SW/W London Independent Schools thread part two

[Chillaxalready]

There. I've done it and started one.
1001 messages and counting!

Ilovelabradors -as mentioned I understand that Latymer didn't over offer ie the number of acceptances was just below their target number so only a couple of people on the waiting list got places. I think it is impossible for a school to get the number of acceptances right consistently unless it is certain that virtually every candidate will accept which probably only applies to SPGS in West London. However what I find a bit surprising is that the schools seem treat the application exercise as just a numbers game and don't seem very interested in the individual applicants. I don't know about SPGS but of the other schools as far as I am aware only G&L insists that two members of staff interview each candidate.

Girls do turn down places for SPGS. May not be as many as the others, but they do.

I would also add that the number of interviewers does not make a quality interview necessarily, and unless you are using a competency based style (all questions the same for all children) then it is still very subjective. For example, some children were asked 'if you were president Obama for the day, what would you do', and others just 'what do you do in your spare time'. I know G&L interview all vs others selecting those past a certain number post entrance exams, but after 3/4 days of interviewing over 860 girls, the interviewers are jaded. It could be argued this is its point of difference (for marketing purposes), or maybe I am just sceptical.

Just giving my 1st hand experience this time round of the named schools, but we all have different experiences. I found of all of them, G&L was the most dismissive of its neighbouring schools, which made me view it negatively.

Ealingwestmum I think that the competency interview undertaken by one person is shocking and really just an extension of the exam and is effectively marked as such with some places (allegedly eg Latymer) ticking each correct or incorrect answer as you speak.This doesn't leave room for any subjectivity or trying to recruit a certain type of person or someone who may have excellent school reports but hasn't done themselves justice in the exam or who may be nervous on the day.It also contrasts with the real world where ,while impressed with academics , employers will frequently reject someone with higher grades -indeed one of my employers rejected someone with an Oxbridge first who was very arrogant and took a very personable guy from a London(former) poly instead who has gone on to have a truly stellar career.At least G&L give the impression of caring who they recruit and if they appeared dismissive I suspect that it's because they have been outperforming all local rivals recently (apart from SPGS of course) which may indicate that they have the right approach.

Agree, Neuro, if the school was only basing its assessment on an interview alone. I don't believe any of the schools in question base their decisions on an interview only, and all the additional elements you mention are also taken into consideration.

It is quite possible for a child to answer a question incorrectly, especially if it's a maths/english one where there may be a right/wrong answer, and still get accepted. It is how they deal with questions that is of interest to an interviewer.

NN, the two schools perhaps put different weight on the interview. It always used to be that Latymer did not interview many, and so if you got an interview you were pretty close to achieving a place. (And the child we knew who did not, was possibly a good call on the part of Latymer, as she was one of the most heavily tutored children we have come across.) As if they are using the interview simply as a final check. My understanding was also that Latymer interviews can vary, so maths questions for weaker mathematicians etc, to double check exam performance.

G&L take a different approach. I guess each school knows what it is looking for, and its useful that they will prioritise different children. For whatever reason when DD was applying virtually no child from DD's school ever got a place at G&L - a bit of a mystery as they did well elsewhere including SPGS and LU, yet other preps seemed to have large numbers accepted.

From previous threads Neuro it seems you are favouring G&L for your DD, so very good luck for January exams. Living this side of London we are fortunate (if our children pass the tests!) to get a choice based on the best fit for our children, an insight accumulated over a number of visits from sometimes Y4 to interview (that can include auditions that provide extra information to a school). This also includes our subjective, anecdotal experience of parents too on visits and how well our children may fit into a school.

I did not base our decision on which school 'outperforms', as any driven child will hopefully achieve well in any of them. I do want her to enjoy her next 7 years and chose the school that I thought would best fulfil that - both academically and extra curricular wise. Not sure how I would measure how a school outperforms, other than the standard league tables which are not all equal in their metrics, and personally am not driven by destination leavers stats alone.

That's why these threads are so interesting - what starts a No.1 school choice can end up the least favoured once you've gone through the mill process .

Thankfully, only having to do this once...I hope if we chose well!

