Prep school admission test for reception class

[Sue9]

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?

Each to their own. I have experienced a bit of jealousy from a colleague who has excellent state schools on their doorstep. Rather than being grateful for that he makes sniping comments about my wealth (despite earning significantly more than me!) because I have chosen private school and cut my hours to facilitate doing the occasional school run. He spend his money on home improvements and holidays, I spend mine on my ds. I really don't think one method of education is better than the other. I have friends who do a mix for their dc depending on the needs of the individual child.

my ds followed in his mother's footsteps by "failing" a private school "assessment of pontetial" (which dtermined whether they got offered a place) to our local private school, at age 4. Fortunately we then found out that we were actually in the catchment of the school we wanted to go to anyway (it's not actually the closest school and we thought we were going to have to do a placing request).

We realised it wouldn't be right for him when we saw a parent cramming her wee boy by getting him to read a book to her (when we knew that all ds knew was the ltter "M" as his nursery didn't actually start doing any reading with them - they took the view that they had plenty of time when they started school! ) at the second assessment session 9they do it in tow parts in case a kid had an off day).

As it was ds was developmentally ready for reading until two years later - but he is a bright, sociable and happy boy (the most imprtant thing! ) - who is brilliant with numbers!

My mum takes great pleasure in telling me how I was rejected for one of the grant maintained (at the time - 40 odd years ago ) schools in Glasgow -at age 4 too not surprisingly as I wasn't tutured unlike the other kids that Mum and Dad realsied had been to special "cramming" sessions.

I went on to get 6 As at "Higher" in 5th year (roughly the equivelnt of 4 As at A level)

I haven't got onto private/state education-you are reading things into my comments that simply are not there. I would use an independent school, if they had one in my area that I liked and I could afford it. I wouldn't use one that was selecting by ability at 3 yrs of age. My comment was in direct response to Xenia who seems to think it is good for young, intelligent DCs to be educated with other young intelligent DCs. I want them to mix with everyone, in my case I have a good state primary where they mix with everyone, I don't care in the least if it is private-it is the mixing of abilities that is important to me. I couldn't care less whether people pay for education or not, it is their choice. I would scrimp and save if the state wasn't offering me a school that I wanted my DCs to go to.
I think the cramming of small children, as written about by prettybird is horrible.
To get back to the opening post, I would say don't prepare him and you don't need to know the tests.
If they were to do it well they would send the parents off to have a cup of coffee, take the DC to a different room and administer the tests and send them home. If you have DCs like mine you would never find out what the tests were about, which would be doing a great favour to all DCs with pushy parents! I would say that the only preparation needed is to tell your DC that they will be playing some games and it will be a fun morning.

AbbeyA - yes, that sounds like good advice re. tests. As I think I said earlier, my DS's "assessment" at three was playing and chatting; we were supposed to go off for a coffee with the headmaster, but DS wouldn't let us out of his sight so I went with him (where he, of course, barely even noticed I was there!!)

This morning for something connected with my work I had a conversation with the head of a very prestigious non-selective prep school that gets excellent results at eleven plus
they operate a first-come, first-served policy after first birthdays. He said that in his humble opinion it's impossible to select at three that some children will obviously cry and refuse to cooperate and that in his experience those childre often turn out to be the brightest - told me about one boy who cried every day for two terms in reception who went on to win a scholarship to a major public school but would definitely have flunked any kind of assessment. He said educational psychologists have shown iqs are not "set" yet and don't until around five and that he thinks its lunacy even to make a seven yearold take a formal entrane test.
OP, back to you, having just done the procedure myself there is nothing you can do to prepare your son - if he is a confident, outgoing child he'll be fine on the day, if he is more withdrawn your drilling him will just make it worse. I wish you the best of luck

I think that is a sensible attitude jujumaman, very like my much earlier post about about Stowe School.
I have nothing at all against private education and if I could afford it, and more importantly had a school that I liked locally, I would send my DCs there-mainly to get a small class. Luckily as I can't afford school fees for 3 I have very good state schools.(not luck really as I chose to live in my town purely for the schools).
I am against selection, I am anti grammar schools in the state system and so it follows that I would be anti selection in the private sector.
I think that it is fair to select at 13yrs, but that 11yrs is too young. I am dead against it at 7 and think it is appalling at 3yrs! I don't see how any test can be devised at 3 that isn't going to discriminate against the DC who won't co operate.
I think first come first served is much fairer system. If they do want to choose, I would hope that they do not speak to the parents and that the parent has no access to the tests. There is probably nothing wrong with the system but there is a lot wrong with pushy, anxious parents trying to cram prepare their DC for the assessment.

