SW London grammar and private year 7 entry 2024 - Continued

I think the vast majority of private school pupils whether they come from private or state primaries are wealthy. How you define wealth is always interesting and I find people with children in private schools often don’t consider themselves as wealthy… and yes there are different levels of wealthy I acknowledge that…but compared to how I grew up, many getting bursaries would be considered as wealthy by my parents.

I am not following. Are you disputing that on average, there is much more wealth in private primaries than in state primaries? Sure, some state primary school families are as rich as some private school families.

The people who send their kids to certain state primary schools in Notting Hill (Fox, St Mary Abbots) Hammersmith (St Peters) Chiswick (Belmont, Grove Park) are often as wealthy, or more so, than the nearby private schools. I would say they are hardly offering any economic diversity to the private school cohort, but I am also not convinced they have any advantage when applying to super selectives.

My children went to state primary and are now in private secondary.

About 40% go to private from our state school every year. Many getting into Hampton / KGS / Kings / LEH / Guildford High etc etc.

No doubt, the distinction between privileged vs underprivileged cuts across that between state vs independent. But only in this sense: Some state school pupils are as privileged as some private school pupils (ditto for underprivileged). But average numbers matter. It is unlikely that many oligarchs (of which there are many in London) will send their kids to state rather than a fancy prep. Likewise, it's unlikely that most low middle class parents can afford private all the way through. On average, there is more wealth in private primaries than state primaries. So the diversity top indie schools seek is not (only) a good mix of privileged and under-privileged pupils, but also a good mix of middle-class vs super-privileged kids.

At the schools we visited, one said they had no idea of the breakdown, the other said it "ended up at roughly 50%" - following on that this was organically obtained.

Neither seemed to dwell on the distinction too much. We got the sense that their view was that kids are kids, each judged on their own merits.

This sounded very plausible: neither state nor prep school kids are homogenous masses, so it's hard to see what a quota would achieve, if one were ever used.

However, I would think that all schools want to draw from the widest possible pool: If all pupils are coming from one sector, or even from one school, then reasonably they could suspect that they are not attracting as strong a talent pool as they could into the application process. But encouraging a good funnel of candidates is different from applying a quota at point of admission.

We were told the same thing, but that it usually ends up being around 50%

This is certainly true. Most of the students who can afford private school are somehow privileged.

While it is not a definitive indication of social diversity, I think the state school intake percentage difference between these schools - such as LU as above, perhaps closer to 40%, vs some other schools that are closer to 10-20% - does give some insight into the composition and characteristics of the student populations.

This point is spot on. The idea that all prep school kids are rich and privileged and all state primary kids are poor and underprivileged is such nonsense. If you can afford to send your child to a private London day school without a bursary (or even with a small bursary) you're certainly not poor, wherever your child went to primary school.

You’re right. Also I’m not sure being from a state primary necessarily means more socially and economically diverse…

Latymer Upper has about 50% state intake at 11 plus and over 20% of all students receive some kind of bursary. This has been the case for many years.

Its a non-issue really because on day 1, they will all be 'private school pupils' regardless. 😆

Note that even some schools may want to set a target of 50% state school intake at 11+, the actual composition of state school students in year 7 is much lower, because of the junior schools or other entrance years such as 10+ or 8+. Most private schools in London have a state school percentage of 15%-30%, with only a few of the most socially diverse ones reaching the high 30% or low 40%.

I can tell you many indie has more than or around 50% intakes from the state school. I cannot say they have strict quota in their admission process, it is just a fact where they end up with. These numbers are from the headmasters on their open days.

@12345change I agree with you that 50% sounds high, and it can't be a quota since it is unlikely that so many state school applicants score high enough every year. But I do agree that, bursaries aside, top indie schools try to admit as many state schools applicants as possible (assuming they score high enough). Anecdotally, I know of several state schools pupils trying for just one top indie (e.g. Westminster or City) thinking that it will worth the financial sacrifice if they get in. If I had to guess, I'd say it's probably around 30% rather than 50% in some of these schools. But if you add the bursaries (City aims to raise the number of bursaries to 20%) then you might get close to 50%.

In cases where there is a primary school attached - 50% of the incoming children are state, so in practice it means 1/3 from their own prep, 1/3 state and 1/3 from other preps.

Alleyn's and Jags clearly said it was a 1/3, 1/3, 1/3 split on their open days.

@Hatcher also I live in a fairly affluent area I bet in some areas they aren’t any children from state schools applying to independent/ private schools.

That may be true but I very much doubt independent/ private schools have a quota of 50% state schools children … I’d like to see the evidence for that, hence I’m asking someone to name the schools feels like rumour and speculation to me! I’m sure they’d go out of business if they wanted to have 50% state school children.

Yes, but there are way more state schools than private. So 3 pupils out of every state school adds up to a lot of applicants for the top independent schools. There are several parents who choose state for primary and indie for secondary because they cannot afford fees all the way through. Several top indie schools want to avoid becoming full of super-rich, entitled kids and a high number of state school applicants provides diversity of sorts.

Which ones told you that? We asked at quite a few open days and were told there were no fixed quotas.

Really?? Which schools? I’m surprised that many would apply to independent/ private schools. From my children’s state primary school about 3/90 every year go independent/ private.

sone schools have strict 50% state admission criteria

@Iffiyas what did you discover about quotas?

@CocoC DD’s friend got the offer from Putney on Tuesday morning! Sorry I thought you asked when my DD got her offer!

It wasn’t a WL offer, she got the offer which was a huge relief. In our prep only one got an offer from the WL so far! It’s crazy to think the competition has become so fierce. I remember from my older DD who did the 11+ 4 years ago that many waitlist offers were made. We were thinking this year might be easier as London birth rate was lower and there’s a cost of living crisis as well as prospect of 20% fee rise!! We couldn’t have been more wrong! Our prep is rather academic and most academic girls had PHS and NHEHS as sort of a back up to their first choices (G&L, LU, St Paul’s, COL)! Not this year, some have ended up with non desired outcomes.

So my message to parents doing the 11+ next year is to acknowledge how fierce the competition is and to have a wide range of schools. There also seems to be a strict quota for prep school children. I fully accept that this makes the playing field level but it’s an important point to acknowledge as a prep school parent.

Remember that things may also move after the deadline for accepting state school (esp grammar places) eg if people turn down grammar places someone may accept it who had also accepted an independent school place and then there’s a ripple effect as those get released