7+ WUS and SPJ 2022

[animalplanet1]

Hi there,

Just feel it's been very quiet here this year on the 7+ exams and no thread has appeared wrt to those two schools.

Anyone out there also prepping?

xxx

3 classes, each start from 18 & up to 20, the actual number is around 60. Same as WUS, 1 class, start from 20 & up to 22. Like minded people tend to get together, not surprised friends would tend to pick the same school. It’s very hard to make decisions for them at this age! Hopefully we won’t be thinking, what if we have chosen the alternative choice! 😂

It basically becomes tribal and rivalry for the next 10 years based mainly on parent choices at 6 :)

There are only 1 or 2 families I believe who desire SPJS here and it's because they believe it is less work (they're generally speculating). Parents who actually attended SPS as kids are here and are happy with school.

DS is one of the fastest over 60m in London and there isn't anything SPJS would add to his sport except access to a swimming pool on the school site.

Location matters more than anything.

I would disagree…..I actually feel SPJS is actually more popular, but then that’s to parents I have spoken to.

Fair enough we don't talk to every family in WUS this is just in the circles we know. A couple of families worried about work load.

In our circles outside WUS yes SPJS is preferred as I mentioned before in this thread.

I see ladies! Thank you for clarifications.

Also looking at 2022 GCSE results, SPS is top. GCSE is the better comparison as both WUS and SPS are boys only.

@Caps0218 think most league tables out there have the St Paul's Girls school at the top?

www.best-schools.co.uk/uk-school-league-tables/list-of-league-tables/top-100-schools-by-gcse

this is what I found.

Here the positions are different
www.schoolguide.co.uk/league_tables/independent

another version is here
www.fhs-sw1.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/The-Times-Top-400-Independent-Schools.pdf

Here both St Paul’s are not even mentioned, which is obviously ridiculous

ukguardianship.com/independent-school-a-level-rankings/

so I would take all these rankings and slight movements with a pinch of salt.

If you look at the GCSE (9, 8, 7) results you’ll see that

SPSG - 99.3%
Kings - 96.4%
SPS- 96.1%
Westminster - 97.3%

www.fhs-sw1.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/The-Times-Top-400-Independent-Schools.pdf

No big difference isn’t it? A couple of students per year who got 6 instead of 7?

Couldn’t agree more. The difference is beyond minor and your child would likely to the same at any of these schools (and many others!). Surely it then comes down to what suits your DC, where you live, the ambience etc that you like? Dare I say it - parent group too?! I only add the latter having moved school recently in younger years and having found a general group of parents that don’t share our outlook (want extra work/tutored for years/want to know why their prince or princess hadn’t received an award that week) x

I think that is actually an old leage table from a few years ago, as looking at results on schools' own sites, the 2022 GCSE Grade 8/9 were (not all of them list 7/8/9):
SPS - 94%, WUS - 93%, KCS - 91%, SPGS - 94.5%

Small differences for sure.

And this is my issue with WUS vs SPJS debates that don't conclude with "location"

You could very easily splice those results differently -- pupils getting all 9s and Westminster is ahead. Or you could look at uni exits that beat (for boys and girls) exits pressured by over representation of independent schools.

Would SPS beat Westminster at football? More times than not. Would SPS beat schools in the Surrey direction? No they're not the beat at sport universally.

Depending on what parents are looking for. For me, the uniqueness of WUS is unparalleled. It definitely is not an exam machine, despite having stunning results!

@Wxluuu "I've also heard boys not even on WUS 7+ waitlist this year getting calls of offers as the school had a lot of offer rejections."

If this were true, I'd be deeply disturbed as a friend of mine's son is on the WUS 7+ Reserve List (short) and has not received a call yet. Who are these "boys", from school or personal? Please confirm this is really true and I'll be totally shocked that they are not calling boys on Reserve List instead.

It is such a silly & unrealistic claim which lead to me thinking we can never be sure what’s the motives of strangers on internet. Posts from previous years mentioned people trying to discourage others to take space so they can move up waiting list. I’ll def be thinking twice if my DCs future classmates parents are in such, well, style.

@njshore I don't know them personally so can't verify. Everyone has their own circle and knows parents who also know other parents so 'information' goes around, true or false it's up to our own judgement.

It was not my intention to induce anxiety or spread rumours. Was merely sharing what i've heard as everyone here.

Best to call up the school and ask so your friend hears it directly if in doubt.

Ah, yes. I heard that the friend of a friend of a friend's mum's friend heard someone on the street saying that WUS had to try to beg the lowest-scoring 6 year old from the worst school in London to accept a place, but the poor child broke down in tears and begged his mummy to send him to SPJS instead!

Good afternoon all, I went through the process last year and i know it can be stressful and some old rivality will show up at the end of the process.
KCS, SPJ, WUS and LU are all wonderful schools and it is very likely that your son will do exactly the same at any of those.
GCSE / A level differences are minimal and should not be a factor for deciding. Proximity / ethos and your general feeling about the school should be the priority. it can be that one boy will have offer from KCS but not from SPJ and WU. It can happen that DS can have SPJ but not KCS or WU. It does not mean that if they don t have an offer this year, that they dont have the standard. Remember that they are 6/7 years old and there are different exams on different days.
All these 3 schools go through the waiting list in general which they try to keep quite short. The admission team will probably tell you the length, where your son is and is likelihood to receive an offer. But WL don t generally move before the day of acceptance. People on the WL can expect a call back the day after that, where the admission will call them in order and ask for an answer. It may take a couple of weeks to hear anything if any. Then there would probably be the odd cases where people move abroad and WL will start to move again later in the year.
There is no such thing like WU calling people not on WL. THey will likely have a class with less people the first year and add another applicant for 8+.

We are on WUS reserve list but didn’t hear from school… yet :( I was shocked when I read the message above…

Any tips on making DS' move to new school post 7+ easier emotionally? DS feels sad about leaving current school...

Our approach was to introduce "big school" 2+ years before joining. Even when DS was too young to tour (for example in nursery) we would walk by and say "this is big school"

We did the same with prep (in fact he visited his current prep twice) and we go to events at senior schools that he may attend.

I also take DS to a number of unis that I work with to look around.

In the case of DS it meant he was always aware of the next move and excited about it.

Probably not helpful but made the entire prep enrolling process easy for him I feel.

Might be worth using the summer meetups to get familiar with his new class? There's usually a WhatsApp group or similar to arrange this.

Also DS still sees friends from his pre-prep outside school and at inter school events. They haven't gone forever.

Thanks, super helpful!

@elij thank you! Good idea about the big school!