7+ exams for Westminster, King's and St. Pauls

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Hello Everyone, my son is writing 7+ exams for Westminster, St.Pauls and KCS this year.
My son is preparing for a while now and struggling in English a lot as of now.
Could someone please provide me more insights on the interview and activity tasks that the kids are asked to participate in and how to ace those bits? How could I prepare my son for these bits?
Thanks a lot.

My son is at Latymer - Kings would have been wonderful but we are too far.

Hi there, do you think there will be less applicants for WUS because some boys will have already secured places in SPJ etc.?

So SPJ has already sent out their offers, annalenav?

Looking into past several years, WUS seems always the last one (compared with SPJS,KCS) to have tests. There might be some parents don’t show up at test if they have secured offers from either SPJS or KCS, but don’t think the number of boys sitting tests at WUS change significantly. So guess the impact on the number of applicants is small. Meanwhile, for 7+, WUS only admit 22 boys while SPJS and KCS would have around 50 positions each. So even if there is drop of applicant number, the ratio to get offer from WUS won’t be much different compared with the other two as many of them tend to apply at least 2 of these 3 schools if not all of them

I don’t know for sure but was told that offers will go out next week. We didn’t SPJ.

We didn’t do the SPJ exam

Overall, are 7+ and 8+ exams at WUS, KCS, SPJS getting more and more difficult year on year? I mean the exam paper, not taking competition into consideration.

Annalenav- definitely, where we live Kings is first choice and some withdrew from exams before SPJ (we did this and various others we know); others wanted to keep options open and still sat. Even fewer boys sat WUS and a handful got in there who hadn’t got the other two after presumably working very hard over Xmas!

@texarkana Thanks! That’s very interesting. We didn’t sit Kings or SPJ as it is too far from where we are. However now I am wandering if signing him up for a school with only 22 available places might have been a bit foolish on my side.

There were approx 360 boys that sat WUS last year and over 400 for SPJ. Believe both were record numbers. To be expected that less sit WUS since if you have an offer from either SPJ or KCS and it is closer, why would you want to sit WUS and have to work over Xmas.

Good luck to those sitting WUS in Jan and congrats to those who can relax over Xmas with an offer secured.

@RainbowBabyMum is your DS on reserve list for kings for 8+ or 7+? My son did 8+ and is on reserve list for Kings but we won’t know until January end about the results. It’s been stressful. I tried to inquire how big or small is the list and how many places have been offered but no information was provided back. Wondering if anyone else is in the same boat as me. Thanks

Hi @Aba1, he is on reserve list for 7+. Yes the school didn't give any information. Very stressful :(. Good luck to your DS! Did he try any other schools?

Thanks @RainbowBabyMum. My DS will sir exams in January for WUS, St Paul’s and Dulwich. Let’s see what happens. It’s a stressful process until a firm offer. Good luck to you too!

For those who sat 7+ in the last couple of years, can you let me know what the dictation entails? What sort of sentences was it and how you prepare for it?
Thanks a lot

I heard WUS will do online exam for 7+ in Jan - anyone knows the form of the exam content? How the boys will do their composition?

No idea but it’s a very strange and unusual concept.

Not sure how to ensure the fairness as you can’t see if any one is helped by adults when doing online exams. And what if you experience any broadband issue in the middle of the exam. Maybe I think too much

I guess the format of the English exam will have to change? They can’t expect children to be able to type?

I agree...perhaps they would insist that they put on the mic and camera?

I heard UCS postponed to end of January. Not sure why they can’t postpone to end of next month?

Yes, don’t see why they couldn’t postpone to the following month or maybe they are worried those boys with other offers from SPJS / KCS already may have to make decision by the end of Jan? I heard Dulwich College will proceed with the exam at school so not sure why they can’t do it

WUS site is much smaller than Dulwich, hence cannot postpone till later. Plus, school will commence later in month, so they cannot delay assessments.
No creative writing or composition element to test. For English, single words need to be typed in field; no sentences required.

@OptimysticMom May I ask you how you know these details? I emailed yesterday asking for further clarification but haven’t heard back yet.

Am a WUS parent, hence I received correspondence from school re: return to school. Additionally, one of my 7+ parents asked the registrar, who responded w the details provided. You will be sent further details later today.

How will they ensure the fairness of it all? Will the tests be through a video link so they can watch each set of students while they are working through the paper? It baffles me that they’ve decided to do this online.