Winchester Entrance or Common Entrance

[Summerstreet]

I am looking for advise and hope that the very knowledgeable mums here will be able to help. My son is in the fortunate position of having conditional offers for 2020 to Winchester College and also to a school which requires 70% at common entrance. He will remain at his Grammar school until year 9 so we will do the preparation at home , with the help of tutors.

Looking at both sets of papers the Winchester College papers look very difficult. He is a bright boy but they are way beyond him whereas the common entrance look more manageable. He will still have a lot of work to do.

Any advise would be greatly appreciated , we both love Winchester but want to be realistic. The other school is also a fantastic option.

Should start off by saying my info may be out of date.
I was told in 2011 by the admission team that every year a couple of boys sit the Winchester entrance exam who don’t have a place hoping that they will do significantly better than a boy who does have a place and take their place. HM’s don’t like it as they’ve very carefully chosen the boys for their house. Secondly you can’t fail the entrance exam you get graded A-D most boys get a smattering of all grades. Thirdly I would have thought that Winchester will take into account that your DS is not at a prep.
My DS set it in 2011 his friends at a prep sat CE and scholarship papers and the general consensus from the staff was that it was on a par with the Harrow exam but without the requirement to get top marks. The two areas of difficulty my DS had (due to appalling at his prep) was the Latin and the French. A French teacher (external from the school) looked the latter and said that it was a fair and well constructed exam (unlike the then GCSE French) not requiring an extensive vocabulary but for the foundations to be well established, a candidate is expected to be able to use the past the present and the future tenses both perfect and imperfect both spoken and write and for the oral unlike CE you can’t prepare for it in advance: so the sort of role play might be: you're at a station buying a ticket today for a train tomorrow train and a return for 10 days time. You looked up the times this morning and want to catch X and Y train. She advised me to buy a book called something like “100 common French verbs” which had all the tenses in which we did this and my DS learnt the lot and did lots of writing and spoken practice and despite pretty rubbish teaching up until two terms before the exam he passed it well much to our surprise and relief. The Latin is or at least it was hard but if your DS hasn’t gone Latin he may be exempt. The math is also considered difficult and my DS not very helpfully ever completed the curriculum at his prep because they “ran out of time” and therefore was totally unfamiliar with at least one question and again passed well (although I should add math is his thing).
We also had a place at a school requiring 70% at CE in all subjects we were advised that they would accept 69% in one. Somehow this seemed more daunting in the last two years at his prep no one had achieved this. Individual schools mark CE and the general view was that some mark harder than others but I was under no illusions that this school would mark hard. Obviously we had already declined this school by the time DS sat the Winchester entrance but looking back an exam with no set pass mark looked a more attractive propersition especially knowing that the teaching in the prep was mediocre at best.
Talk to the admissions dept keep practising past papers, they also sent us the annual report written after the exam summing the general standard achieved and areas of consistent weakness (for all subjects) in the exam it gave us an indication of what level they were expecting and was very helpful.

Sorry should have said on a par with the Harrow Scholarship exam.

Thank you @happygardening for your detailed response. He is really set on Winchester so I'm hoping that will help with the preparation. I must admit in my opinion some of the papers look tricky compared to GCSE .

Are the boys set using their entrance results as soon as they start ? Did your son enjoy his Winchester experience ? . My son clicked straight away with the housemaster and this was big factor a big factor in his decision. It also seems to have a very civilized atmosphere which I feel will suit him.

Yes I think they are set from day 1 according to their entrance exam results although there is also some movement after time.
He did enjoy Winchester just before he finished. I asked him if he’d felt he’d made the right choice, his choices were Winchester, a top super selective boys school liberal outward looking with mainly day pupils where he could have weekly boarded or a top super selective state grammar. There was a long pause and in that moment I had this awful sinking feeling, but he finally said yes he definitely felt that he made the right choice and would make the same choice again.
I’ve worked in top boarding schools the atmosphere at Winchester IMO is quite unique the camaraderie amongst the boys is pretty special as is the relationship between staff and boys. It’s liberal, few rules which suited us and hands off parenting, very occasionally a little annoying, there were some amazing dedicated teachers there who loved being free from amy curriculum constraints especially for English and history and Div but also some teaching that wasn’t always brilliant but I wasn’t looking for perfection and I genuinely believe this applies to all schools no where is perfect with only outstanding teachers. Winchester provides a very academic broad challenging and intellectual education this is least was when DS was there it’s primary objective (I’m sure nothing has changed) everything else comes second to this, if that is what your DS wants then he will be happy there.

Thank you @happygardening for taking the time to write such a detailed reply. I think all the hard work ahead will be worth it to get the chance to study at Winchester. My son feels it's the right place for him so we will do as you said and keep practicing the papers.

This is so helpful and demystifying @happygardening. Thank you. Have also been worrying about the Winchester exam and now feeling better. Good luck for your DS, OP.

My ds is also due to sit the exam in May . It does feel a little daunting , more for me than for him I think !
I am convinced that Winchester is the right school for him and couldn't be happier with our choice of housemaster . Will be keeping everything crossed until it's all over . I agree @happygardening posts are very helpful indeed .Best of luck to your ds @Hamledown and @Summerstreet

Thank you @Londonmummy06 and good luck to your DS in May.

The information is very useful indeed. hi poster Summerstreet, may I know where you can find the papers for the Winchester entrance exam . My DS just received the offer for 2121 entry , a year after your DS entry , it seems that WINCHESTER does not post any sample of past papers. Appreciate for guidance on how I can find some past papers. Thanks

Your prep school will have past papers.

Ask the admissions dept to send you some that’s what we did and they happily obliged.

Thanks Trinity and Happygardening . I will make the request to the registrar . Great advice !

Make sure any tutor you use is experienced in WEE - as many tutors just think it's like GCSE stuff, when it really isn't!