SW London boys, 11+ grammars and independents

Jog on @grammarhopeless.
This thread is not for the likes of you

If you have entered you DS for a dozen different schools and tutored him heavily for two years it is no wonder he is going to have trouble at interview stage.

Independent schools are looking for well-rounded kids that are naturally bright and haven't been tutored in order to game the system.

The also look for kids that want to go to their school.

Think of it from the poor school registrar's perspective. If a child (or their pushy parent) has entered their DC for 10 different schools they can only end up at 1 of them. So an independent offering the child a place may have a 1 in 10 chance that the place will be accepted. If everyone did that they'd have to offer 10x the amount of available places!!!
They are therefore going to want the kids that they know have a much higher chance of accepting the offer.

Spare a thought for the DC who really does want to go to a certain school but who might be put on a waiting list because the place is held by someone who is waiting for a better offer from one of the half a dozen other schools that they applied to.

Spare a thought for DC whose parents are not trying to game the system; whose DS has not been heavily tutored for 2 years; who has not applied for extra time even though he has ADHD; who is not using an independent as a back-up for a grammar school failure.

Spare a thought before you moan about how an interview didn't go so well at one of the 10 schools you've applied for and look inside yourself and wonder why that might really have happened....

@GrammarHopeful Feel for both of you, this is such a rough process for them. I’m hopeful we can overthink this and they don’t need to be perfect.

I like to think they have all done great to get this far - preparing, sitting exams and for Hampton, doing well enough to get an interview. I’m pretty proud of DS no matter what - think all of them have done pretty good to get through it. Bring on Feb!

@GrammarHopeful sounds like your DS smashed the maths & reading and was open honest about the softer questions. The interviewers are probably tightly scheduled this being early still days bedding in the interview format. Try not despair, the interview process is so incredibly challenging this year without stepping foot onsite. Sending hugs 💐

Hi All, reading with great interest, such a nerve wracking process! Well done to all DCs.
Anyone know any more about the Westminster 11+ process?

Sorry to hear that GrammarHopeful but is echo what others have said. None of our boys are going to be themselves in such a strange scenario, and the schools will be making allowances for that. I'd focus on the positives - if he did well in the academic part, that's a huge achievement. Big hug and hopefully forget about it - at least it's done and you can move on.

Thanks again, @FlyingPandas. Yes, Hampton are of course aware of DX, had been sent relevant info, etc., but I had a distinct impression that the two teachers interviewing didn't know and/or were under the instruction to interview him in exactly the same way they would any other neuro-typical boy...

@GrammarHopeful ahh I had missed the bit about his ASD DX upthread. But presumably Hampton are aware of it also? If so, they will no doubt very much be aware that his discomfort will have been linked to the ASD. My eldest is also on the spectrum and would have struggled massively with this format at 11, so a huge well done to your boy on doing as well as he did. Only time will tell for any of us with offers but I really wouldn’t assume the worst based on what you’ve said.

@Growupsofast RGS is just 10 minutes on teams, no academic stuff as far as I can tell from the email, just general chat.

Whoever asked about the Hampton box and whether it was mentioned - DS says not so I wouldn’t worry about that.

Thoughts turning to RGS interview now - does anyone know the format. Should we expect similar to Hampton.

I had thought the RGS interviews were more of a straightforward get to know you chat but have other things from parents

@FlyingPandas @NoToMisogyny Thank you for your kindness!

He has ASD as I mentioned up thread before, so the normal chit-chat/small talk is not an easy thing for him to produce at the best of times, but he was also very nervous. He really likes Hampton, so he tried to impress, but I think this may have had an opposite effect. Well, we'll find out soon enough, I suppose.

Re reading: he had to read a passage out loud (he hates doing that normally), and then answer some reasonably straightforward comprehension questions about it.

