Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Education

Join the discussion on our Education forum.

Original poster

Prep school admission test for reception class

223 replies

Sue9 · 02/10/2008 04:35

Hello, my DS is to have an informal assessment in November, for a reception place in 2009.

Does anyone know what sort of tests they give to 3 year olds?

Since the prep school takes the vast majority of their students at reception, and most get the independent school places they want at 11+. I am assuming their testing at age 3 is accurately predicting future performance at 11+.

I just don?t know what tests they will give him on the day. I really would like to prepare him for it if possible.

Could someone please help?

OP posts:
AbbeyA · 04/10/2008 22:53

I wouldn't put my 3 yr old through it however informal.I would rather HE, it is not the sort of school that I would want for them-even if they were a child genius!

Judy1234 · 04/10/2008 22:55

Why is it depressing? It's just a fact. All through our lives we are compared and tested. Some are prettier than others, some more clever. It is how life is. Also there is no pressure on a 4 year old at all unless a stupid parent makes it. They think they're there to play and have a look around. Hopefully no parent says this is very important, don't mess up. They;ll say there are a few schools you might go to and you're going to get the chance to play with some other children etc.

In the ones I know around here they first test in a group and if you pass that you have a one to one interview. They also in one give the child a ball to kick for obvious reasons. There are lots of things you can test in 3 and 4 year olds. The children enjoy this. Ther eis no pressure, unlike state schools with their dreadful SATS. It is a way to buy your way out of that kind of state school pressure in a sense.

AbbeyA · 04/10/2008 22:56

They are babies Xenia!!

sherby · 04/10/2008 22:59

eeww eeww and eewww

What a sense of shame these children must have then if they don't get a place, do you think they don't feel some sense of failure or knowing they haven't performed right

fucking weird imo

Quattrocento · 04/10/2008 23:04

No you are not right about a sense of shame about whether or not they have performed well in the admission test. To start with, as a parent I took the decision not to tell DD if she didn't get in to the school. She doesn't need to know at all. It wasn't relevant in the event, because she got into them.

Now what really could engender a sense of shame is if a child is admitted who then cannot keep up and gets eased out of the school. Now that could really be demoralising for the child and gain a bad reputation for the school. That's why they do the work around admission. To protect both parties.

sherby · 04/10/2008 23:29

But presumably they get it wrong sometimes?

And surely some of the children who don't get in must have an awareness of what was going on? I admire the fact that you didn't tell your lo, but as it sounds like some people do do 'coaching' what do they tell their lo's

NotCod · 04/10/2008 23:30

has anyone said what wank it is to haev a test in PLAYING fgs

MrsMattie · 04/10/2008 23:31

lol@Cod

I can't even formulate a response anymore. It is so silly and pretentious, yet so disturbing.

NotCod · 04/10/2008 23:31

you lto who do this are, id say< wankers
pis off

Quattrocento · 04/10/2008 23:40

You make it sound as though it is akin to female circumcision. It really is not a big deal. If you want your child to go to an academically selective school (as I believe you do, Cod) then that's the admission procedure. Far more painless at 3 than it is at 11. Given that at 3, they don't even know they are being tested and cannot develop any anxieties about it.

MrsMattie · 04/10/2008 23:42

It's not female circumcision, it's just (IMHE) in very poor taste, not to mention a load of absolute pony (academically advanced at 3 urs old? Yeh, okey dokey smoky!)

sherby · 04/10/2008 23:45

and now we are going to test running about with screachy voices and boping each other on the head

Quattrocento · 04/10/2008 23:52

Every single academically selective independent school that admits at 3 will do a similar process. This is a shedload of schools.

You're starting from the position that it is entirely impossible to work out what a 3 year old's potential is, but the schools don't. They are not wasting weeks and weeks over the admission processes for their own amusement - they need to get it right. They don't always but they do mostly.

If the prospect of a 3 year old chatting to a teacher for less than an hour and cutting out some shapes disturbs you so much, then you'll need to give those sorts of schools a wide berth. They seem like pretty reasonable schools to me, so I went through it with both of my children and they don't seem to have been emotionally scarred by it.

MrsMattie · 04/10/2008 23:53

It does disturb me. And I wouldn't pay 10 grand a year for the 'privilege'. Thanks.

LittlePushka · 05/10/2008 00:15

Friends LO (3)was asked if he would look at the plastic ducks and pick out the biggest. He said, "Nope, don't like ducks"

And walked off.

On retrieval to hot set conversation went thus:

" Can you build a tower with these bricks?"
"Yes"
"Will you build a tower with these bricks?"
"Nope, you build a tower"

And walks off again.

HURRAH for him I say! Ridiculous idea to test for nursery places IMO.

