Is it too early to start a 2016 girls 11+ W/SW London thread?

[orangina]

What do we think? DD is sitting 11+ for various consortium schools in January 2016 and I am slightly desperate for a thread to compare notes, pat each others shoulders etc..... I lurked on last years thread, but it didn't start until much later....

Just booking up open day places and filling in my registration forms now.....

Mandzi - City Boys' admin is absolutely atrocious, well it was for us last year. My son got offered a place and in some ways it was the natural school for him, but we turned them down for an arguably less prestigious school. I was beginning to think that if it had been his only offered, we'd have just gone state. Important emails not being responded to, chaos and lack of compassion on the exam day, very unpersonal offer letter, women's toilets being broken...

Friends this year have found them to be similarly unhelpful. I think they need to get their act together - the admissions dept becomes fairly meaningless once you go to a school, but often parents are looking for reasons to discount schools if they have more than one offer.

My ds was at a fairly low-achieving state primary and he was definitely top two for maths but far lower for English. He was not exceptional but he did see a tutor for an hour a week (and wouldn't have got in without that).

Coffeeismycupoftea - We were very shocked with City as we were told he was in a 'strong position' on the waiting list by the lovely admissions lady but the second guy we spoke to twice was useless and had no clue. We never did hear back and to be honest we just wanted closure on the whole thing. Ds did not like the interview of the three he did. I spoke to someone who had been very much messed around by them.

SummerMonths I don't think it matters how bright your DC are or which percentile they are in, it's the ones that are tutored from state primaries who will receive the most offers from independent schools. I know of some very bright DC who were caught out by not being tutored, one of my own DC included. I can only think of one DC, a best friend of my DS, who was untutored and scraped into Tiffin on the WL, and he is now top of every class, so a pretty exceptional case.

Manzi,
My son hated the interview at City, came out refusing to talk about it while came out of the other two (even the one he didn't get an offer from) absolutely buzzing.

My friend spoke last week to a man at City admissions who was pretty curt with him, maybe the same one.

Still, CC - not a bad alternative!

Cerealbar - yes the applications were made on time (I confirmed as I too noticed that on the press release)

Summer- having done this two consecutive years, what has struck me most is the huge successes of private applications from our state primary this year- numerous children - all bright but not necessarily the top one or two in class - who have fabulous offers from LEH & Hampton, Latymer, Godolphin, Putney etc. this contrasts enormously with last year's applications where huge numbers of girls in particular were waitlisted (I think every applicant to Putney bar one or two who ended up at Tiffin) and then the waitlists for some like godolphin didn't move and others like LEH only moved a little. As far as I could tell one cohort wasn't necessarily brighter than the last (SATs results still excellent last year) so it's a mystery to me why it's so different....
All the children this year or last either had a tutor on exam technique (from Jan year 5 generally once a week term time) or a parent who pushed them to do timed practice papers (available on school websites) and practice reasoning books (eg Bond). Hope that helps.

coffeeismycupoftee - Must be the same man at City! What did he say to your friend? All we got told Friday before last week was that not many people had responded so they were chasing offers.

aeganblue - Could that be because of the extra spaces this year - e.g. an extra class at PHS, which would impact on the local area? Hasn't Surbiton increased its numbers too? (I maybe wrong). Also, there is a new state senior school in the area - Turing?
Just a thought.

Mandz- the applications bloke was v obstreperous about a v reasonable request for clarification. And this was to an offer holder...

My DD is at a state primary, a fairly bog standard one. She's bright but no genius, in the top 5 in her class I'd say. Without tutoring however I don't think she would have got into any of the schools we applied to.

Thanks for all your thoughts. My DD is bright and probably top 3 for English and top 5 for maths in her state school class. So not exceptional but v enthusiastic, well behaved and organised. She likes violin but only has grade 1, she is on a swim team and loves drama but has no amazing talent. She really wants Latymer Upper because it is mixed sex and local. We have a tutor once a week and she is working hard but I'm unclear whether LU is an impossible dream or not. And is Godolphin much easier or is it marginal?

I will stop gate crashing the thread now!

my experience says that the extra curricular really doesn't have any influence, it is all about the exam! well maybe if you are after a scholarship - sports, music but for those you have to be very exceptional.