I also take your point re teachers being stressed too. This would have worked much better in person, as H were originally planning, but nothing any of us can do about that, other than stay at home for as long as we have to this time :/

feeling for you all - went through this several years ago 9albeit in the real world rather than the virtual hell your ds's are now experiencing...)

just wanted to reassure that saying daft things is perfectly normal and wont necessarily harm their chances?

trying to remember his classics - when he was asked which clubs he went to he somehow thought that only related to after school clubs and said 'airfix' but as he'd only done it for 2 weeks the conversation was pretty brief (!) - he somehow didn't realise that was his opening to discuss karate/choir/football/clarinet! he did still get an offer though - so take heart!

@NoToMisogyny glad I wasn’t the only one feeling that way. Having spoke to friends this morning (briefly, don’t get me wrong, no cross checking answers or anything silly!) it does indeed sounds like they’ve had identical tests. At least in the English. Really weird and I don’t understand how they can’t be at least skeptical about the validity of Saturday outcomes compared to those earlier in the week. What can we do ?

So sorry to hear about the interview stress for everyone else. If it helps, my precious DS got straight in to his “stretch” choice 2 years ago, no issues, to our surprise. You just never know which way it will go...good luck and I hope your DS can find a way to de-stress and relax a bit now.

So sorry to hear your DS is upset @GrammarHopeful - if he answered the academic questions well, that’s brilliant! I’m convinced my son will go blank with those when put on the spot. And as for the ‘there are lots of good schools’ comment - I reckon they’ll appreciate the honesty! Pretty much every other child will parrot ‘yes’ whether it’s the truth or not.

The same re the tutoring question! That’s a really hard one as you don’t want to encourage them to lie.

Can I just ask is it literally reading a passage they have to do in interviews or is it more of a comprehension?

DS having interview towards the end of the month .. worried as everyone seems to be on today!?
Trying to prep him by gentle conversation, but he is having none of it, he is not interested - just making up really articulate but jokey answers ( similar to ones above... latest being.. “Why Hampton? I don’t know really, since I don’t want to go, preferring state schools, less pompous and no Tarquins in sight ! ( he is in a prep at the moment) .. very funny but I need him to do well, as this is one of our back up schools. Any idea ? Should I bribe him to stop making fun of the process? Can’t even work out whether he is so blaze about it or annoyed of having to do one... was the yellow box mentioned in the interview as he has shown no interest in it ??

Oh @GrammarHopeful Poor DS. And poor you. It's horrible when they're upset by this stuff. I've been lurking on the girls' 11+ thread as well and there have been a few in tears there too. This process is brutal.

BUT - being positive - it sounds like your DS aced the academics? Mine said the maths was hard...if he got it all correct and read brilliantly etc that's got to be good, right?

And I am absolutely sure they are used to 10/11 year old boys either being awkward or too chatty or interrupting them (or all of those at the same time!) when doing the soft chit chat.

(And let's face it your DS is correct, there are a lot of good schools to choose from! And they will ALL have been tutored. I would be amazed if they interview a single boy who hasn't)

I would also interpret the 'sounding annoyed' teacher as possibly just being a bit stressed and knowing he/she only had a very limited time to do the interview. This is so different to face to face stuff. As I said to DS this morning when he was panicking, the Hampton teachers will be nervous too. They've never done interviews like this before either. I work in a school (not a teacher, just in the office) and some of our teachers have found the online learning stuff really unnerving, despite the fact that they can absolutely breeze through a face to face lesson with a classful of 30!

Hope he feels a bit better after he calms down

DS is in tears after his Hampton interview :(

I listened behind the door, and it's a story of two halves: I think he's read a passage brilliantly, described the picture shown well, and solved all the maths thrown at him, including the "tricky" ones, albeit slowly, as he does.

However, all the "soft"/"fit" stuff was pretty horrible. Couldn't string sentences together, interrupted the teachers a few times (the second one sounded positively annoyed by it), and when asked whether he is keen to come to H said that there were so many good schools to consider, so he wasn't quite sure :(

And they did ask him about he prep we did. He said he's been going to the tutor for two years :facepalm: In practice, he started a one hour group sessions in May-19 during term time only.

