St Mary Magdalene, N7-governors'apptitude language places

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Hi,

Thinking about secondary for our DC and St Mary Magdalene keeps coming up in conversations although it's not really local. We would only have a hope at getting DC a place under the governors aptitude language place. I wonder if anyone has any experience at all of it.

Is it actually one of those schools where parents are prepping their children for years in advance to have a hope? Or is it worth a shot if the child might be good at languages but you I don't know as they aren't taught any?
Many thanks

DS1 say this test for intake this Sept. He is demonstrably good at languages and enjoys language but failed to make the top 18, presumably others just far better. However, we didn't tutor or prepare him because it is about aptitude though it was clear many, many people had and their children were doing the rounds so to speak. It's verbal reasoning with some pretty obscure questions and there were easily 200 children there sitting the test.

I think there is nothing to lose by sitting the test. DS1 is pretty chilled and not put off if things don't work out and enjoys tests and exams. I wouldn't encourage DS2 to sit it as he would be extremely stressed and in pieces.

It isn't actually a stressful test though iyswim.

Go and see what you think. The one thing we discovered looking at schools is that much is gut feeling of us as parents and the child attending and whether they can be happy there.

Thanks so much Anne, really helpful and a little bit scary! 200 children in a room doing an exam sounds frightening to me.

Only thinking of it as we have six choices and there aren't six schools we would get in on distance, maybe two!

We only put three which are local in Camden and then StM as no.1 though we knew no.2 was our real no.1 if that makes sense. You really need to go along to open evenings etc to get a feel. Some friends of ours discounted StMM because they didn't like the sort of order and hard emphasis on academics and went for something more arty and flexible so it depends so much on child.

Oh yes, we went to the open day of the likely school last year and will go to all of them next year.

It's just interesting to hear the take on it from someone who has done it rather than relying completely on visits and tables of results. So thank you.