But the selective at 5 schools which go to 18 get the best results in the UK at A level so I still think despite the fact lots of the selection for new entrants at 11 goes on that it works at 4 too.

First come first served means you get the children with IQ of 90 - 100 presumably unless we think parents who can pay don't have children like that. I said above plenty of prep schools operate on a fairly comprehensive model but with a minor kind of testing at 4+ and then they direct the children at 12+ to an appropriate next school depending on if they'#re thick or clever but others do select very competently at 4+ and I think it can work

The more interesting point is paying or even not paying for children to be educated with other clever children. That is one of the principal things I have paid for at primary and secondary level and it makes for a much more fun class room situation and ideas bounced off each other and even then you have a mixture between those with 120 IQ and the nearer to genius level so it's still pretty mixed but at a higher level. Children of course know children out of school who aren't as bright but they are educated with similar children and that works very well.

In my long-ago experience of NLCS, one of Xenia's favourite schools, in the days when they didn't select at 4 but did select at 7, it was widely known that a lot of the girls who came up from the junior school weren't all that bright. There were of course some very bright girls among them, but many of the girls who struggled in the senior school were from the juniors. I imagine they were heavily prepped for the exam.

I think the older the child is, the more reliable the testing.

I think the older the child the more reliable the testing. If the genius of 3or4yrs won't speak and refuses to take part in the tests the school will never know he was a genius!

I suspect that they aren't really selecting the child, they are selecting the parents. I'm sure I read somewhere that the best possible indicator of academic success in a child is the level of education and financial stability of the parents.

That is what I thought seeker, but Xenia and others have assured me they are not. I think it is essential not to see the parent if they are doing the testing. Hopefully, in the case of the pushy parent, they never find out what the tests involve and then they can leave their poor DC in peace!

I have never met the school staff involved in any selection process at any stage for any of my children.
They wouldn't have been able to pick me out of a line out. Parents are not part ofthe equation in any school we have applied to.

To the OP - DS1 went through and passed one of these tests. He went off to "play" without me for 45 mins, and his month of birth was on the sticker as well as his name. They said that he had learned how to do jigsaws, so I guess they thought he would be easy to teach. He had a lovely time and threw a fantastic tantrum when I told him he couldn't go back into class but had to come home instead.

But just in case the "test" was really observation of parents having cups of tea for 45 mins I worked frantically hard and managed to claim acquaintance with another mum (it took us 24 minutes to work out how we knew each other) and then loudly arrange to think about a play date with a second mum I recognised from the one time I had taken DS1 to Crechendo as we stood next to the Head. The deputy head had wittered on about the "school Community" at some length so it seemed the right thing to do (as opposed to playing with my Blackberry or reading papers from work, which is what I really wanted to do).

The DD of the first mum I talked to refused to take her coat off and sulked in the classroom the whole time (according to the DD). She also got a place.

Just back from ours.
Ds went in alone with absolutely no fuss and seemed to have enjoyed himself when he came out. It was supposed to be an informal 'get to know you session' and seemed just that.

I was surprised as they said he was quite chatty....slight worry that when the teacher made a mistake he says he gave her a 'silly teacher award' . Let's hope they have a sense of humour (I ask him if they laughed and he said yes but not sure how reliable 3 year olds are with this sort of thing!)

So you had no conversations with the Head or any of the teachers, pagwatch? How did you know whether you wanted to send your child to the school then?

DS1 'failed' 2 assessments to selective prep schools at age 4. He was the type who wouldn't go to parties on his own and he screamed and hung onto my coat at each assessment until he was dragged in. In hindsight I should have just picked him up and left, but being my first born I was very inexperienced and thought I was doing the best.
He got into a non-selective prep and proceeded to go at 13 to probably the most academic public school in london. He has just got 9 A* and 1 A (art) in GCSEs. Unfortunately I still feel like putting my fingers up at the schools which rejected him at 4. But to be honest it was me that was upset at the rejection, he had no idea what it was all about.

I don't have a problem with staff assessing a DC without the parent. Assessments would be fine if it was left to the DCs and everyone had a level playing field. If the DC has a high enough IQ it will show through. If they have to be tutored, prepared, crammed, call it what you will, I would question whether they are suited to a place.

In answer to your question, seeker I would assume that people had talked to the Head and staff without their DC to see the school and ask questions and that the assessment is entirely different.

