Manor Lodge School - 4+ Assessment Day

[JustBiscuit]

Hi everyone,

I was wondering if anyone has insights or guidance on what to expect for the 4+ Assessment Day at Manor Lodge in Shenley?

We’re not looking to do any intense prep, but since the assessment is in October, we’d love to incorporate some fun activities in the lead-up to help give our daughter the best chance.

We also considered Stormont, which we really liked, but with our newborn son, managing two different school runs in the future isn’t ideal.

Would love to hear any thoughts on the assessment process at Manor Lodge or general experiences with the school (or Stormont, for that matter!).

Thanks in advance!

Been a while but thought I’d bump this, just in case anybody has any thoughts.

It’s normally done outdoors in their forest school.

it’d a great school we have friends their that love it- they do push kids academically and a lot of sport offerings.

for assessments they don’t like if a child has been prepped or tutored- one of the teachers I spoke to said it was clear to them which kids are tutored and which are not.

best of luck

Manor Lodge has a scoring system for the various activities they ask the children to do. Writing, drawing, counting, phonics, critical thinking tasks etc. Mostly 1:1 assessed by staff. Offers are based on those scores I think.

They will assess about 200 children in one day over 3/4 groups. Biggest challenge is the separation. 60ish kids leaving 60ish parents in each group all at the same time. They will be patient and comfort the children but it can very stressful.

All of these schools state they don't encourage tutored/prepped kids and then they make offers to the those children that are more advanced than the curriculum standard.....which is predominantly tutored/prepped children.

Stormont is non-selective.

Very helpful - thank you both for the context.

The school looks fantastic but what will be, will be

Yes similar understanding

I would personally ignore anyone saying don’t prepare your child.

ML downplay the assessment and make it sound like a very light touch process

but in the end it’s a selective 4+ process for what has historically been an over subscribed school (no idea if that will change with birth rates and Vat but the fees are good value) so I would not have a false sense of security

i have a friend who didn’t prepare her daughter a couple of years back and didn’t get an offer. Then did 3 months of focused prep and her daughter got offers from NLCS and Habs

@JustBiscuit the assessments are roughly the same. Have you been to their open day before? You can always ask what they're looking for and see what they say (it's worth a go!).
I was an 4+ assessor at a different independent school in London (I have just left) and we would be looking for well rounded children that are picking everything that is being taught to them at home and nursery i.e. all age and stage related. Of course, we are going to be selecting children that do well, but it is also dependent on their birth month as the things we would be expecting for a Sep/Oct born child are different to a Jul/Aug child so lots of things have to be factored in.

Late to the party, but I imagine your assessment is this Friday, so I could be too late. I prepared my daughter by telling her she was going on a fun playdate in school forest, before the date. On the day I told her she should just be herself. She got a place.

Good luck

We were told the assessment is the same for everyone but expectation changes depending on birth month of the child

Feeling very nervous about ML assessment tomorrow! Good luck everyone

Good luck to those who attended and hopefully you all get the results you were hoping for!

How did people find it? I thought it was a bit chaotic when ‘checking in/registering’ a lot of people around which was quite overwhelming for some of the children.

mine said they read a book, numbers and drew a picture!

What time was your slot? Ours was a little chaotic too.

yeah, hedgehog theme I hear!

Has anyone got confirmation of when we are going to find out about the results?

Also does anyone know how many places are available?
I assume even though siblings have to do the assessment but they are probably automatically in.

Officially results will come out on Friday. But I’ve heard in past they did it very quickly some say Monday others Tuesday.

i think they have 60 spots - 3 classes of around 20kids but someone mentioned last years class has around 23kids per class. So not entirely sure but yes I think nursery siblings get preference

We got the result of the assessment today.

We got in!! 😃

Same here! Congratulations to those who got an offer.

Congratulations we are on waiting list :( anyone have any experience of this?

👏Huge congratulations, to those that have received their offers!
@Zoolu123 I did a post on Instagram a few days ago about what being on the waiting list means and how to boost your chances - have a look profile is BeyondTutoringLondon👌

ML is oversubscribed as it’s a lovely school BUT it’s not everyone’s first choice. You’ll find a lot of people pay the deposit knowing they will have to let it go.

many will drop out once Habs and NLCS etc send offers out. One of my friends dropped out in august of the next year as Habs offered her a last minute place. So a space became available at ML…and so on.

beyond tutoring has done a good blog with advice on this.

@Isthisright220 stop! You're making me blush lol 😊😂You're advice here too is exactly right. As we know, people are applying to multiple schools some once the offers come out the juggling dance begins!

My kids both went to Manor Lodge. Amazing, nurturing school.. until they get to years 5/6 when they up the ante and the pressure to get into the top schools. They will be honest with you though about your child’s chances.

Not sure whether to admit here but we didn’t get an offer. Didn’t prep as new to private system and very gutting for your child to be rejected for something at age 3. Good learning curve for us!

We also got the reserve list which feels like the worst of all options!

anyone have an idea on how many reserve list children there will be?

Yes it’s the waiting game now! And not knowing how many people are on waiting list and where you are on list.

hopeful there will be movement in January just annoyed that process is dragging was hoping it would all be wrapped up!

and at least this time they said we should know more by Dec whereas last year my friend was on waiting list and didn’t find out till April after state school offers