Tiffin October 2014

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Any thoughts now the exam is over.
DS found it challenging with VR more difficult than NVR.He was alarmed to find some boys found it very easy.Also does anyone know how many sat the second day?I know there was 1700 on the Tuesday.Your comments are appreciated.

Difficult to get info out of my DS. Only comments were:

• It was easier than the practice papers (we were using the official ones from GL)
• NVR was harder than VR (but he met a friend on the train home who said the opposite, which is consistent with your DS)
• The toilets were small and smelly
• In the queue for the toilets, one of the other candidates launched himself into a high note to impress a prefect before declaring himself a grade 5 at singing.

All in all, he didn't come away with a "this is the school for me" feeling. He didn't get that feeling from the open evening crush either. I think its pretty arrogant of the school not to have daytime visits or primary outreach activities, to help families get an accurate sense of the place - but given the vast numbers of wide eyed, hopeful parents at the gate on test day, I guess they just don't need to.

For us, it's a contingency plan, in case we don't get into our local outstanding comp, and we'll be putting it lower on our list of preferences. We really don't want him to go to an all-boys school that is obsessed with rugby, and doesn't even mention football on its sports page. And we thought the Head's open evening speech was very uninspiring. We're sad that it was necessary to apply at all, but DS quite enjoyed the exam prep, so it wasn't too onerous.

Fingers crossed that he scores well, but that we can stick two fingers up to them.

So why on earth make him sit the exam?

Because there's a strong chance we won't get a place at the local outstanding comp, and be allocated to an RI school instead. Tiffin gives us a potential contingency, if he gets a decent score.

He was happy to do the exam - he likes doing puzzles, and thought it was fun - so it wasn't a problem. Just hoping we get the higher preference that's all.

My DS didn't actually finish either paper, didn't do a random selection of the last few like I told him, couldn't remember how many were left at the end in any case but thought it might be quite a few. We're quietly crossing off Tiffin as a possibility...

He did say they were quite hard, but exam technique also comes into something like this in a major way - he just goes through them one by one, and won't move on or guess if one turns out to be quite hard, so all the marks towards the end were lost.

At least he had a go, which is always good!

Good luck Pasteurella - it's all good experience!

I know a few boys who sat it, the general consensus was the NVR was easier than VR

Is this school really all that? It's local to us and at some point in the future we will have to consider whether to enter our kids for this shenannigans.... sorry for slight derail, OP, but you sound slightly unsure about the school and was wondering if you had any further thoughts?

Tp concernedabouttheboy,
I do have reservations in the sense that it could be careful what you wish for.
DS found it very hard where one or two marks could be crucial but he did finish.I was unimpressed with the open day(HM less than awesome) and suspect that it is a sink or swim school but have no evidence for this.However awaiting results with baited breath and hope we are not left with a score which leaves us in limbo.

Tiffin is a super-selective school which takes only the very best children as selected by the (tough) exam. Arguably it should really do better in terms of its results. I don't think it's one we need to worry about - cant imagine my two have passed!

concernedabout - i guess it depends what your other options are and how academic your kids are.

i decided not to go down the tiffin route but that's because the journey is difficult for us, we have other great state options and are up for paying for private anyway. To have a realistic chance of getting in i think you need to be very committed to the process - practice papers, tutors, practice exams. All the kids are bright, you need to be well prepared too.

Thanks poppins, beingfrank and tess. My inclination about tiffin is 'no' so it's interesting to hear those views. I am sceptical of anything super-popular (as Tiffin appears to be) because usually thereis lots of 'puff'. I had a look at their value-added and other scores and would expext better TBH.