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

[Heist]

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.

SPJ 7+ interviews were from 3-9 December (today is last date), results expected by email on 13 December

The SPJ results are out! We got an email this morning. Letter was put in post yesterday, 2 days earlier than said in letter!

Hi everyone. Congratulations to everyone who has had an offer from SPJ. Great to know before Christmas, too. Our DS did not sit for King’s or St Paul’s but he is sitting for Westminster next week. Anyone else on this thread left who will be there?

We will sit WUS tomorrow. Do you feel prepared?

Hi @Tingting01. Good luck to your DS tomorrow. How are you feeling? Our DS is at a state school and we know we are up against it, but we will see how it goes. A big day for our boys tomorrow - best of luck to you.

Thank you! And to your DS too! I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t believe in pushing him too much. We did prepare over the Xmas hols, a few past papers etc. If it goes well of course we’ll be delighted, but I don’t mind doing it again at 8 plus when he will be better prepared. We are at a prep that does try to prepare them so I’m hoping that is sufficient.

However still feeling nervous! It’s a long shot for us. The problem is finishing the comprehension and writing on time...

If your son has been prepared well by his prep school hopefully that will be ok. I agree about not over-prepping them, although I think we have probably taken that to extremes! I am not very hopeful but we will see how it goes. I agree on the English timings - also an issue for our DS. Keeping everything crossed today.

@Tingting01 hope your son was ok this morning. I saw quite a few very tearful and stressed boys (not my DS, who barely looked back to say goodbye to me!). Hope it goes really well for your son. Good luck!

Hope it went well @Manchester7 , I remember you from the other thread. Sounds like DS was happy at least!

Good luck

How did he find it? Mine left some questions out of each paper - so not too optimistic considering the competition !

My DS finished all the papers and thinks they went well but once he started talking it through it’s obvious he’s made quite a few mistakes. So not feeling very optimistic. Fingers crossed for your DS. The non verbal reasoning seems to have been designed to have very few children finish it so I doubt him not finishing will rule him out at all. At least there’s only a short wait!

Thanks very much, @Minormiracle. Hope all is well with you.

My DS found the paper a little bit harder than SPJ and found the non verbal the hardest of all, especially the four rung word ladders, of which there were a few of that type, which even I had some trouble doing myself.

I meant the verbal reasoning as opposed to the non verbal. Maths and Comprehension were ok, but some of the maths was hard. One of the questions was what is the lowest number that can be divided by 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5. And that was supposedly one of the easier questions!

@Icannotbelievethis001 That is a tough question for a parent let alone a 7 year old! How did your son find the NVR? My DS said they had to do 6 questions in 4 minute slots so it was tough and he found the spatial awareness ones really difficult. I am not sure how much insight into the papers my DS has TBH. He’s a real maths whizz so I was expecting that paper to go well for him, but he proudly announced that there were three questions at the end which were meant to be hard and he got them all, only to discover when he started discussing them that he got at least one wrong. And he finished the English very early which makes me think he won’t have written enough. He also said there was no creative writing task which sounds wrong! He also said the word ladders were tricky in VR, like your son did. Best of luck to you. At least we hear on Thursday and they don’t drag it out.

There was no creative writing this year. He and his friends were all ecstatic. :-) As you say not long to wait.

That is a relief - I was worried our DS had missed a full page of the exam or something! Thank you.

Has anyone heard from WUS yet?

nothing yet!

Last year WUS sent email in late afternoon. Good luck to everyone waiting.

Thanks abc79.

No news for us yet either. Good luck to everyone. And thank you @mummyOnTheNet for the info about timing last year. Will have no fingernails left by then!

Emails out. We're going back on Monday. Good luck all.

@Icannotbelievethis001 we haven’t received anything yet...does this mean it’s a no? Are emails sent in alphabetical order?