SW London Girls' Private & Grammar - applying for year 7 in 2023

Ah, okay! Yes, they were a little bumpy!

Sorry I meant 2022, 2019, 2018 etc., excluding 2021 and 2020.

All schools have shown volatile results over the past few years. 2020 and 2021 aren't worth looking at as they were all teacher graded (and some schools inflated wildly). 2022 was the first vaguely reliable year since 2019, but on the whole they're still higher than pre-pandemic. It'll take a couple of years for it to settle down again. But as I've said on previous posts, the results between all these top London day schools are marginal anyway, and as many people have pointed out on Mumsnet before, a child is likely to get the same exam grades whichever of these schools they go to. Anyone choosing a school on exam grades alone is doing their child a huge disservice. The culture and the overall fit matter much more.

*Ramped
apologies!

They do this for more than a year, my friend started in year 4 and tamped it up over the years. It also included one of the tutors traveling with them during holidays at least twice that I know of. Plus some of the super tutors charge £120/hour. Add to this mock exams, courses and so on, I’m sure it can add up? But this is certainly not the norm. It was the most extreme example I had heard of until someone told me about the people who managed to spend 60k. Other people I know have told me they spent around £10-12k

If spending 35k for one year, that means 100 per calendar day. I am not sure how it is possible to spend that much.

Don't look at results just for one year, particularly for NHEHS that showed very volatile results for the last few years.

Well said. Unfortunately, so many parents get very insecure about which schools their DCs attend.

Good luck everyone.

@LondonMum20222 I so agree!

@QuiteAJourney The motto in our family atm is "there is no best school, only the school that is best for you." If only half the parents in west London would actually believe that!

I genuinely think the most important thing is to find the right school for our children. They will very likely do better in a slightly less academic school that they are happy at and which suits them than one they have to be tutored heavily to get into and then to stay at. There are thousands of schools in the country - the vast majority of indies in SouthWest and West London are excellent schools whether they are top 30, top 100 or whatever.

I will inevitably freak out again in due course but I do keep trying to tell myself that getting the right school is the most important thing!

@travelturtle thanks for your post and the perspective that having gone through the system brings. You are right that we all need to help each other to keep perspective, especially as I think that some of the school gates conversations (for us) and the playground conversations (for the DDs) can be a bit fraught and add to the stress.
@LondonMum20222 , I completely agree with your previous posts. All this talk about 'back ups' loses sight of the fact that most (all?) the schools being considered are good and that the key thing is where kids will be happy. I think that ambition and snobbery get in they way of things - Our favourite schools are not the most competitive or so-called-desirable, but I will send my daughter there like a shot ahead of others that most people seems to consider more desirable. As you say (and our head, like yours, also says): there is a school for every child and they all end up in the right place

@Justonecat We went through the 11+ process with our eldest last year, bracing myself to do it again next year with our middle kid (hence being on here). Just wanted to say quickly that you should hang in there. It will be OK. Please try to ignore all the noise about tutoring etc. Like many others our eldest and all his friends came from a primary school background. On the whole none of them were tutored and they’ve all ended up in schools they are very happy with (including plenty of the Hammersmith schools, Hampton, LEH, PHS etc). Sometimes they didn’t get their first choice, sometimes there was a stressful wait for a waiting list place and then a reshuffle but it really does all work out in the end and they are all happy with their choices. Sounds like your daughter is naturally bright despite a recent bump in the road so sure it will work out for her too. Good luck with it all.

@Justonecat I agree with the others - don't leave! Hopefully this thread will provide moral (virtual) support through this crazy journey. And whilst I'm sure there are a few mad parents spending silly money on tutoring, I doubt many are (certainly not to that level), and who instead trust that their child will find the right school for them. Our Head says it every year: every child finds a school, and every parent ends up being happy with that school.