SummerMonths what does your head think, they should have EPIP scores or similar on your dd.

Tedd, it's a large state primary and I doubt the Head has an opinion of where my daughter would fit. In fact the school seems to be careful not to say to parents where their children could fit in the private sector. Is that not normal for state primaries?

What is an EPIP score?!

you think that... my dds are at a big state primary too. the head may not know your dd but she will have scores/data on her.

DDs school do EPIPS in reception, yr2 and yr4. it is a computer program which assesses them, the questions change in response to their answers/ability.

most schools have them or something similar, they base their SATS expectation off them - do schools under/over deliver on SATS score based off the baseline result.

Summermonths our tutor was the best source of guidance for us. She had tutored lots of children into local schools and knew how my child compared to other children who had previously got places. Our state primary would not have had a clue, it's not in their remit after all to advise on private school entry,

TeddTess - epips sound interesting, we don't have that, just plain old pencil and paper tests

are you sure Ashers?
my school never tell us the results or mentions them to the parents

i only know because dd was talking about the fun computer game - and then i asked the head if she had any thoughts re selective secondaries and she told me "based on her baseline EPIP scores she would recommend Tiffin"

I've been lurking...may I be so bold please as to ask what sort of NC levels yours DDs were at in Year 5, if applying to schools such as G&L, CLSG, SPGS etc.
Thank you so much, sorry for barging in...

Teddtess I can believe the school would not tell me about epips but I'm sure at least one of my DDs would have mentioned doing a computerised test, or I'd have heard another mum mention it my now so no I don't think we do it. When I've discussed SATS levels it's always been paper tests which have been mentioned.

Hi Summermonths. All I can really say to you in that about half the intake to LU in year 7 are from state schools. In fact the DC I know on academic scholarships there came from state primaries, I believe. There is no separate reasoning paper, but reasoning is built into the English paper (eg. defining subtle differences between words, that kind of thing) and the more extended maths questions require quite a bit of lateral thinking. In a sense, these things can't really be tutored or taught any better in a prep school.

Summermonths - from my experience in a probably fairly typical high achieving but mixed SW London state primary, one or two at most would get into St Pauls, and it was normally fairly apparent who they would be. G&L, Hampton and LEH would be top 4 or 5-ish. Ibstock and Emanuel used to be pretty safe bets but are now top 10 I think. Latymer tends to be a more difficult one to call - only a few get in, but they're not always the ones you'd expect. Hope that helps!

AeganBlue and cerealbar Richmond definitely did make a mistake saying places were offered to all on time applicants (I know because on-time neighbour got the "sorry" letter). Contacting head of childrens' services to complain seems to help - the council may have altered their on-line version of the press release, but the print version of R&TT on 4th March clearly (and mis-informedly) stated that "Every parent in the borough who applied before the deadline secured an offer of a school place for their child this week.".

G&L now offering from wait list.

S999, what does NC levels mean? If it's the extra curricular stuff, and you are looking at potential scholarship requirements for 11 entry, all of the schools will have the requirements on their respective websites. Music is particularly tough, as though there is a minimum G5 equivalent (or G6 for SPGS), this does not always mean shortlist success. Around G4 for the GDST schools...

Art, portfolio requirements are on website.

If I have your enquiry wrong, apologies!

Ealingwestmum, I believe she is referring to National Curriculum levels.

Yes NC = National Curriculum normally. I'd say you'd need to be looking at level 5s in everything by the end of Y5 to have a good chance of the top schools, but it's not always easy to gauge by the NC levels as they're such a broad measure. DD2 was 4a in maths at the end of Y5 and high 5s in everything else, and she did get into one of the schools you mention, but from the waiting list.

Ah, thank you MLP!

Levels were not discussed ever with parents, shared only by school when SATS results were issued in summer Y6. So I'd assume lots of guesswork in Y5. We didn't start using test papers until Y6 so I think we were a bit naive as to what SATS and levels were.

If your child is doing very well in their cohort, then as crude as that sounds, a reasonable indicator as to whether those schools are a realistic target?

That's so helpful, thank you, I'm in such a panic as my DD's English has slipped down a notch, am sure we can turn it around hopefully but the school put this on a reference and the school to which we were applying freaked. We were looking for a Year 6 place.
I'm not sure if these NC level are even used when giving a reference anymore?