Thanks Ealingwestmum and needmoresleep. We haven't decided yet and are even considering state since we are not really persuaded that it will make much difference academically where DD goes to school since she is bright and competitive and as you say a driven child will probably succeed in any decent school. We are more concerned with where she will be happiest and are thinking of leaving the final decision to her even though this idea (letting DD choose) has been criticised by relatives on the grounds that an 11 year old is not capable of making a decision of that kind.

I should have added that DD is not SPGS material and we don't see much difference between the other West London girls/mixed schools in terms of the results they have produced for friends' children with plenty of the children at the smaller girls schools doing very well and (again excluding SPGS which has an exceptional intake) the Oxbridge entrance rates suggesting that there is not much value added at some of the so called more academic schools.

Horses for courses. We are towards the end of the process, and have seen some girls do very well in the smaller girls schools, but equally others, often feistier characters, who have clearly been in the wrong place. Sometimes it is luck. In a small school you can have years who get on well and years which are pretty disfunctional.

If you are focussed on results it is also worth looking longitudinally. Smaller schools will have ups and downs, whilst schools whose admissions have been getting increasingly more competitive, should be improving over time.

And Oxbridge results need a certain amount of interpretation. At the risk of getting flamed I would suggest it is easier to get a place for classics or MFL than it is for law/medicine/economics/maths/engineering or English/history.

Interestingly, and having known girls in almost all the schools in a wide area, DD says if she were starting now but with the knowledge she has, she would choose Kingston Grammar. But I am sure she would acknowledge that this is personal.

neuroticnicky, re choice....I"m with you on that one (depending on the 11 year old, and their track record of knowing what's right for themselves, I suppose).

We looked at state and private, without dd, then those we would have been ok with we looked at again with her - and we let her choose where she wanted to apply. Our only condition was that she apply to more than one. Then, once we knew what her options were, we let her choose.

In the event, she applied to one state and one private, got both and chose the private. I would have chosen the state, for myself, and dh the private, but both of us are fine with her choice and she is very clear in her own mind - as she usually is (and it usually pays off when we listen to her on something like this).

You know yourselves and your dd, I would back your intuition and ignore the relatives

Elibean i lost track of you a while ago but you kindly gave me advice on RPA v Emanuel - where did you decide on in the end? Was RPA on your list. we only got our 4th choice of state school in first round so made the decision easier on choosing the private as we and DS really didnt like the state option but funnily enough we got our first choice offered off the waiting list 2 weeks ago and left it to DS to decide - they chose the private i think because once they are sick of thinking about it and started to get excited that they finally new where they were going. I agree if at all possible go with your gut instinct and let kids get involved in the decision, after al they can always move!

needmoresleep you are right about Oxbridge results needing interpretation (although MFL and Classics are arguably harder than most other arts subjects to begin with) and clearly if you do e.g. Sanskrit or theology you are very likely to get in. But apart from the truly academic (say the St Pauls schools and Westminster) not many of the West/Central London private schools consistently achieve an Oxbridge rate exceeding 20% which suggests that there is not much difference between them . Indeed apparently a study a few years ago of privileged/middle class children whose parents sent them to inner-city comprehensives showed that 15% of those who went to university ended up at Oxbridge which is around the percentage number as say Latymer last year ( which had 20 in total in 2014 or less than 1 in 7). I quote "Middle-class parents obsessed with getting their children into the best schools may be wasting their time and money, academics say today.
They found that children from privileged backgrounds excelled when they were deliberately sent to inner-city comprehensives by parents opposed to private schooling.Most of the children “performed brilliantly” at GCSE and A level and 15 per cent of those who went on to university took places at Oxford or Cambridge."

Elibean -I admire your decision to let your DD decide entirely herself; we have pressure from relatives (eg to go private) so its not easy..

Neuroticnicky, I think everyone choosing a secondary school would be mad not to consider state school options. The study you quoted from provides something to think about, although without more details on how it was conducted, it has to be taken with a pinch of salt.

In sporting terms it's a bit like saying Brazil would do well at a football world cup with my grandmother as manager. And quite possibly they would. They might even win it. But not many Brazilians would be prepared to take the risk.

