How to prepare for King’s scholars exams

[Rectangula]

Hello everyone,

I’m looking for some advice on how to prepare for the King’s Scholar exams. Has anyone here prepared their child for these exams? I’d be really grateful if you could share how you approached the preparation, any recommended books or resources, and whether you used a tutor.

Thank you so much.

Best advice - send your child to a prep school with a track record of pupils winning KS awards. There are probably ten or so schools like this. The teachers know exactly what is required (and what is not) and have loads of past papers to practice on. Crucially they will also be able to advise on whether your son is a good candidate to sit the exam, (and they will vouch for that to Eton as well) and they will be an authorised exam centre for the papers.

These schools will have a Y8 scholarship form (usually KS in combo with Winchester Election candidates) which moves at a very fast pace, covers the additional material needed (eg more advanced French and Latin vocab and grammar, more advanced maths, plus ancient Greek if you are doing that) and also teaches how to approach the content and style of the general and humanities essay papers, which are quite different from the CE style of exams.

If your son is clever enough and goes that prep school route (ideally from Y6-Y8) he should not need a tutor as well.

If prep school is not an option then you would need a tutor (or three) who has a proven track record of teaching successful KS candidates. Unless in the most exceptional of circumstances, I can’t see how you could realistically self-teach yourself for KS. It is not at all like 11+ or CE, for which you can buy prep books from WH Smith and work through them. Having said that, there is a book called The Supertutor by Joe Norman which talks about some of the reading, writing and thinking habits that will help if you are thinking about KS, whether at prep school or with a tutor.

Thank you so much for taking the time to share such detailed and helpful advice. I really appreciate it.

Unfortunately, the prep school route is not an option for us, as my son is already in Year 7. His current school is confident that he is capable of sitting the scholarship exams, and Eton and a couple of other schools have invited him to attend their scholarship house events or scholarship open days, which is encouraging.

I am now trying to understand the best way to approach his preparation, particularly as I appreciate that these exams are very different from CE.

I have a few questions, if you don’t mind.

Firstly, would choosing more optional papers increase his chances, or is it better to focus on a smaller number of subjects and aim for excellence? For example, Eton asks candidates to choose three optional papers. Would three generally be sufficient, or would taking additional papers offer any real advantage?

Secondly, when looking for tutors, how do you assess whether someone is suitably qualified to prepare a candidate for KS? I have seen online that the level can be equivalent to GCSE or A-level in some subjects. Would an A-level tutor necessarily be suitable, or is specific experience with successful KS candidates much more important?

Finally, do you have any recommendations for tutors, particularly for French and English? I would be especially grateful for any advice on what to look for when choosing a tutor for these subjects.

Many thanks.

Oh @Rectangula

Do you want an honest opinion or a polite opinion about your son’s current school?

Honestly, I would much rather hear your honest opinion. I really appreciate straightforward advice, especially if it can help me make the best decisions for my son.

Your son is clearly a bright boy and his current school doesn’t want to lose him.

You don’t say whether he is at a state school now, or at an independent school without a history of sending boys to Eton, which can’t or won’t advise you very well. If it’s the latter they also won’t want to lose his fees…

It’s firstly worth saying, as his current school doesn’t appear to have done so, that not all
scholarship processes are the same. KS and Election are insanely difficult, close to A level standard, and really do require specialist teaching. But other public schools have academic scholarships that are a lot more attainable. Some will stick closer to the CE curriculum, some might involve an exam plus interview, and for most the competition will be a lot less serious (as convention dictates you can’t enter for more than one scholarship).

To be brutally honest, it is not too late to change schools and I think you should at least consider it. Most prep schools don’t start scholarship teaching in earnest until the start of Y8 so you have time. You could still get four terms in without incurring withdrawal fees if he’s at an independent school already, or you could even move him this Christmas if he’s at a state school.

As a first step you should go and see some headteachers of preps who have sent at least 2-3 boys to College (KS winners) in the last three years Explain the situation, show them his school reports/exam results, and ask them where they think your son would have a decent shot. They will be frank, because it doesn’t serve them to take a boy who can’t cope with scholarship work, and will give you some useful advice as to your options.

In terms of your specific question about papers. Clearly there’s no point taking up Latin at this stage if he hasn’t done it already, just for the sake of doing an extra paper. You only do additional optional papers if you are already strong in multiple subjects and genuinely aren’t sure which three will turn out better on the day.

