King's Scholarship Exams

[Luckyone1]

Hello Everyone,

We visited Eton recently and my DS, as he is not registered, was advised to take the KS exams next April for the entrance at age 13. I understand this is a relevantly short period of time as normally one needs at least 2 years preparation. However, DS was so motived after the school tour at Eton and decided that that was 'the' school for him. DS is bright and doing very well academically. Hence, I am trying to explore the possibilities of tuitions for the KS exams. Should he move to a prep school for it, or get private tutors and carry on with current schooling?

Any advices are sincerely appreciated.

It is not a matter of being proud of my son’s achievement, Translucently; but of course I’m proud of him - any parent would be with such a super achieving offspring. The discussion is about the level of the King’s Scholarship exams and the standard expected of it. Just to be clear, I’m not the original advocate that the level of the KS exams is of the standard of a first year Oxbridge undergraduate. This claim came from an Oxford don no less.

The KS exams is not just about ‘thoughtful and open essay writing questions’ only. It covers topics in English, Maths, Science, modern and ancient languages and humanities too. Like said before, the toughness in all these papers would be similar to that of an Oxbridge first year undergraduate i.e. an 18-year-old with no more brilliance than a few A-levels accomplished which by the way, is no great shake as compared to all other 18-year-olds from other RG universities. The difference is that (serious) 13-year-old boys attempting the KS exams at Eton are doing it 5 years younger.

To you this may seem an impossible ground-shaking feat for a kid performing many years ahead of his/her chronological age. But this is nothing new to me. There have been 12-year-olds being admitted to Oxford before. At the age of 6, DS had been officially assessed (for a week) by an educational psychologist from a London Borough Education Dept. and confirmed to be performing at the age of twelve or thirteen.

When you are set a question (any question) the level of an Oxbridge first year undergraduate, you expect an answer to the same level in return. It is really not a big deal for a KS paper to be answered with an 18-year-old maturity. If anything, a recent ‘thoughtful and open essay writing question’ expected the maturity of a 48-year-old (if not 58-year-old) Prime Minister! So a first year Oxbridge undergraduate question/answer is a walk in the park!

You obviously know what you are talking about, MidLife. College is increasingly swamped by geniuses from China, Hong Kong and the like. It is actually quite frightening the level of brilliance these kids possess. I agree that OP’s son should give KS a shot - there is absolutely nothing to lose. I’m here to give a genuine account of the level expected and not to give false hopes. High hopes that resulted in failure can be very devastating. I know of one or two cases.

I'm new to this forum... tell me folks, is there any way of editing typos out of old posts? I feel a numpty re-reading my previous post!

DS(9) is in year 5 in a state school. Gave the 2009 math A to him for fun. Just marked the first 60 marks. He got 51 out of 60. This is the first time for him to try this type of questions. He still doesn't know much about equation etc. I would expect many of the Grammar school kids can get quite good marks in the KS exam.

Just for info about how prep schools prepare, westminster Under doesn't separate their CE and scholarship boys until year 8, although maths is setted in year 7, because of having a large new intake at year 7. It isn't ideal as the boys only have two terms of scholarship teaching. At the end of year 7 the geography syllabus has been completed although needs to be done again in part as the year 6 stuff was so long ago, but other topics are still working through uncovered CE material, notably in science where a lot still remains to be done for the first time. Also, because Westminster big school doesn't have a religion paper our Eton boys aren't prepared at all for the divinity bit of the humanities paper and they only started Greek in September so generally don't sit the Greek one. Oh and so far they haven't done anything about the general paper.
I guess the point I am making is that even the preps with track record may not be offering a highly ahead of the curve process

Michaela -- how do the boys at WU who wish to sit the Kings or other scholarship papers prepare if the school doesn't provide accelerated Greek, Science, General (whatever that is?), etc? Do they rely on innate ability or do they pursue training elsewhere?
Anecdotally, I know a boy who only decided to try for a scholarship at a very highly rated, well-known school a few months prior to the tests (ie in February, I think). He brushed up on a few subjects on his own and passed with flying colours So.... perhaps it's natural talent rather than preparation that gains success?

I don't know really. Given London dynamics I suspect quite a few tutor alongside school but people are so secretive it is hard to tell. The homework burden is heavy that I don't know how any of them fit more teaching in.

psst, @peteneras : can now confirm that A+s do exist

Ooo Eton2017, so, so very well done to your boy. Sounds like we'll be meeting in September...?

Eton2017 - very glad to hear that. We have also just learned that our nephew has been successful. Good news all round!

Last year's BBC Young Musician of the Year Keyboard Winner is a now a Kings Scholar. A friend has a child at his prep school, Papplewick. I seem to remember the scholar excelled in Maths (and music).
I have no interest in boys 13+, just education admissions in general - I am interested in the computer based test - is it really different from the cognitive ability, maths, english pre-tests that all the schools are starting to use? if so how? There's only so much a child's brain can be tested on surely!

I thought there must be some others around! Will PM.

@paperbattles : I don't suppose the computer-based test is attempting to test things radically different from what other schools are trying to test, but the format is pretty different, much more like a sequence of computer games to play than like a conventional test. From what DS said his playing of Minecraft was more relevant preparation than anything else he did. (So he was very well prepared ...) We didn't attempt to prepare him specifically for the computer test at all. Apparently some schools do attempt it - with what success, I couldn't say! Presumably the reason for the unusual set-up is precisely to limit the effectiveness of preparation, though it also has the effect of making the whole thing rather fun.

Hi, pls can someone help me with some information about how to prepare for sixth form kings scholarship? Is there a website or any past papers available?

Since I'm the poster before you, posting before my son started at Eton, and he's now in his second year at university, you might be best advised to start a new thread, @Samy27 !

(He very much enjoyed his time at Eton, fwiw...no regrets at sending him.)

Thank you Eton2017. I’m new here so still trying to figure out how it works