I would too - and I would expect he Head to make pretty detailed notes! But I'm cynical like that!

Just to add that both mine were led away from parents and played with. We applied to two schools for each child and they both did that.

I remember being vaguely worried that DS would spend the whole time sucking his thumb. He gets monosyllabic when he sucks his thumb (he still does it). So I did warn him about that. Notwithstanding the careful warning, he still sucked his thumb all the way through both sessions though ... he told me afterwards! He did get in to both though.

All those parents crowding round at open days trying to make an impression are so amusing to watch. The teachers have no idea who any of them are and certainly don't have time to take notes about the parents etc. They want bright children in the school so they assess the child no the appointed day (in the academic private schools). There are plenty of other private schools without any selection which are comprehensive and presumably some very snobby ones where the parents and how they are matter rather than the child.

Children certainly don't feel upset when they don't get into particular schools younger. My sister's twin sons where one got into the pre pre and the other didn't and so they went elsewhere until they were 7 and then get on, those boys wouldn't have a clue they hadn't got into a school. They got into another one and it didn't matter. My daughters did really well at two different schools. There is certainly no stress on the child. It was Blair who was trying to stop schools like the Oratory, a state school his children went to from interviewing the child and parents in the state sector. Well known that where the state sector interviews there is a risk of bias - that the nice middle class girl will get a place whereas the disruptive boy whose father has tattoos and just got out of prison might not do so well at interview. So in the state system they don't like interviews as they want a mixture. I don't want my chidlren educated in that kind of mixture. I think in life some of us are cleverer than others and different in other ways and it does us good to be educated in the right environemnt, not all lumped in togetyher. It was when tha grammar schools went and we lumpked most children in together tha the private schools began to streak ahead academically because the state system was to an extent ruined by that.

seeker

I attended the open day and was escorted around, with DD by two girls from higher in the school. Afterwards I returned to the school and handed a form to the registrar.
When I arrived for the assessment DD was collected by bigger girls from the senior school at one school and from a TA at the other.

Now I am really happy to believe that I cut quite a dash. But nevertheless I would have still been surprised to catch then murmering to each other that she is pag ergo that is paglet.
Of course I may be wrong.
I am pretty impressive.

And possibly the bursar fancied me.

Mostly my decision re the schools was made by meeting the girls who were charming and funny and confident and who talked openly and asked any question .
I heard both Head teachers speak at the open days and , as we were shown around the school by the girls we watched some 'activities' with teachers on hand to ask questions if we wanted.
We didn't.
I watched.
I am a bit stalkerish like that.
I would Waaayyy prefer to talk to the pupils

Similar to Pag - the thing that impressed me most about my first choice school was that the pupils were happy, really comfortable and chatty with the head whilst he showed us round (he knew all their names too which I liked) and were generally the kind of boys I'd like ds to hang around with and turn out like.

Re interviewing the parents. I guess if I were running a (private) school I would want to do this as I'd want to know if their ethos was broadly in line with the schools. If a school doesn't even talk to the parents I'd be a bit dubious about it.

I looked at two private schools and had individual appointments with the head rather than doing an open day. First school because that is what was suggested and second because I wanted to try and compare like with like. First school we spent so long in the Headmaster's study being told what a fantastic school he ran that by the time we got to look at the school it was lunch time (meant we spent 1.25 hrs stuck in his study!). This meant we didn't actually see any children in classrooms. I didn't think anything about that until I did 3 state school visits and with each one saw children in classes interacting with teachers. Having spoken to 4 other sets of parents since I discovered they all had the same experience with this private school and I thought that was a bit odd. I also didn't like the way the head completely ignored my ds (then a well-behaved and chatty 3 yr old). Completely ignored him in not answering any questions he asked and suggesting that he stay with the registrar whilst we looked round the school! When the pupils in the dining room saw the head come into the room it went from being noisy to completely silent.

The second private school I visited we spent about 30 to 40 mins in the head's study during which time she asked my ds loads of questions and answered his. We went round the school and saw children in classes. She introduced my ds first to each class and was generally fab with him. We saw how the pupils and teachers interacted and we saw how the head interacted with them too. Pupils respectful but a little bit cheeky, which I liked. Unlike the first school I could imagine my ds going there (he started this term).

Academically the first school is known for being a bit of a hot house but surprisingly the results from the second school are better.

My ds had some problems adjusting to the change from a Montessori nursery to reception and I have been hugely impressed at how the school have promptly dealt with my concerns and given necessary support.