The other usual Qs about what he likes to do, what he's read recently, how his friends would describe him, etc., also made appearance.

Thanks so much for the advice re the interviews!!!

Just seen this thread in active and although it was 10 years ago now, KGS were not impressive even then. The interviewer came to collect my son and read out his name wrong both first and surname - eg Daniel Weston instead of David Watson type mix-up. There was no smile, no handshake and just a very underwhelming feeling all round.

Good luck to you all in these very trying and stressful circumstances.

@Growupsofast OMG that must have been so stressful! I had to get DH come and sort the Teams stuff out as I couldn't get it to work at first either. Definitely worth trying to log on well in advance of your actual time just in case!

Phew! DS's Hampton interview all done. He seems happy enough and I have to say the process ran like clockwork, very efficient. I only saw the first teacher briefly but she seemed really lovely and had managed to put DS at ease by the time I'd left the room, which was reassuring.

Two things that really worked for us:

1. For the DC - we did no real advance interview prep but had a very lighthearted chat in the 15 minutes we spent waiting to start the Teams meeting. Just about the kinds of questions they might ask (all the standard stuff people have suggested on here i.e. what's your favourite subject, what might your teacher say about you etc etc). DS was so nervous but I asked him to suggest first a silly and then a sensible answer for a couple of questions and that made him laugh and relaxed him. So for example for the 'favourite subject' question his 'silly' answer was 'lunchtime and going to the toilet' . But I found that giving him the opportunity to be silly just took the pressure off a bit and he then came up with some genuinely sensible answers quite naturally.

1. For you - do an energetic domestic task to keep yourself occupied whilst they're in the online interview, to stop you being tempted to listen outside the door! I went upstairs in the end and changed all the beds (apart from the teenager's one cos he's still in it ) and I've never been so efficient. Stripped and remade two single and one kingsized bed in 25 minutes

RGS interview next Saturday and then we're done and it's just the waiting game...

Huge good luck to all of your boys with their interviews and also to those who still have exams to do for St Georges, Halliford and others etc - hope all goes as smoothly as possible.

Surely KGS had different papers, crazy not to? Who knows - I think I preferred the ISEB for that reason - at least it was designed to be taken at different times

Hampton interview over - it was fine. Not going to overthink it, just moving on with the day now. Heart stopping moment when the video didn’t work at beginning, had to rejoin and everything was fine. Gulp - not sure I could have faced DS if I couldn’t get it to work.

I’ve been worrying about that too - friends were asking me what was in DS’s paper on Tuesday and I wasn’t going to take the risk that they would be sitting the same paper at the weekend!

I think KGS has given the impression that you need them more than they need you. Just my feeling!

Glad to have found this thread. Agree with all comments on KGS. The test process and platform used really wasn’t great - just stressful, and the whole tone of the information received was pretty curt and did little to put my DS at ease in any way, so glad it wasn’t just us feeling that way.

This may be an irrational thought from having too much time to overthink - but bearing in mind the test scripts are at home, including maths with workings and 2/3 of the English tasks, do you think they change the questions slightly throughout the week? As I said, possibly an irrational worry and what will be will be, but seems a little open to abuse having children sit a paper on Saturday that has effectively been in circulation all week amongst their peers. Just curious what others think....

Best of luck to everyone having their interviews today! DS was supposed to have his today but there was a clash with St G exams so had to move it. Wish we were getting it out of the way today!! I can see how schools don’t want only extroverts, but if you’re too shy to communicate well at interview then that will be a problem. And I can see DS getting totally tongue-tied.

I wonder how many they’re interviewing if the interview period goes on for 2 weeks!

He hasn’t seen any of the schools, so it’s all totally abstract for him!

I hadn’t realised that about KGS until it was mentioned here - but true, they’ve felt very distant throughout all of this. No ‘good luck’ postcards or anything!