Re tutors. I think you’d need someone who has previously tutored someone who has won a KS, and who therefore knows what good enough in this context looks like. Your average A level tutor would not have a clue. They would also probably be puzzled by the lack of any formal syllabus or set texts.

Thank you so much for your honest advice.

My son is currently at an independent school that also has a senior school, but unfortunately, they don’t have a specific programme to prepare boys for the KS examination.

He is very good at languages and speaks several, so I’m hoping that learning Latin won’t be too difficult for him. He has already started learning a little.

I’m still unsure about which optional papers he should choose, so your explanation has been particularly helpful

Exactly, the school doesn’t want to lose him and thus, while not quite throwing nails under the tyres in the broad light of day, is going to make it extremely difficult for him to succeed. KS is hard enough with the best support in place but is nigh on impossible without support. It’s not fair on him, or you.

Right now you need some well informed objective advice on whether it’s worth your son trying for KS, given where he is starting from and his aptitude. Then you can decide if you want to do it, and then you decide where will give you the best chance of success.

Also, as you are already paying hefty fees, you should not need to be paying for three tutors as well…

Thank you so much for your advice.
I think I may not have explained myself very well. Both his current school and the other schools feel that he should give the scholarship a go, ( He has already earned conditional offers for these schools) so I suppose my main concern is understanding how best to prepare him and give him the right support along the way.
I completely agree that it’s important to be realistic, and I’m simply trying to navigate the process and make the best decisions for him. I really appreciate your perspective and your willingness to help.

I am sure his current school say he should “give the scholarship a go”. If he pulled it off, it would make them look good.

But a) those words are very cheap when they are not having to do any of the work - and it is a huge amount of work - and it will cost you a lot of money in tutoring. Please do not underestimate this.

And b) if they have never prepared a boy for KS before, which it sounds like they haven’t, how would they even know what is involved and whether he was a good KS candidate?

I understand that it is very flattering to be told these things about your child and I understand the instinct to want to help him achieve his full potential. However, to do that, you need a second opinion about how best to help him from people who are experts in this game. Go have a chat with the heads at Summer Fields, Cothill, Papplewick and see what they say.

Lastly I am a bit alarmed when you refer to schools in the plural - again it sounds like you have not been getting good advice or information. Generally you are only allowed to sit for one scholarship. If a school finds out he has sat for multiple scholarships (eg both KS and Election), your son would be disqualified. You have some thinking to do to weigh up how important winning a scholarship is to you and which school is otherwise your preference.

Thank you very much.

I understand that the KS requires a huge amount of preparation. I was actually hoping to learn more about how boys prepare for it and how families can best support them throughout the process, as hearing about your experience would be really helpful.

When I mentioned different schools, I meant that we have received offers from more than one school and are considering our options. Of course, I understand that the scholarship preparation needs to be focused on one school.

Can I also ask, if a boy attends one of the schools you mentioned, does the school generally provide all the necessary KS preparation, or do parents still arrange additional tutoring and extra preparation outside school? I would really appreciate understanding how it works in practice.

I did talk about this earlier up the thread. These schools are all very well rehearsed in preparing successful candidates for KS and Election WITHOUT them needing tutors as well. They also don’t have senior schools attached so they don’t have the conflict of interest that “all the way through” schools do.

What they offer includes:

• having a dedicated set consisting solely of boys doing scholarships, which works at a much faster pace, covers more advanced material and does not waste time on any CE material not required for scholarship. One of the benefits is that the boys have classmates going through the exact same mill so there is a bit of friendly competition and also moral support when things get tough.
• understanding the gap between what a boy knows/can do and what he needs to know/be able to do for KS/Election and coming up with a plan to fill it, and also knowing from past experience what “on track” progress looks like
• having the teachers in every required subject who know what questions come up in the exams and have the right teaching materials to help prepare them.
• having teachers available out of hours/in the holidays if boys need help (being a boarding school is useful in this respect)
• having a vast library of past papers to use as practice question/mock exams.
• being a trusted feeder - meaning that when they tell Eton or Winchester or whoever that your son is a good candidate and should be allowed to take the exam, they are believed
• being able to give good advice on which scholarship and which papers to sit
• being an exam centre, so boys can sit the papers in familiar surroundings without having to travel.

I don’t like repeating myself this much but you said you wanted honesty: DIY is not a serious option. This is not like the 11+. Just the fact that you are here asking Mumsnet about which prep books to buy suggests your intentions are well meaning but that you are not getting good advice at the moment, and have not been asking the right questions. Please go and speak to a couple of these heads and see what they have to say, and maybe a couple of specialist KS tutoring firms as well to get an idea of just how much extra that would cost you if you went the tutoring route.

