I'm a weeny bit cross that there hasn't been a SW/W London Independent schools thread this yr.

[SonorousBip]

Every blinking year there is one - and I read, and nod, and note. Sometimes they go on for months and pages. But this year, when I'm actually doing it - pah, not a sausage.

If anyone wants to do a last minute SPGS/Latymer/Godolphin/ KGS/LEH/WHS/PHS thread, please do! (disclaimer - I'm not doing all of those.). But views welcome. Because I've got several days to form my final views

Thanks! Same to you

Has anyone applied/sat for Surbiton and/or SWPS? My dd sat Surbiton yesterday and has SWPS on Saturday. We like both but she prefers SWPS but the journey is way longer. Interested in hearing whether anyone else is considering either of these schools. Anyone know how long SHS usually take before results come back??

yes dd sat surbiton yesterday. i think they are fairly fast with letters, before the end of the month.

Thanks Amidawish. Hope it went well. DD said Maths quite hard but she thinks Maths is hard full stop!!

dd generally found it ok but said there were a few tricky maths questions, one about gallons & litres confused everybody i think! DD had a go ,but she is quite good at having a go (and getting it wrong )

Good luck to those who have girls sitting North London Consortium Group 2 papers tomorrow

Advice please! DD is low level sick - sore throat, cough, tiny bit of a temp.

Has anyone been in a similar situation? Do you Calpol up and send them in? I want her to do her best, but asking for a resit seems over the top when it's a cold? Is it best that she's there on the day for the 'gangs all in' atmosphere...?

Arghhhhhh....off to take some Rescue Remedy....

wheresthebeach, I know someone who deferred the Tiffin test because of a cold, and got in. My DS sat an exam for a very competitive school with what I thought was a bit of a cold ... turned into flu that night and he was off school for a week. Not surprisingly, he wasn't offered a place. I suppose it depends on where the school is in your pecking order. Good luck anyway. And to everyone else. Is it February yet?!

Nightmare wheresthebeach! If it doesn't deteriorate into flu I'd dose her up and send her in, hoping the adrenalin/drugs will keep her going for the 3 hours.

Maybe drop a note to the admissions manager to cover incase she gets worse and they don't mistake it for nerves. I can imagine they experience this all the time at this time of year, but not sure how much concession is made at this stage?

Absolutely, roll on Feb!

Sorry for the late reply but I have only just come back to this thread. I wasn't a great swimmer. To be honest I wasn't great at sports full stop but I think we used to share the Latymer pool.

Hockey and rowing were the big thing back in my day and we had a small gym that we could use.

To give you an idea I left in 1998 so I suspect much has changed since then. I know that Miss Rudland left shortly after I did. She was a fantastic head. A real inspiration and she always referred to us as "her girls".

All in all I can say it was a fantastic school. I made friends for life and the education was broad, well taught and the school went out of its way to make sure the girls were confident and had a strong belief in their own ability to achieve.

Good luck with all the those sitting the entrance exams whether for G&L or not.

My dd is sitting JAGS on Saturday and WHS on Monday. Anyone know what the WHS vr and nvr papers like? Based on GL assessment by any chance?

Thanks castles and ealing - its our first choice. I think I might email the school asking if she can take in throat lozenges...and see where that takes me.

The Latymer pool is being rebuilt. I dont know if there has been a decision on how the new pool will be used.

In the past G&L pupils could access the after school club sessions at Latymer. Free for LU pupils but G&L pupils had to pay. This was organised via G&L. LU also allowed a local swimming club (Chelsea and Westminster) to use the pool at other times for competition swim training, effectively giving access to keen swimmers from a number of local schools.

The new pool will be bigger, so assuming Latymer continues to support community access, there should be more opportunity.

However the real answer is that very few schools offer competition level sports, especially for girls. If you want to pursue something seriously, you are probably better off joining a club. Then oddly it can be an advantage not to go to a particuarly sporty school. You dont have the school pursuing you to compete in the rounders team when you would prefer to be training or competing with your club.

If you are interested in sports provision it is also worth asking about participation. Some schools achieve great results but run very few teams. If say they only run 2 netball teams for a year group and there are 100 girls within that year group, 86 of them will either be disappointed or not encouraged. The prep school girls will come in with a lot more sports experience and the danger is that unless the school has strategies in place to encourage participation, the others will never make it beyond Yr 7 trials.

Castles, that sounds like a plan

And meeting somewhere nice sounds like a plan even without the dds to discuss

No worries Crimson, appreciate the feedback from your day.

Makes absolute sense Needmore, and I have tried to manage DD's expectations for entering Senior and the sports superiority of prep girls coming in, as she has experience of that now in her junior when competing against prep schools. They are super competitive against her own across all sports and therefore she may not get selected for A/B squads in a larger selection pool from Y7.

We'll keep up the swimming externally as the coaching is second to none and will continue to give her exposure to external borough galas where standards remain high.

Thanks for the insights.

Any comments on the KGS exam today?
DD said the verbal reasoning test was very odd... more like logic puzzles than the VR bond books.

My daughter did KGS today ( she has 10+ offer already, we did 11+ for the unlikely event of scholarship). Mathematics is her strength not so English. However her comment was that comprehension was not hard, mathematics she could not do 2 questions, verbal reasoning she did 70 out of 80. Verbal reasoning paper said that you are not supposed to complete it.

That's very interesting. My dd did it - she is stronger at maths than English but said the English was fine, Maths more difficult. She also found the VR hard.

Wasn't the rain awful at the beginning? Good for the head being outside!

DD1 has 10+ offer too. thank goodness.
her comments sound similar to DDs. easy comp, lame creative writing question, maths generally ok but a few very hard ones and she did not finish.

verbal, which i would have said going in was her strength, she didn't get close to finishing, about 10 left too she said but she missed some out too. at the 10+ she did the VR paper in less than half the time allowed and did well so clearly a big change in type of paper/questions.

but thank goodness that is us done now!! 2 years until DD2

i am not very hopeful of being called back for scholarship papers (dd has no idea that getting a scholarship means MORE exams. if she knew i think she would have deliberately thrown a few questions!!)

DS sat KGS 11+ today. He said the maths were easy, he found VR hard (answered 65/80 questions) & he thought English was OK. But you never know with him.

He passed the Wilson's, Wallington & Sutton tests but failed Tiffin.

SonorousBip thank you for starting this thread.

Just realised this is a girl thread!

Your comments are still welcome and relevant! His maths must be v strong.

Thanks amidaiwish! His maths have always been exceptionally good. He is average in English.

Does anyone know if the JAGS English paper has a separate composition or it it one of those 'continue the story' final questions on the comprehension paper?