But surely not everyone wants to go to Oxbridge???!!! People present this studies as if everyone wanted to go and these are the ones who managed. Oxbridge does not offer every course, it's expensive and not everbody's cup of tea. So it's not straight maths.

NN, I don't really dispute the results of your study. I live in central London, where a surprising proportion of my NCT peers were Oxbridge educated, and its certainly not clear that going the private route conveys huge advantage. However:

1. You pick your schools. No one I know sent their children to the catchment school. Though it has improved a lot since my children were 11+ age, I doubt the catchment school sends many, if any, to Oxbridge, not least because GCSE options would have been limited, and there would have been a need to focus resources on those who needed real help with basic skills. What with praying, renting and tutoring as well as paying, I don't think any of us were left with much MN moral high ground.

1. There is a sense that private education has bought something. Someone, when discussing a boy who was having real problems in a local primary, suggested he was too angular and had not learnt the art of being invisible. Middle class/bright kids (and bright kids are obviously not always middle class, nor are aspirations, plenty of people come to the UK to ensure a better future for their children) perhaps need to learn to keep slightly seperate, to get on with learning, and there may need to be enough to provide a good top table or top set. (Interestingly a couple of the previously poorly performing local state schools now advertise having "a grammar stream" presumably trying to encourage parents that they will provide an environment where bright and motivated kids can get on with it.) In contrast in selective private schools it is normally cool to be bright and its is easier to create an environment where intellectual questioning and wider education is encouraged.

In short, a lot depends on the schools and the child. There are no right answers.

BTW I don't think it is about some subjects being "easier" at Oxbridge. My DC certainly consider anything involving maths as easier, and anything involving essays as "harder. Its about relative competition. So your need to be very bright to get a place reading classics or MFL, but the competition is not as intense as it is for some other subjects. Private schools teach lots of subjects well but in general probably teach classics and MFL better than an average state school.

I also agree with hard boiled. It seems reasonable that a similar proportion of children from priviledged backgrounds will go to Oxbridge, regardless of whether their parents have paid for education. Oxbridge claims to be looking for potential, so in this sense they seem to be doing their job. (I would hope they are also picking up similar kids with potential from less priviledged backgrounds......) The more interesting question is what happens to the kids from the same population who are on the 25th percentile or the 50th. Are the Latymer students going Southampton and the others to London Met. I really don't know the answer. However if you look beyond Oxbridge to the range of Universities students go on to, the stats for schools like Latymer (who seem to send lots to art or drama schools) or Westminster (who send lots to the States, plus some to places like Northumbria for product design or the Courtauld for art history, and lots more to London and popular RGs) are pretty impressive.

For me, the question is not how many go to Oxford and Cambridge, but rather will the school support my child's ambitions and dreams, be them whatever they be? For example, Latymer has announced this year that they have had 32 offers from the US and 14 from Canada. Some of these come with scholarships. So again, the question is: would my local comp, however bright my child is, support such an arduous and complicated application like the one to a US university? They also have four students going to Oxbridge on choral and organ scholarships. Would the music department of my local comp be able to support a deep pursuit of music like that, and then provide the right advice and training during the application process? Some state schools may, no doubt. But in the case of MY local option, the answers to both these questions are NO and NO. Sadly.

Lottiebear hello again, sounds as though your decisions have been made - even if not in the straightforward way you/we all anticipated! Most of dd's class failed to get RPA and were deeply shocked (we used to be a feeder school) but they all have places now as there will be a bulge class. God knows what will happen in the future though - looks increasingly likely that its either join a MAT (which has political backing, but is not necessarily going to meet everyone's needs) or not get secondary places. Scary times.

dd didn't apply to Emanuel in the end, said she liked it but couldn't imagine herself going there - she said the same about KGS. She fell in love with Kew House, and could picture herself there immediately, and she has chosen it over RPA which was her second favourite.

I hope your ds will be very happy!