@Justonecat don't feel for a moment that you are too cynical or dampening the mood. We are all (a bit / rather) cynical and hoping that the path chosen works out. Sometimes a community like this exposes people to different views / environments - we are at an indie prep, not tutoring and don't know anyone with specialist tutors. Hopefully those cases you mention are far and in between and I think, imho, that do their children more harm than good in the long run.
it would be lovely if you stay and share your journey with us. In any case, best of luck

Don't leave the thread!
I know some children at these schools. Yes, there are some batshit parents around but it really is not the norm to spend £35k plus on tutors! I literally don't see how that is possible! When DD was sitting 11plus I met a woman who told me that it was vitally important that we got an educational psychologist to help us with it all and that 'everyone' in N London had one to help them decide where to apply. She was beside herself when I said we were at a State school and we're applying to x, y, z school and that neither I or a single person I knew had a psychologist ( except for SEN etc). Maybe it was a N London thing?
Some people do tutor all through school but it doesn't do their children any favours.

Have been through it all twice- don't believe all the hype and good luck to all! ( we had to do it in Early January so it loomed over us all over Christmas as well!)

I think I’ll leave this thread now, I’m being a real Debbie downer and don’t want our troubles or my cynicism to dampen the mood - good luck to everyone!

I agree. I think I said a few posts ago that calling any of these schools less academic feels very wrong, they at all excellent.

The 11+ is a crazy arms race. My closest friend spent £35k on tutoring, another friend just told me about someone who spent around £60k. I agree this isn’t necessary by any means but it sure helps, as these people all got the schools they wanted, and by their own admission would not have had a chance otherwise.

I sometimes wonder if these schools are actually screening for this kind of behaviour in the sense that these families are highly likely to continue the tutoring throughout secondary school, making the job of the school that much easier. Who knows.

@onemomentintime Hysteria is exactly right. I think so many people lose sight of how privileged our DDs are to spend the next seven years at any of these schools!

@LondonMum20222 - you speak a lot of sense- there is so much hysteria over the 'Hammersmith' schools!

Totally agree @Lolakath19. All this talk (in every prep school in west London) about the Hammersmith schools vs "back-up schools" has completely lost touch with reality. Pretty much every private secondary school in west London is in the Top 100 nationally. The obsession with whether your child gets into the no.1 school in the country or the no.20 or 30 or 50 is, by any objective measure, crazy. So much academic research shows that a child who is top of their cohort in a "less academic" school (and we're talking small margins in the league tables here, for the most part) turns out happier, more confident and MORE SUCCESSFUL than kids who were shoehorned (often with tons of tutoring) into a school where they'll be in the bottom 25% and spend 7 years feeling like a failure, and get 2 A-stars and an A rather than 3 A-stars at A Level. I have so many super smart friends who went to SPGS and Wycombe who genuinely thought they weren't clever because they weren't "as clever" as the other girls in their highly selective, high-achieving school. Who'd want to put their 11 year old in that position? Well-being and overall happiness first, every single time.

@Justonecat please be gentle on yourself and dont think you have let your DD down. As our headmistress say, whether she is going to hammersmith school or not is not going to impact her GCSE or a level..
As you say setting her for failure / disappointment is not right and Hammersmith school is not a proof of cleverness or else.
At the end of the day, the important thing is for your DD to feel confident in herself and when she goes to secondary school. As I tell mine I prefer you to go to what people call back up/ less academic school and thrive there and be happy rather than be miserable at an Hammersmith school.
11+ for girls (I have no experience of boys) are just getting crazier and crazier with so much pressure from parents/ school where they already have to go through normal life/ friendship / puberty etc.
I wish your DD all the best and make sure she knows you are there behind her whatever happens. You're a super mum thinking about her wellbeing above all which is admirable.

DD was at a state primary and did have a very general 11plus tutor for a while. I found some panicky emails between us the other day where we'd had an awful weekend about this time of year and I was trying to find other schools we might apply to as was convinced she wouldn't get in anywhere. She was fine in the end and I'm not entirely convinced if the tutor helped or rather upped all the pressure as we knew she was tutoring half the kids in the area..

Yes, I agree re tutoring. Plenty of people get into SPGS and G&L (and others) without any tutoring. Those who do tutor like crazy are not doing their DDs any favours long-term (and are probably burning them out in the process). It's so easy to feel the 11+ is a tutoring arms race, but it's just unnecessary, esp if they're already at a prep school.

You really don't need 'several specialist tutors' - that's madness!
I would echo other posters saying it's sometimes worth a go. Schools are looking for different things and can sometimes throw up strange results!