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Original poster

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

493 replies

Heist · 16/09/2019 10:51

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.

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IPSJ · 18/06/2021 11:46

Hi @southwestlondonmum
Thank you
We used Bond, Shofield, CGP books and papers from this site exampapersplus.co.uk/papers/eleven-plus/. I also recommend to try Mock exam as early as you can.

southwestlondonmum · 19/06/2021 16:13

Thank you @IPSJ and many congrats again!

Lily7050 · 21/06/2021 11:12

Congratulations to everyone with boys admitted to King's and St Paul's.
Just curious how did you manage the preparation process. Were your children prepared by their schools or you had to hire tutors? Or parents' help was sufficient?
Particularly interested to find out how kids from state schools, like Heist's son, have prepared for exams.

IPSJ · 22/06/2021 15:38

My son is from the state school. He did English with the tutors and my husband did Math with him. It helped a lot that during lockdown dad worked from home

Shehr · 26/09/2021 23:07

Anybody doing the 7+ this year? We are going to be trying for St Paul’s and Kings. I would really appreciate some advice on what we should focus on in the coming weeks. There is already some brilliant tips on this thread but I would love some tips on how we can improve our comprehension speed. At the moment my DS struggles to finish it all under 25 minutes. PLEASE HELP!

VeryWorriedParents19 · 27/09/2021 14:09

We are also sitting 7+ this year and would appreciate advice on how to improve the reading comprehension within next a few weeks Confused

Shehr · 27/09/2021 20:15

@VeryWorriedParents19 What’s schools are you targeting? Hows the prep coming along?

VeryWorriedParents19 · 02/10/2021 16:59

@Shehr we are aiming for KCS but wan to give a try for SPJ as well. Quite challenging given our son is a state school - good one but they won’t prepare boys for these exams and can be one or two years behind the private school progress

2minutesplease · 02/10/2021 23:04

VeryWorriedParents, we are not alone :) My DS is at state school too. Apparently about 20% of state school boys are getting offers after 7+ exams, so… let’s keep our fingers crossed 🤞

Worriedmum142 · 03/10/2021 07:26

My son was at a state school. He successfully sat 7+ last year. I would not consider it a disadvantage.

Jesse21plus · 04/10/2021 11:58

My son is also at state school and will sit for 7+ next month. @Worriedmum142 do you know what score they need to achieve in the exam to secure offer from these schools? Quite worried as we do sense the curriculum my son is doing at his school is a bit behind from the pre preps. We know we have to put in effort at home but not sure how ready he is

Worriedmum142 · 04/10/2021 12:38

@Jesse21plus I am not sure what score you are referring to? I don’t think the schools ever openly publish it. Yes, he had to be a bit in front of the curriculum but not by a lot. We have prepared him. We decided very late to try for 7+ and started preparing in the beginning of September. We did 30 minutes before school every day. Weekends were for homework. His school gave a lot of homework. He had an English tutor once a week (we don’t speak English at home). Over Christmas we did 2h a day (one in the morning and 1 in the afternoon). It was hard but more on us then on him. To be honest we have a lot of friends whose boys were in private schools and had significantly more prep/tutoring before the exam. My point is even in private schools boys are prepared at home. I would think that the fact that he did not have the pressure at school was rather an advantage. We really tried not to pressure him, not sure we always succeeded. I did yell at him and did apologise… Bis biggest advantage was that he really really wanted to pass this exam and go to a new school. If anyone asks me what is the key to prepare a boy I would say motivate him, show him the school, make him really want it. This is easier for a boy from a state school as the difference to the new school is bigger (games, clubs etc). I hope it helps! Best of luck!

Jesse21plus · 04/10/2021 13:20

@Worriedmum142 thank you so much for sharing your experience! My son’s school doesn’t give much homework so we have to find homework for him ourselves. Agree with you and we try to avoid putting pressure on him. We heard in the past some schools would share exam results with those who worked through to the next stage while others only disclose to those who don’t move to the next stage. Not sure any parents here aware the passing score to get offers. Thanks

icantbelievethis001 · 05/10/2021 15:38

@Jesse21plus SPJ will provide rankings of how the boys did in the exam across maths, English, dictation and overall. They will communicate this in the second round when the parents meet the head. Typically they invite about 100 boys to the second round for the 54 places.

Jesse21plus · 05/10/2021 23:03

@icantbelievethis001. Thank you so much! Sounds like only ranking would be advised. Tried to see usually what scores or % boys need to achieve in order to be considered

Lolakath19 · 07/10/2021 10:40

Morning, did anyone had KCJ interview already? how did it go? and what was the format?

Shehr · 08/10/2021 14:19

We have had ours. It was pretty chilled out. Most of the boys after the interview looked happy. I think the new head does a great job at making them feel at ease.

I couldn’t get much out of my DS other than that he read a passage and then the head asked a few comprehension questions. There were also timestables questions. This all of course was in addition to questions like hobbies etc

habsboys2020 · 12/10/2021 19:46

When do we hear back from Kings regarding interview results?

2minutesplease · 12/10/2021 20:08

We won’t. All boys will take part in activity morning and sit written exam, and then Kings will measure the performance of all kids throughout the whole assessment.

Shehr · 12/10/2021 20:44

@habsboys2020 how did the interview go for your DS?

Shehr · 12/10/2021 20:45

@2minutesplease do you know how the group assessment works at Kings? And how long it is?

Lolakath19 · 14/10/2021 09:29

Hi Shehr
You should have received an invite for the morning group assesment. It will last 2.5 hour and boys are going to experience school there probably a maths and english lesson.
Hope this helps

2minutesplease · 14/10/2021 10:07

Hi Shehr,
We too received a letter. My DS will go on Friday the 12 November at 9.00, to be collected 2.5 hours later. Btw if you cannot open their email on the phone (my case) try laptop!

Jesse21plus · 24/10/2021 17:11

Just a couple of weeks before the exams, any advice about last min prep work? Any suggestions would be much appreciated. Clearly we’re more nervous than our DS

Suspot · 18/11/2021 14:12

Hi wiseMums!

Anyone that went to the 7+ exam (or 8+) at Kings know how many Groups there were for 7+ and 8+?

I thought that 1-15 for 7+, and 26-30 for 8+ but it seems like there were 22 to 25 Groups next to the Southside entrance and dont know if those were for 7+ or 8 +... I didnt pay attentionConfused

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