Hardboiled Latymer may have announced that they had 32 offers from the States and 14 from Canada but this may be because the same students were applying to a number of universities. The Latymer website (see map of 2014 leavers destinations) shows 6 of the 2014 leavers went to US/Canadian unis ie one pupil to each of Chicago,Columbia,Georgetown,McGill, Wesleyan and Yale of which only Yale is really an Oxbridge equivalent (though Columbia is also Ivy League I think probably equivalent to eg Bristol) so the U.S. results are pretty much in line with the UK. And re state schools one of DH's relatives has just gone to a U.S. Uni on a scholarship from a comp so it does happen. I think the point I am trying to make is that I suspect an 11 year old pupil who was bright enough to get into say Latymer ( which most are not) would probably achieve similar academic results at most decent schools. You can't compare Latymer pupils with a state school as a whole since any pupil bright enough to get into Latymer would probably be in the top 5% of a state school intake.

Kuppenbender I don't agree with the Brazil manager analogy - I think the idea that private school teachers are necessarily better than state ones is misguided - we certainly had some poor teachers at my supposedly academic London private school. State school teachers are IMO often unfairly maligned and some achieve quite incredible results given a comprehensive intake.

For example I was shocked to read in the Ofsted report that at Holland Park (which has I think 6 art aptitude places in each band -ie 24 in total-as well as a number of other children doing art) every single pupil undertaking GCSE art in 2014 got either an A* or an A.

Neuroticnicky, I get your point that comprehensives shouldn't be overlooked and that children bright enough to get into a (super?) selective independent would probably do well anywhere. However, I think that you might have been swayed a little too much by the study you were quoting from. It certainly gives a lot to think about, but I am a little sceptical.

The study was based on interviews with only 124 families. I really don't think that's enough to come up with meaningful percentages. I also can't find any information on how the subjects of the study were recruited. If the researchers simply asked for feedback from parents whose children had completed their secondary education, then I would suggest that parents of academically successful children might be more likely to get respond, thus skewing the data.

Without more information on how this study was conducted I wouldn't attempt to draw any firm conclusions from it.

While I agree that a bright, driven child will do well almost anywhere, I think that they would do better at a 'good' school than at a less 'good' school. Given the resources many 'super-selective' independent schools have, that often means choosing a private education.

Yes....but then, there are other factors you're more likely to get (resilience, flexibility) in a decent comp than in a private school. In terms of resources and range of subjects, our local comp also wins over several smaller West London private schools. I guess that balances against smaller classes, more individual support etc.

Don't get me wrong, I can see (and have experienced) the benefits of private education. But I wouldn't swap the years my girls have had at a state primary with a mixed intake for anything, either.

Kuppenbender -I think the survey may well be right. DH and I together have 23 relatives who have gone to university from the 1970s onwards, 19 who went to (mainly top) private schools and 4 who went to state schools (who came from 3 different families and all of whom went to inner-city comps). Only two of the 19 private school pupils (say 10%) went to Oxbridge with 13 going to RG unis, I going to a non RG uni and 3 failing to get into uni. Of the 4 state school pupils, one went to Oxbridge, two went to RG unis and one went to an Ivy League uni. In other words-in our own family at least- the state school inner-city comp pupils outperformed the private school pupils. I don’t know the exact reason for this but it does suggest to me that one has to be careful about assuming that private schools are necessarily better from a teaching perspective. State school teachers have a much wider range of abilities to teach. Would it be so surprising if many of them were better at teaching-or more dedicated- than their private school counterparts? Or even that genetics play a larger role in academic achievement than is generally credited (e.g. identical twins often get identical exam results even if sent to different schools)?

Elibean- I agree about state primaries- the top state primaries in West London are IMO preferable to their private school counterparts for many reasons and some have incredible records of getting brighter pupils into their private school of choice at 11 (albeit supplemented by 11 plus tutoring) .

Have just seen an interesting article in the Sunday Times today about research coming out next week from Kings College London which will maintain that a child's academic performance at secondary school is determined 70 per cent by his or her genes with the school only making a 20 per cent difference ( the other 10 per cent being factors like pushy parents). So if you have a good or even reasonable state school there is unlikely to be much difference in your DC's grades between state and private.As mentioned above that has certainly been the case in my own family ie private schools have not in any way led to better academic performance although of course for some that is not the only reason to go private.

Hi Neuroticicky,
Which section was the article?
thanks

Pop1ns In the online version the article is in the main (UK) news section headed "Boffin or artist?Its in the genes"