y7 entry interview - what does it entail?

[Blueberryme]

We have started to look at non-selective private schools for DS who will be going into y7 next year and have visited the first one today.

They all state that there will be an interview for the child and some say for the parents too, so I am curious as to what sort of things they ask your child? DS is usually very shy with strangers so I can see him being lost for words or saying something silly, which obviously isn’t ideal.

We did two entry processes for non selective annd “gently” selective and from what I gather from my DD the interview was a general chat about her likes, dislikes, what she was most looking forward to about X school. My DD, who had never been through anything like this and wasn’t prepped for any of it, all I told her was to just speak up and answer the questions, said it was all fine. The school, if non selective, is just trying to gauge whether your DC is a “good fit”. I wasn’t interviewed so can’t help with that, but honestly if the schools you’re looking at are none selective or even “gently selective” then you shouldn’t have a problem (especially in post-VAT times!)

My DDs had short school interviews. The my were asked what they enjoyed about school. Favourite subjects. What books had interested them and why. What sports did they do/other things in their spare time. Just a conversation to establish if the dc would thrive at the school.

The dc should know what the school offers that they might be interested in. Definitely work on confidence in answering and have something to say about themselves. No school asked about anything unreasonable.

They might start off asking about a pet or a holiday - just to get dc started and comfortable. It’s far from a grilling and it wasn’t looking for academics. More about personality and fitting in.

Ours had a group interview where they had the children (I think 4 of them) complete a joint Lego task whilst chatting about the usual, what are their favourite subjects, hobbies and so on. It was just described as an interview in the info so I had been expecting more of a 121 chat.

DD did have lots of group tasks at one school (and swimming) but that was a whole day assessment. Not the same as a one to one interviews. I assumed op meant the interview.