Thank you so much for taking the time to explain everything in such details. I really appreciate you sharing your experience and giving me a better understanding of what KS preparation involves.

It would also be lovely to hear from other parents who have been through the process and are happy to share their experiences of how they approached preparation and supported their children along the way.

@rectangula For some reason I feel like I have wasted my time and yours explaining all this.
Maybe there will be someone on MN who pops up claiming their son won a KS or Election using only a ChatGPT self-study programme (in which case I have a bridge to sell you), and that will be more in line with what you want to hear! Good luck.

I’m sorry you feel that way, as I think it’s actually the other way around. I genuinely appreciate the time you’ve taken to explain everything, and I’m sorry if I gave you the impression that I was looking for someone to tell me what I wanted to hear. That was never my intention.

I was simply hoping to understand different experiences and approaches to preparation.

Thank you again for sharing your experience.

I think that the previous poster's point is that to optimise your son's chances of success, he needs to be in a school that has the experience and kudos to help him prepare.

A quick search of recent schools shows that the overwhelming majority of schools that had success were prep schools.

There were some grammar schools, and that preparation may have differed slightly. The traditional route to a King's Scholarship or Election is via an academic prep.

Thank you, I completely understand and appreciate the point being made. I’m well aware that the traditional route to a King’s Scholarship is through an academic prep school, and these schools have both the experience and expertise to prepare boys and provide a realistic assessment of their suitability for the scholarship. I also understand that attending a feeder prep school can increase a boy’s chances of success.

Unfortunately, changing schools isn’t an option for us, so I’m simply trying to understand how best to support my son within his current circumstances. I’m very grateful for everyone’s advice and perspectives.

I am going to have one last go at explaining and then I promise I will give up and leave it.

The point about feeder preps is not just that they know how to prepare boys for these unbelievably tough exams, but they also know, from long experience, whether it is in a child’s best interests to sit for them. It is about more than just a few good CAT scores in year 6 - it’s to do with maturity, potential, work ethic, attitude to extreme difficulty, and also what the goal really is. Is it to be in with a chance of winning a KS or Election, or is it because the boy will really benefit from the preparation process? (A responsible prep school - and the senior schools in question - would say that the latter is more important than the former.)

As you can see from other threads, this is not a straightforward decision, even for the brightest of boys. It needs to be a three way conversation between the school, parents and boy himself, because it requires enormous commitment from all three parties and if any of them aren’t fully bought in, it will be a very difficult and probably counter productive time ahead. Many parents decide that, while the idea is very flattering, it is not in their son’s best interest, and there will be ample time once he is at Eton or Winchester to dazzle academically.

What is worrying about what you have described is that your son’s current prep can’t and won’t help your son prepare, knows nothing about the process, AND, worst of all, is in no position to give you informed advice as to whether this path is genuinely in his best interests.

You say changing prep is not an option but if your son is ultra, ultra talented and obviously capable of winning KS with no school support, then any KS feeder prep in the land would welcome him in Y7, possibly even with a scholarship or bursary. In some cases, senior schools will even subsidise the last two years of prep school for outstanding candidates. Worse case scenario, you will gain useful information from having those conversations, from people who really know what they are doing.

If you are unwilling to countenance that route, then the only viable alternative is tutoring, from a specialist company with a track record in preparing successful KS candidates. But there are disadvantages to this. First, it will cost you many thousands of pounds, on top of whatever school fees you are paying. Secondly, financial incentives inevitably impact what the tutors say and do. There are some tutors who take on and/or retain long shot students with desperate parents because money talks. Thirdly, all this intensive tutoring will be happening on top of school hours and the CE curriculum they teach, so you need to think about the impact on your son of trying to do both. For candidates at KS feeder preps, the preparation is gruelling enough as it is, but you will be expecting your son to do all this AND his normal school commitments.

I don’t need another polite response saying thanks but can anyone recommend the right prep books from WH Smith. Instead please ask yourself whether you have enough information yet to be certain that the path you are choosing is in your son’s best interests. That’s all. Over and out.

KS Latin is most of the gcse language syllabus (don’t think you need subjunctive, but can’t swear to it). I think that could be tough in a year

Thank you very much for sharing your thoughts. Fortunately, we started Latin preparation some time ago. I do appreciate that there is still quite a lot to cover over a year and a half.