than for CE, actually, so if he's really up for it, why not give it a try? The one place where syllabus is a big deal is the languages: if he doesn't already have one to a high level there's no chance of doing one of those papers well in April/May, so he'd have no choice of optional paper, and had better be good at essays as well as maths. They do have some words about not having to be equally good at everything, though.

Maths B is a little deceptive in that if you have unlimited time that's one thing, but to finish the paper you have to do each question in 9 minutes, which is not that easy! I'd love to know what kind of marks successful scholars do actually get. Any mothers of KSs here who could comment?

Apart from the London prep schools the best prepared for KS from their consistent track record are the Dragon and Summer Fields in Oxford. There won't be any nearer to Bristol but basically an exceptional boy (especially if he finds the second maths paper easy) has a good chance of a KS from most places.
It might be worth contacting the Oxford prep schools since if your DS is a real candidate then they may well find space for him (for 1 1/2 terms) plus their assessment will help you know what level your DS is at and his realistic chances.

"But would you say that a prep school with a track record on KS is a safe way to go down?"

I think it's doubtful. Teaching the syllabus for the exams will have started at the beginning of year 7 at the latest, and I just don't think you can join in with only a term and a bit to go and expect to slot in smoothly or gain much benefit.

Also I'd be surprised if a school would accept a pupil so very late on, but I suppose there's no harm in enquiring.

I'm afraid I've no idea which if any preps near Bristol regularly send boys to Eton (let alone whether they enter by CE or KS route).

You could try asking the people in the Admissions office if they can recommend tutors. I also found this MN thread from a couple of years ago, there may be some useful info there.

There are a few top preps which are well known for preparing boys for schools like Eton. I would imagine that finding a place for your son at this stage is going to be almost impossible, and I think that even if there was a place, they would be reluctant to offer much in the way of a guarantee of a place. I agree that tutoring is probably your best bet.

Past KS papers are available on the Eton website here. You may want to have a look at them with your son, and any possible tutors.

OP What sort of school is your DS at currently?

Even if you could find a prep prepared to take on a new pupil mid-way through Year 8 and move him more or less immediately, you're only looking at a term's teaching time before the exams. And he'd need to settle in, and deal with the disruption of leaving one set of friends and arriving into a well-established group, both of which might reduce, not accelerate his academic progress. Ditto if topics are not covered in the same order.

So if he really wants this, then a tutor is probably better. But you need to find people who between them can cover all the subjects for all the papers he'll need to take, and who know the level they need to reach. Have you already started asking around?