SW London Independents - where do the "bottom" 80% end up?

[Shirleycantbe]

My DD is in year 6 and preparing for the 11+ in SW London. A daunting process not helped by the fact that she has processing speed issues. She is however very bright - top 5% and higher in standardised tests (eg CAT). So we are just hoping that this will be recognised and some allowance made on the basis of her ed psych report.

As part of my obsessive panic research, I've been looking through the mumsnet threads on the whole 11+ topic and secondary schools in this area and all I read seems to imply that even the slightly "less" scarily academic options (from this I'm assuming Surbiton High/Emanuel/Ibstock/St Catherines) still look for kids in the top 10-20% of the cohort. Stories of children with level 5 and 6 SATs not even getting interviews etc etc.

Where does this leave the rest of the children in the year?! I am personally interested because my younger DD (yr 3) is not top 10%. Maybe top 25% ish at this stage. Will she seriously get in to none of these private schools? Or is this categorisation of which schools cream off which % of kids by ability somehow flawed? I know it is getting more and more competitive but it seems insane if the majority of children sitting the tests are basically wasting their time...

thanks

Having been through this several times there are a few things to take comfort from Shirley! Firstly, the odds are much better for girls at schools such as LU and KGS. A girl is much more likely to get an offer than a boy of the same ability, statistically. There are also a lot more places available for girls in general.

Also, your post asked where the children outside the top 20% go. Remember the normal distribution curve - there is not a great deal to choose between the bulk of the children - say the middle 60% - so the chances are they will get offers from somewhere if you apply to a sensible spread of schools.

Thanks AlwsysFrank. I'm really appreciating the mumsnet voices of experience and calm!

Just a couple of things to add to the very useful information already here based on our experiences this year.... Firstly those tables showing offers from schools do not always reveal a completely true picture and secondly I would rank SWPS up with Surbiton if not higher. (I've name changed for this post but I have been on here for a few years)

Can you elaborate by what you mean when you say the tables don't always show the true story?

SWPS is 45th in the Daily Telegraph 2015 GCSE tables with 50% at A and 83%A/A, Surbiton is 104th with 31% at A, 70% A/A.

Logically SWPS must be harder to get into and the prep school offer tables (see earlier in the thread) suggest Surbiton entry last year was taking a much wider ability range than was thought.

SWPS isn't hard to get in to. The last few years they have not filled all their places.

Then the SWPS value added must be amazing. Similarly though Surbiton were advertising places on their website to start Y8 and Y9 for September 2015.
Maybe the opening of new schools in the area, Turing,SRR, Kingston Academy is starting to have an effect. I hope so, I know too many people paying school fees who would rather not but were not happy with their senior school choice, or lack of choice.

My dd's in 6th form now. Throughout primary she was the child who usually scraped onto top table. Outstanding cofe primary in SW London. Turn back the clock and our choices were:

LMS and Greycoat. She was offered both

PHS (declined)
Surbiton offered
Notre Dame offered

At the time we couldn't see the value of SHS over the two church school options. We were wrong. We pulled her out of a church school for our last choice Indy because she was so miserable there. The school's results speak for themselves in recent years. Our last choice backstop ended up being our saviour. DD thrived from Y9 and is now at 6th form at one of the most sought after schools on anyone's list.

Don't underestimate different development rates and how schools shift in relatively short timespans.

Go for happiness every time. We made that mistake when dd was 11. An unhappy child won't thrive. A happy child can thrive in less than optimum circumstances.

Not sure if someone has already said this, but isn't there data available on what % of the cohort have achieved particular SATS grades upon entry? For example, UCS (a very well known school in north London which I think is about 25th in the country for GCSE & A level results) said that upon entry at year 7 20% were Level 6, 70% Level 5, 10% Level 4. I was very surprised they had any Level 4!

BeauforBelle - sorry to be confused - is your DD now at Surbiton and happy there? It's one of the schools on our list.

