Millfield Scholarship Exams

[Sleepsoon7]

My DC may be taking Millfield scholarship exams. Anyone have experience of types of content, level of difficulty eg compared with Radley or general 13plus CE papers? Thanks!

Are the using the ISEB scholarship papers or writing their own? Most schools will give you past papers have you asked them? What about your prep school what do they know about it? Your head should know what level the exam is set at.

Go to the website Galores Park and you can buy (general) common entrance and scholarship papers. Also if you goggle scholarship etc some schools put their scholarship papers on their website, Sevenoaks comes to mind. It might give you an idea what to expect.....

Most schools' scholarships seem to be about GCSE level, so really high for a 12 or 13 year old. I've heard that for the very academically select schools the standard is nearer A level. Yikes!

Good luck. A friend's DC is at Millfield and she has been blown away by the amazing academic support they have received. It sounds like a fabulous school.

Thanks for reply. Have tried what you suggest but got nowhere save for info that they apparently write their own papers. Nothing on the internet that I can find and we don't know anyone who has sat the exams in the past. All very frustrating!

What about your prep school head?

Thanks deloresviva - good advice - I hadn't seen your reply before. happygardening - yes good advice there too - headteacher help will be my next step. Thanks both. DC is v set on going there although I know there are old threads on this forum v anti.

I believe Millfield will issue past papers so do ask (or get your head to ask if child is at a prep school?)
My experience is that the papers are harder than general CE papers; but they do vary from year to year. If your child practises Common Academic Scholarship papers (available from ISEB) he/she will be in the right arena.

they dont pay much though do they - its a reduction of the HUGE fees iirc

In our experience 'scholarships' don't really exist at Millfield. The 'scholarship' system does not really reflect the ability of the student or athlete. We came to the personal conclusion that it merely reflects whether the parents can afford the full school fees or not. We obviously have no hard facts or hard evidence about this, but we have regularly seen students and athletes at Millfield who are at a very high level academically or sports-wise but they have never been given a 'scholarship' of any sorts. Yet students and athletes who compete at a much lower level in sport or who are not as academic, have been given 'scholarships'. We have no experience of the 'scholarship' exams themselves - but we have seen over the years some huge differences in who gets a 'scholarship' and who does not. From what we have seen it is not based on anything to do with high levels of ability. When you ask for any criteria from the Senior management they are very evasive and reluctant to explain what levels of acheievement and ability would warrant a 'scholarship'. But when you see national level athletes not being given 'scholarships' but then some county level athetes are given 'scholarships'. you realise that there is no ryhme nor reason to the Millfield system. Good luck!

i think its just a marketing system isnt it. Poor kids with ability - reduce the fees and pretend it is for something

We have come to the conclusion that if the parents cannot afford the full fees then the school has a rough guess as to what the family could afford. A scholarship is then offered for the difference. The school would prefer to have a family paying 80% of the school fees than get nothing at all from that family. Families that can afford the school fees (but still have academic or sporty or other-wise talented offspring) don't get offered 'scholarships'. Nothing to do with ability, talent, achievment. A huge marketing ploy just to get money from families that would otherwise simply write Millfield off their list due to the huge school fees in comparison with other similar schools. Bit like budget airlines that sell a few tickets a discount price but then make sure the rest of the seats are paid at full price so the plane load overall is profitable. Expensive seats subsidise the cheap seats.

The Independent Junction site has links to sample 11+ and 13+ papers. independentjunction.co.uk/

The lists are here independentjunction.co.uk/specimen.html There are plenty of scholarship exams.

Both our kids did lots and lots of them and I think it really helped. Not just for the content but it gave them experience in the exam conditions too. We timed them just as if they were sitting real ones.