Judy1234 · 05/10/2008 09:25

Clearly people have very different views on this kind of thing but without a doubt these very selective schools do very well by very clever children who benefit right through their lives. I do think a whole load of the advantages my daughters have who have both now graduated in all sorts of areas from sport to confidence to music to friends made to qualifications are down to getting into Habs and North London at primary level as well as their genes of course too.

There is no stress at all on entrance tests. In fact you remove stress at 11+ if the child is in the school at 5 because most go through to 18 if they pass the exam at 11. A 11 they have to qualify and not compete which is much easier. So you're paying to remove stress from them.

AbbeyA · 05/10/2008 09:35

How can you possibly know at the age of 3 that your DC is suited to a highly selective school?!! I think it means that you want them to be highly intelligent and go to a selective school. It could be the worst thing possible for your DC.
I would also query why the school wants what they judge to be the most intelligent DCs. All I can think of is that they want to be top of a league table. They can be a dreadful school but still achieve if they have the 'best'.
I can see the point of selection at a later age if they have decided that they are going to be a selective school, but even then they waste potential. The waste of potential at 3 must be mind boggling!
I can see that it favours pretty, articulate, friendly little girls but I can't see that it does much else!
If they have a choice of a 3 yr old girl who chats away and tells them her whole life history and a little boy who sticks his thumb in his mouth and won't even say 'hello' the choice is going to be obvious even if the little boy has a massive IQ. My cousin's son didn't say a word until he was 5 but then he spoke in complete sentences with a very advanced vocabulary.
My DS3 was very like the boy mentioned by LittlePushka and if I was running a school that is the sort of DC I would take, a DC who refuses to jump through the idiotic hoops that adults set! My 3 yr old looked at the doctor as if he was mad when asked to build a tower of 3 bricks, he actually removed his thumb and did it but it was quite obvious he thought it was a silly request. He did everything and was written down in the notes as 'silently co operative'.
I find it deeply distressing-why can't our DCs be children without having to achieve?

Dottoressa · 05/10/2008 09:45

Isn't this thread rather wandering off the OP's question? She wasn't asking for opinions about independent schools' admissions tests; she was asking about what kinds of things to expect, which is a perfectly legitimate question.

I didn't read the OP as an invitation for people to start ranting about how much they hate independent schools/their admissions policies!

If you don't agree with their admissions policies, why not go and start another thread about how rubbish they are?

Quattrocento · 05/10/2008 09:49

You've raised an important point about parental aspirations Abbey. Of course you are right when you say that it is parental aspiration that causes people (me) to put their children into a highly academic school. That's a personal reaction. For us, I guess it is less about recreating the children in our mould and more about wanting them to have educational and other opportunities that we feel exist in those schools (and that we do not feel are as readily available elsewhere).

It might be possible to work out whether or not children are bright enough to benefit from it at 3, but it is not clear how anyone can work out whether or not they will respond to the pressure of that environment in a positive way. FWIW my children have seemed to be entirely happy at their schools and contented. If they had not been, I would have withdrawn them, as I believe most parents would.

I keep reiterating this but the admission process at 3 is entirely painless. Just look at the stuff parents and schools subject children to during primary years - SATS etc and competitive examinations at 7 and 11. You actually save all this grief through what is effectively a playdate at 3. Well worth it IMO.

AbbeyA · 05/10/2008 09:50

My DS went to a top university Xenia (the same one that he would have chosen if he had gone to an independent, selective school) and he wasn't asked to jump through a hoop at 3 yrs of age! I had no idea at that age that he would have been suited to a university education. He developed at his own pace. He did it through the local comprehensive school who do their best for all children not just the ones that will make them look good in a league table.

AbbeyA · 05/10/2008 09:54

I don't think it has wandered off the point Dottoressa, it is saying don't put them through it!
I think it is deeply distressing that society would expect DCs to achieve at the age of 3yrs! It is the one time in their lives they should be free and not judged.
It isn't a world I want to live in!

SqueakyPop · 05/10/2008 09:54

An assessment day is not necessarily the school making a choice to offer/not offer. It can be just a 'getting to know you'.

The more info they have on the child, the more they can prepare for him when he arrives.

It is not as sinister as a lot of you would like to think.

AbbeyA · 05/10/2008 09:56

It sounds like Japan to me where a DC has failed in life if they don't get into the 'right' kindergarten.

Quattrocento · 05/10/2008 09:59

You're just exaggerating now "It isn't a world I want to live in ..." What an emotive response to a chat.

Is this all bound up with how you feel about private schools? If so I agree with Dotoressa that it is time for another thread, because none of this can be helpful or supportive to the OP.

compo · 05/10/2008 10:00

I would have thought any kind of selecting of 3 year olds was really about the school selecting the parents, ascertaining what kind of moral fibre the child was coming from etc