SW London boys, 11+ grammars and independents

Thanks for all the excellent advice here. Does anyone have experience of the Harrodian 11+ interview?. We would like a coed school and there is limited choice in this part of West London. Any recent experience or feedback on the school will be appreciated.

This has been such a useful thread. Just wondering if anyone here for WUS or Dulwich as I have not seen any mentions (unless I've missed it)? My DS has interviews at SPS and WUS. Not heard back from Dulwich yet.

Joining this thread very late after lurking for a while. My DS has got interviews for SPS, KCS and Hampton coming up. Just interesting to read the thoughts of others in the same boat. Will update as and when we have some experiences to share!

@NoToMisogyny @FlyingPandas thank you so much.
Can't wait til the interviews are over.
We will be done.. yay!!

Thanks v much for the advice @FlyingPandas, much appreciated!

And best of luck to your DS next week @Queenofhearts1! I cannot WAIT until our interview is over

@noideaboutanything , it's such a difficult process and the list of schools you have is typical of the area and many will sit that combination.
But when it comes to offers I have a ds at Hampton and the ds is his class had offers from KGS, KCS, RGS, St G's, Epsom, St John's and Tiffin/other grammars. They hadn't sat Halliford/Radnor/Claremont because their prep school/ tutor would have said it was not necessary due to the level the ds was working at prior to Yr 6.
It's a tricky journey and very very long.

Thanks everyone - all v helpful points.
I think our list is Radnor, Halliford, Claremont (although maybe too far from what you're all saying), Hampton and KGS although I'm worried the last two are not the right fit although DS1 is v bright and sporty (I'm not sure why I'm less keen on St Georges and St James?) DS2 less so and they're close in age so really want to go to the same school which is annoyingly a really important factor too as most don't offer any kind of sibling advantage. Although could do Radnor and move DS2 there at the same time to yr 5. DD considerably younger can worry about her later?

We have friends with DC at Radnor and Halliford who are very happy with the schools. Both are selective, but have a lower academic “bar” to get over than many of the other London / Surrey independents.

Good luck to your boys, @NoToMisogyny and @Queenofhearts1 I hope their interviews go well!

Re tutoring1 I would just be honest. I have no idea whether DS was asked this or not but he would have said yes if asked. I really believe they assume all boys will have been tutored to some extent.

I don’t know how many boys Hampton are interviewing - but from what I’ve read on other threads they will almost certainly be interviewing far more boys than they have offers to make (and they have said themselves, they are interviewing more this year than they usually would, due to ISEB). I read a ratio of 400 interviews to 250 offers for a comparable London school, for example.

Hampton like all the indies will over offer. They have to - it’ll be the same pool of DC who have applied to anything up to 5/6 schools (possibly more this year because of ISEB) and a child can only go to one school at the end of the day! It’s a predictive gambling game for the admissions teams. How to offer enough places to fill their year groups comfortably - but not so many that they get so many acceptances that they have to put on a bulge class - it must be a minefield. I’m very glad I don’t have to do it!

@Jumpalicious I would say 45-50 minutes travel time maximum - you have to factor in bus or train delays and I think any more than that would be exhausting for DC.

@Jumpalicious I think it’s a personal choice. For our family we felt 45 minutes would be our max. Any bus that got them home after 5.30 we discounted .
As they get older and visit their friends independently - I don’t want to be traipsing through Surrey at all hours of the night and equally we felt that they would be better with localish friends. Again just personal choice. It’s what fits for you

@noideaboutanything

A few points about Radnor.

It's a relatively very new school, and incidentally St.James Boys school (now out near Heathrow in Ashford) used to be there.

They only take just over 60 in year 7, of which about half come up from their own year 6. They don't have space for extra numbers or bulge classes, hence they say if you really want one of those 30 ish spaces, you need to commit, ie the dreaded phase "exploding offers".

They use 3 excellent nearby sites for games/sport at St.Marys Uni and Bushy Park.
Their ISI report in 2020 gave them excellent in all 3 areas.

We have a recent foot in both the Radnor camp and Hampton camp.