No, Surbiton was second choice Indy. When first choice church was a disaster she went to Notre Dame - our 5th choice and backstop.

It doesn't always work out how you think it will and I agree with everything Frank said earlier.

I'll pm you. Don't want to out self or dd

I am not disputing that any of these schools add value, in fact rather the reverse. I am saying that the intake is far wider than the 20% suggested by the title of this thread. And I will keep repeating myself because I do not want any parent of an average child reading this thread to be put off from applying to these schools.

At my children's SW London prep the lower 80% are going to Ibstock, Emanuel, Frances Holland, and quite a lot board.

And, I also have a very bright one with low working memory (per the ed psych report) and after a few hiccups he's going to Westminster.

Beaufort Belle speaks absolute sense: go for happiness every time, it pays off in the end.

I can't really add anything helpful on the 11+ scrum in SW London as my dds were/are at a local primary that has very few tutored kids, and only 2/33 in dd1's Y6 class applied to independent schools. Both got in (one being dd, who refused to apply to any except the one she wanted, thus inadvertently saving us all a lot of stress), albeit off the waiting lists.

That said, the brightest kids of all (straight level 6s) went to our local state and are doing extremely well.

I'm blanking the fact that dd2 may be doing it all in 2 years' time

They mean the top 20% against national standard, not against prep school standards. So any selective prep (at entry or by weeding) is going to have most of its pupils in that bracket (I am thinking of the particular pressures of London here).

IIRC, this means (in middle discredited oldspeak) and IQ in the upper teens or above - ie roughly what was the standard (not superselective) grammar school level.

Moving away from preps, in a primary school you'd expect 1 in 5 of untutored pupils to be the right level, and with tutoring rather more. And if the school is in an affluent area, the proportion reaching that level will probably be generally higher.

But there are a lot of children in London chasing a number of places that has not expanded in line with population growth. Some children are being turned down, even by schools that would have been seen as 'soft' only a few years ago, and these are not only the Tim Tim Nice But Dim.

So back ups. State schools if you have acceptable ones nearby where you might be able to secure a place. Staying on at your prep or finding another prep up to 13 and trying a different entry point happens quite a bit. As does applying to schools further out which offer weekly boarding (either at 11+ as a back up, or at 13+ when DC are somewhat more mature and it gets a bit easier to contemplate this sort of boarding).

It does feel like a wretched lottery sometimes, but (as just about every head says) you don't see packs of feral ex-prep children roaming the streets come September.

(Tim Tim Nice But Dim will end up full boarding at St Bastards in Dunny-by-the-Wold, a village which has been mainly owned by his ancestors for several generations).

Your head can also do an awful lot of fancy footwork between 11 and 13.

St George's, Ascot, gets very good results so if they aren't selective about entrance they must be doing a good job with teaching.

I agree with opting for happiness. We didn't bother to enter DD for SPGS or LEH as we knew she would absolutely hate the pressure, and she was rejected by Surbiton and another selective. She went to St Catherine's who did a great job in working on her chronic shyness and bringing her out of her shell and she got excellent GCSEs (they didn't do A Levels then). I remember that that year Surbiton's results really weren't very good and I was severely tempted to tell them DD's results and suggest that they might like to look at their entry criteria.

Hi there, Please can someone help? My DC is sitting the Hampton exam next Jan and we are not sure which maths paper we should be using to prepare. Can someone also recommend a maths tutor? Cheers

Yours sounds like mine gruntled

Hampton 10+ or 11+ or 13+ ??

the 10+ is next week.
she must mean the 11+

The Hampton maths paper was the toughest that DS sat last year. Short questions more akin to the First Past the Post papers we had bought than longer questions found in some independents' past papers. 40 questions in 50 mins.

tw2green found this site recommended in another MN similar thread the other day. Might help with the practice, good luck.

www.independentjunction.co.uk/specimen/11.html