SW London boys, 11+ grammars and independents

Thanks, @Spacemen.

In terms of odds, they aren't too good, agreed. For Sutton, about 3,000 boys sit SET and a third are taken to the second round for 465 places. For Olave's, that's ~1,300 boys with 400 into second round for 124 places. Tiffin is ~1600 for 180 places.

Re mocks, I thought there were some held by tutor groups, not the PTA. And you reminded me that DS had completely crashed in SGSPTA's Mock's Maths too; I somehow removed this traumatic experience from my memory

Re additional time, he qualifies for access arrangement under JCQ guidelines, so he had extra 25% for Tiffin and Sutton, 10% for Olave's and none (!$%^&*) for Kent. It's not a coincidence his Kent score is fine, but below Judd's normal threshold we targeted...

Good luck to your boy! I hope we find the Sutton results soon enough.

Oh lovely, have been wanting a boys thread!

DS is applying to similar schools to yours @GrammarHopeful, though fewer of them! It's very sweet that your DS has been pouring over the league table - I did show DS where some of the schools that he was applying for were in the table but he quickly wanted to get back to his lego.

@Spacemen over 1500 boys sat for the stage one test last year which seems like an insane number. www.tiffinschool.co.uk/_docs/admissions/Patterns%20of%20Admissions%202020.pdf

DS had the ISEB yesterday and today has been absolutely lovely, knowing that there aren't that many to go now. Although it feels fairly risky having the indies ride on one test alone, I am also grateful that there aren't potentially additional tests to sit. Not sure how we would've got through having to do many more!

We did boys last year- happy to help!

Helloooo ladiees!

Just popped over with a hug and a wave from be girls thread. Great to see a boys thread established. I’m guessing there might be overlap with some co-eds

Hi, we are doing Trinity and Whitgift and also local state schools

@GrammarHopeful tough one isn’t it.

I’ve always thought exams are unfair. They suit some kids, but not all.

To nerves: As you say, you can’t even play it off with a child like yours. My DS was nervous, but excited (I think excitement that the exam was here and therefore soon be over 😆).

Note also, that I think (?) only about 450 kids or so go into second round ...out of how many (not sure, but a lot). I imagine at least 1000 of the kids sitting round 1 are all top-2 in their class material... huge competition. No telling which child will pass. Of course, your DS has extra elements to cope with. It really is tough...

Mock tests. I don’t think there were any, were there? Aside from the online tests eg Sutton (which we almost didn’t do, but glad we did, since gave good idea of expected standard I think). Again, I can see how no dry run won’t have helped. And yes, their first such exam. Did tiffin make some allowances for your child, eg extra time?

Anyway, here’s to Sutton. And the indies!

@Spacemen, no problem with asking.

I think it was a combination of things, really:

• it was a pretty hard test, no denying that, and given that DS is slower than normal (he' has high intelligence, but low normal processing speed) these type of tests really don't lend themselves well to letting him shine: we of course worked on time management and skipping and coming back to tough Qs, but it's just impossible to completely eradicate, especially, if he gets nervous and begins to panic. He didn't finish maths either;
• he worked himself in a state the night before—was visibly shaking with nerves at one point, and there is no playing it off as a game or some such with a precocious child with autism, I am afraid;
• it was his first one, and he tends to get better at most things with practice. In retrospect, doing a mock test would have really benefitted him, I think, but this was out of the question, as we had major issues around going anywhere during the summer as he was terrified of catching Covid (getting him to go back to school required a lot of planning, reasoning and a touch of bribing...).

Hi, count me in too. @GrammarHopeful. we are in very similar boat to you in terms of what we have applied for. Tho nothing in jan. Note your DS got through to so many next rounds. If you don’t mind me asking, what happened to your DS re tiffin stage 1? My DS did say it was hard, and didn’t complete the maths (round 1) despite maths being his strong card.

Absolutely, count me in! Otherwise, I just barge in into the girls' thread, as inability to share constant invasive thoughts about this all is almost debilitating!

As a summary, DS missed Tiffin Stage 1, passed Kent Test, and just done first stage of St Olave's and second stage of Sutton this weekend. He is also eligible for Wallington County based on Sutton SET (that was a huge relief after Tiffin fiasco).

On the indies front, he sat ISEB at KCS last Saturday. Our other ISEB schools are Hampton and Trinity. Plus we have KGS and Emanuel in January.

We cast the net wide, because a) we are able to move anywhere around London (renting) and DS has an EHCP (ASD), which, technically permits us naming any state school, providing he meets their admission criteria (which for grammars is passing their selective tests); b) he really wants "the best" school, which for him translates the most academic (at least for now)--he was perusing the new Times' Parents Power league tables this morning!; and c) we are still not sure what the right school is for him, and, sadly, we haven't been able to visit any and we are sort of out of the loop as neither me nor DP were raised and educated in the UK, and he is our first.

Thanks for organising!