Yes Hampton is a very impressively run school and we are extremely happy with it in all aspects.
Radnor has a more relaxed, less ridged feel, and suits DC. Equally we have found them on the ball during this Covid time both in class and online. Agree the Head comes across really well.

@noideaboutanything if you’re finding the choice overwhelming a great bit of advice I was given was to force yourself to make choices.
For instance
1 - how far do you want them to travel? What’s your max time or distance
2 - are you happy for them to travel in to London or do you only want them going out of London

Once you decide on a travel limit and direction things do get easier

@noideaboutanything I have had 2 friends move kids in the last year - one felt they weren’t stretching her very bright daughter enough and the other thought there wasn’t enough sport’s on the timetable. Both very different reasons and I’m sure lots will disagree but everyone’s perception is different . If you want somewhere less hot house. It still local, that also pushes the brightest , have you looked at Halliford for your son? The school is mildly selective but they take children with a broad range of abilities .

Thanks @NeverEnoughCake2 and @After8itsgrownuptime that makes sense about the grounds and sport options. Did you have academic concerns? There doesn't appear to be much opinion online about it and from our initial investigations like the 'feel' of it, the newish head came across really well and like you it's close and that also appeals! Just not sure we want to go down the 'hot houses' route although DS1 is v academic so don't want to do him a mis-service. It's a minefield!! (And could I ask about kids being moved out - is that recent or when it was new as I was hoping that was just teething issues and not the case now but have no insight.) Thank you

We had the same issue with a sporty DS and the lack of grounds at Radnor. However, their exploding offers policy was probably the biggest deterrent for us. I'm not willing to be rushed into a decision as important as school choice.

@noideaboutanything radnor is on our doorstep but I think it’s a bit of a marmite school . I have friends with kids there who love it and friends who moved their kids from it for various reasons. We looked round it but the lack of grounds was a total no for us. I know they have sports facilities nearby but I have a very sporty DS who just wants to play football and rugby with his mates at lunchtime and you can’t do that in the school grounds as it not big enough. It does have lots going for it but not right for us. I think secondary schools are a bit like buying a house. You just get a gut feel for it and you know if it will suit your child .

Hello long time lurker here with 2 DS & 1DD and soon to begin this process so reading with extreme interest! Good luck to you all and thanks for the tips for next year!
Just one question...none of you have Radnor on your list - just curious why?
Thanks!

@NoToMisogyny we have our interview next week also. Good luck to our DS's!
Does anyone know how many boys Hampton interview and how many places they have available?
Do they over offer?

Has anyone heard from Hampton re music scholarships interviews?

My DS has his Hampton interview next week (the extra long build up to it is stressing him no end!) - can I just ask if it’s best to be honest re tutoring if they ask?

DS is at a prep school and I have no idea what his actual CAT score is. I get a report with a chart showing where he is vs the median but no actual number - I assume it's being supplied to secondaries along with the reports, but obviously haven't seen that to know for sure.

Anyway, the point I was going to make is that it all depends on performance on the day. DS did the ISEB in school over two days, invigilated by his form teacher who did all the admin for him, whereas he did KGS at home with a panic partway through as we rushed to submit the scans of documents. I have no doubt that he will have done better in the ISEBs, and that's a more accurate representation of his ability - the KGS exam format just didn't work for us and I'm sure he suffered as a result.

As a student, he'll bring the same to any school he applies to. But some will rule him out based on a bad day. Or on an interview because he was nervous and didn't come across as his true self. It's a horrible process, and probably hugely subjective so we'll never know why people do/don't get offers. But hopefully everyone ends up at the right place for them.

And now please fast forward the next few weeks so we can start to get offers coming in and remove all the stress!

From what I understand, on Atom (& possibly ISEB), the top performers all effectively flat line into a cluster at the top, making the ability to create a ‘normal’ distribution curve harder, & not without serious algorithms + age weighting’s to normalise a skewed result. Hence I believe CAT scores are used where possible, to add quantitive metrics to the decision process, as many preps would have undertaken in yr 5/ 6.

Thanks to both of you - yes that seems totally logical!!

@NoToMisogyny @Jumpalicious I think so. We did some practice on Atom and you could get a really good mark without finishing and also getting quite a lot of questions wrong at the end of the test. The question at that point were crazy hard.