As the Tiffin results day looms, a second 2019 SW London grammars and indies thread

Personally I'd wait for all the info to be in before making a definite choice which would then be hard to reverse. The level of fee and journey are really important. In a way you've got a lovely wait ahead - you might get Tiffin or WHS and if you don't, you've already got a great option.

Re WHS I wouldn't take it personally or decide your DD wasn't wanted or disliked in any way. It is a numbers game and using whatever method a school has chosen, they can't offer to everyone. A WL place suggests they would be happy to have her.

If the SPGS fees are a real push and if WHS really is your top choice, ring them and also email about the WL making clear that it's your top choice and mentioning you have an offer for SPGS and expect Tiffin too. These things might swing it! If you then get a WL place,nannditnreallybis your top choice and works best for journey, budget etc, don't let the fact you were a WL and not first round place put you off accepting. No one ever knows or cares later and it's all a bit meaningless with rankings in entrance exams not being reflected in later school performance. You're in a good position now. Keep your options open a little longer and a quick email and phone call might open even more doors now you can contact WHS from a position of strength. Enjoy!

Well done to all the ten and eleven year olds with offers and good luck to those on waiting lists.
Greenleave - brilliant news on your dd’s success!
My dd was the only girl sitting indies from her state school so really appreciate the support & advice from here. I think this thread shows it is possible to gain offers from a state background and secondary schools give equal weighting to state school candidates. Prep schools give extra advice (but is this to boost their own results?) and some have contacts in the admissions departments but none of us know how much influence they have nowadays. I actually think state school candidates might have a slight advantage as the schools know they haven’t the extra support. The other point is that the numbers sitting aren’t what they seem when you take into account the multiple schools being applied to (8 or even 10!). I think this is to boost the prep school’s image as they can claim to have lots of offers,but maybe I’m being cynical! A child can only accept one school offer!

And haven't all these kids done well... So much pressure work and stress - I'm not sure I would have managed it at their age... Proud parents all round. Time to catch our breath now a bit. x

And yes, thanks FlumePlume you'r thread has been a huge help and your advice over the past months has been really helpful...

Wow Greenleave! Huge congratulations!!!

Yes, I am!

Thanks so much Poppyred25 for your kind support and loads of informative advices. I am so grateful for many posters like yourself on mumsnet.

Greenleave , overjoyed for your family and especially your dd. I've been following you since KGS 10 plus and always thought your dd would end up with an exceptional range of offers. Congrats and lucky LU to be gaining your dd. Enjoy your holiday, you must be shattered by this process.

Many congratulations to everyone on such great news!

We didnt have SPGS however KGS with couple of very large scholarships, yes for G&L and LEH of which we have released all offers as we have accepted a very surprised free place with LU(previously had a scholarship with Guildford High School however will be releasing it too), it has always been my favourite. She wasnt upset with a NO from SPGS at all as she didnt like it from the day we brought her to visit, I think she showed it in the interview. I am on the way home now and will be leaving for a holiday from tomorrow. The 11+ trip is over for us even we still have CLSG and Tiffin however we have the school we want most. So excited about the journey the next 7 years.

@Flume - hope you are having a 🍷. How was your DD? Delighted I bet!

@littlemisslucky2 We had the same problem, I was going to take my DD back to see Surbiton on the 27/2, but at the end we decided to email them and release her place. As lovely as Surbiton is, the academic level of LEH is higher, specially when it comes to A'levels.
Good luck making a decision!

For what it's worth two of the schools we sat for made past papers available on their website - KGS and St John's. Very open and straightforward.

And I just found "exam plus interview' fairly straightforward to get my head around - but maybe I'm just old-fashioned. But 'find out if they're academically able, then talk to them to see if they're a good fit for the school' seems a very straightforward way of going about things...

I suppose there is something about trying to gauge creativity, but I'm not sure how you'd do that, realistically, or if conflating it with 'works well in a group' is the way to go. The majority of the most creative people I know don't work well in groups at all... Where do the solitary, deep thinkers go to learn nowadays?

