Eltham College - No automatic transfer Junior to Senior?

[Tealife]

Really looking for advise as the school is unclear on the policy.

Eltham College (EC) is one of our target schools for DC for juniors, mainly so that they get a guaranteed place for seniors. However, the new admissions policy (link below) following blackheath prep integration requires commitment to EC senior for a guaranteed place, else go through the regular competitive process.

Unclear what does "commit to EC" mean. Does anyone know how it works in practice, a big deposit?
Does this mean if you apply to other schools for 11+ then you lose your guaranteed EC seniors place?

Thanks

www.blackheathprep.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Eltham-College-Pathway-Infographic.pdf

Yes it's pretty clear I think. If you want to keep your options open and enter your child for 11+ exams at any other school, then their Eltham senior place is not guaranteed and they have to take that exam too. If you are not applying anywhere else then the child doesn't have to take the exam and will be progressed to Seniors automatically.

thanks, that seems quite harsh. Do you have more details on what commitment means, i.e. does one have to commit to a deposit to reserve a place? Thanks.

Sorry I don't have any inside information I'm just going on what's publicly available, but it doesn't look like there's a deposit or anything financial. Any child who is expecting to take any 11+ exams (or 13+ exams which usually have a first-round sift at 11+) would need to be starting some kind of preparation work usually in y5 - the reason prep schools are called "prep" is because they prepare children for those exams so for all I know (I don't) there might be specific lessons within school time where those preparing for 11+ do activity A and those who are committed to Eltham do activity B. Whether learned in school or during evenings and weekends, the children need extra support for learning exam technique skills, managing time within a timed paper, understanding and interpreting verbal and nonverbal reasoning questions. I don't think the school staff will have any difficulty working out which children have been taught and drilled in these skills by the first term of y6 and which children are happy-go-lucky with no reason to have been taught these skills. You'd have to bring up your children to be highly skilled at deviousness, deception and outright lying to hide from Eltham the information that your child was preparing for any 11+ exams. Any kind of tuition, practice papers, registering on Atom or whatever would be lack of commitment.

I think this type of thing is fairly common. Certainly it happens in our feeder prep/linked Senior school in another school in the South East.

The offer is made in year 5, you accept or decline and pay a deposit (around 2k).

You can choose to go through the 11plus process for both the linked Senior school and other schools if you want. Or just for other schools.

If the other schools you are applying for are state then you don’t need to notify the prep school. But if you are planning on applying to independent schools then you will need references so your prep school knows where you applying.

Our school is clear you will lose your year 5 place if you start applying to other independent schools. But I have heard of other examples where that is not the case.

These are questions you can ask the admissions team at the prep for clarity. Sure they will be happy to share and you can decide if it is for you and your family.

From reading the website, pupils at Blackheath will get priority to sit the 11+ before external students. This means you will be offered a place before any external candidates and are heavily prioritised.
The only way to ever commit to a secondary school will be to pay the deposit which is usually 2k ish.
The schools are keen to get you locked in - they are a business after all so while it might seem harsh it’s standard practise .
if you are at Eltham college juniors you have automatic entry and don’t need to sit the exam.
its best to check with the EC admissions team to determine what happens if you want to sit for other schools at 11+
it also looks like the pupils don’t get prepped for any 11+ as the expectation is that they will stay for secondary so you would need to tutor if you wanted to look externally.

They're just trying to get you to lock your decision in early. So decide in year 5 (or possibly early year 6 - not clear) and you get an automatic place.

If you want to sit external exams then you sit the EC 11+ with all the other candidates and don't get any preferential treatment.

This isn't new by the way, been in place for a couple of years now

Also Eltham will find out as you will need to provide a reference from your child's current school. As soon as Eltham prep gets the request for that information they will know you are looking elsewhere.

indeed, they just introduced recently, seems that they keep losing students.