Alleyns Dulwich 4+ assessment

[niluferturhan]

Hi all, we consider Alleyns for a possible option for my son who just turned 3 years old. I would like to understand what exactly is their assessment criteria for better prepare my son for Nov assessment. Any parents who already took 4+ assesmsents can help me with that to have better as it is super difficult to understand how they assess those small kids? Lady from admission office told me that it will be an hour session which I found quite long honestly, but happy to get your view? Thanks

Hi - I noticed that you hadn’t got any replies. I suspect this is because no-one really knows other than the snippets the 3 and 4 year olds tell their parents.
I know a child that cried at every birthday party, barely leaving their parent’s side and got a place. Likewise, there was a very charming child who chatted happily to adults that didn’t get an offer.

This maybe hearsay but it seems they offer such that they have the birthdays spread across the year so they don’t have all winter born children.

Good luck!

Well I had the same experience, my friend's son took the 4+ assessment (for Hampton) and she told me her son did not even speak a word (she was with him in the room) and they received an offer, whereas my son is quite chatty and he took the same assessment that I was watching him from window outside that he was having fun, but we could not get an offer unfortunately. That's why I am a bit puzzled for those assessments about their criteria.

You could try asking in the family room section of the East Dulwich Forum. You might get more replies. Or East Dulwich Mums on Facebook.

How shall I join east dulwich family section, any link? Thanks

Honestly I don’t think anyone knows. My experience is that they take them off for a play session ... and that’s about it. I can’t believe there is anything scientific in it to be honest.

The web address for the East Dulwich Forum is www.eastdulwichforum.co.uk. There is a section called "The Family Room discussion" where people often post questions about local schools.

Seem to recall there was a lot of talk of spreadsheets - so various assessments were made, for listening, maths, physical coordination, etc and then it was all adjusted for exact age in months and averaged out, so if you scored highly enough across the board you were most likely to get an offer. Best of luck!

It is a systematic point based assessment and the score is adjusted for age. It covers learned knowledge, reasoning questions and cognitive development assessment. They also ask for a confidential report from their preschool / nursery.

To be honest LondonGirl83 it feels like one of those situations where they are fooling themselves. If they didn’t have the fancy forms would they still come out with the same answer?

I’l think kids development is really uneven at this age so it’s hard to predict who will be advanced long term versus whose developmentally ahead just right now.

However, I don’t think they’d come up with the same answer without age adjusting the results. I’ve seen autumn born kids in my DD’s preschool waitlisted over summer kids who could do less but we’re younger iyswim.