"I know the prep schools around here put a lot of pressure on parents to apply where they think they will get an offer so they can put it on their info."

None of the schools I know of (and certainly not ours) discouraged girls from applying on this basis. Why would they?

There were frank discussions with teachers about anything that might be vastly out of reach, but they're just putting the offers on their 'info' so they're not vested in discouraging marginally risky applications. If they don;t get in it's no skin off the schools nose - they're not publishing 'places our girls applied but got rejected from'... Ensuring parents are realistic in their ambitions and don't sell their daughters a pup is surely part of their job...

Anyway, it's moot for us, it's a great school no doubt, and clearly the girls there are happy.

I'm just flummoxed by their entrance process. It's possible they're doing something very groundbreaking, but if so then they need to communicate it better than they have IMHO. Because I did a lot of research, am relatively bright, and went to three open days there, and I still had no idea what they were looking for, and whether it was what my daughter had.

That’s really interesting Natalia, thanks. From memory WHS did say what they testing on the assessment day, e.g creativity, numeracy, teachability etc. I’m not sure it’s any more subjective than interviews and a stream of girls talking about what book they are reading, and what grade piano they are at!

Congats to all
About WHS, my DD got an offer and we went on the decider tour. The head was explaining all 260 girls who got into second round were academically capable for them and they did test math a bit. During the creative day they were looking to understand how girls work together as this is how they learn ( often from each other in groups). They were looking how for a example a girl who knew the answer straight away interacted with others who were still looking for an answer. My DD is not a natural leader and more on a quite side, but they did say they did not want 100 leaders. My DD really enjoyed the assesment, she was in a state school and we did not have to do additional VR and NVR training apart what she did for Wansworth test anyway, so I did not find process confusing. We have a friend in year 6 in WHS and ftom what I know all 40 girls out of 50 who were offered a place last December going to year 7. So we are very happy and think it is good that schools have different criteria so there is a school for all at the end.

Sweetnhappy- agreeing with you again! We were state school and had zero guidance other than knowing who went where in past years. Most kids who were considering private sat a minimum of 4 exams and all were unknown quantities so were all a punt. I know the prep schools around here put a lot of pressure on parents to apply where they think they will get an offer so they can put it on their info. The tutor we used said that whs has been an unknown quantity for a number if years and said some of the prep schools don't like their children applying there as it is harder to gauge whether they'll get in. I guess it must be similar at the consortium schools now as haven't they changed their process?

All of the schools were a 'punt ' for us. We had literally no idea what interviewers were looking for and none of the schools published past papers or a syllabus so even the preparation for the English and Maths exams were total guess work. I'm not really understanding the difference? Or is this a state school vs prep school issue? Most of us from state schools don't have any inside knowledge on what to prepare (unless you have a really experienced tutor I guess).

Thanks PLD re LEH open day on 27th Feb. That happens to be the same date we had the Surbiton open day but I’ll ring them anyway.

WE didn't take a punt because we felt that it was exactly that – a punt, and one we couldn't quantify.

There are lots of school to apply for, we didn't want DD doing a whole raft of exams, so we were keen only to apply for ones where we felt she had a decent chance of getting – a couple we felt were more easily within her reach and a couple that were a stretch. (Within sensible distance from her homes...)

We found it impossible to tell what WHS were looking for, and so impossible to know whether DD would have a chance, so we didn't enter in the end.

(The only other contributory factor was the art rooms!)

From all the children who have multiple offers (do you think they are all doing more schools) - it seems like waiting lists are going to move quite substantially.

Big congrats to everyone who got offers today. I was almost 100% sure we were going to send out DD to LEH, but now we've also had an offer from G&L ...so now completely confused and don't know which one to go for !

@littlemisslucky2, If you give LEH a call, they have something similar to an open morning on the 27th Feb ...