As the Tiffin deadline looms, is there a girls SW London grammars / indies thread yet?

[FlumePlume]

I just realised that I need to get the Tiffin Girls form in ASAP, and wondered if anyone else is in the same position? I could do with company in this process!

We’re not yet decided but probably applying to Tiffin, WHS, SPGS, Sutton High and maybe one of PHS / Emanuel / KGS.

For those of you looking for experience of what life is like at Tiffin GS, pop along to the talk forum section of elevenplusexams where there are many posters whose children attend the school.

Re Wait Lists moving- last year WHS started to move just after the State School results had come out- I think G&L moved around then as well. I think a lot of people don't reject anything until they know exactly what they have to choose from. Even if they know they probably won't take the state school offer they get they still don't accept the independent one early on.
I know that last year I had every intention of rejecting offers we didn't want ASAP but when it came to it I admit we held on to them longer that we should have. We we lucky and had more to choose from in the end than I thought we would and a possible good state school offer so we were one of the who were pegging across London ( in the snow) on the day offers had to be accepted!

1ndig0 Thank you so much for all that info on CAT scores and how they’re used - that’s incredibly useful. I suspect there may be a surge in google searches for CAT testing in SW London, as people think about it for younger siblings!

On TGS, I went expecting not to like it because of the scrum at the one Open Day, and was surprised how much I did. All the girls and teachers I met on the Open Day were pleasant, engaged, generally what I’d hope for my daughter. And I’ve heard that the music is excellent, which is very important to dd. But the journey from us is a bit of a faff (walk to station, then train that you have to aim for as they’re not that close together, then bus or longish walk) and if we had an offer from within walking distance then we’d definitely choose that over TGS.

There was a thread on here in Nov/Dec started by a mum of a girl at TGS about mental health at grammar/private schools. Scary reading but obviously just one person’s views.

Good luck to all going through this - you're nearly there.

I have 2 DDs at KGS. Very different children academically and socially. Both very happy there. Feel free to PM me.

re CAT scores, dds' state primary did EPIPS in reception, yr2 and yr4.

They don't share the scores but measure baseline intelligence apparently. A bit like MIDYIS testing in secondary schools.

Forgot to say earlier, fingers crossed for all of you waiting for delayed PHS letters.

I’m not working from home hoping that WHS send the letters extra early, oh no...

Thanks FlumePlume. Are you getting any work done whilst checking for the postman?? Its a definite distraction for me.

Our Putney High letter arrived and we have an offer. 😀

Congratulations to your dd, jimjam!

And I agree, the whole ‘waiting for the postman even though there’s no letter due today’ thing is quite distracting.

Thanks!

Congrats JimJam! Another one in the bag!!

I wonder how may applied for PHS this year? It’s the first time I’ve ever find the girls schools.

Well done to your dd Jimjam.
I too would be interested to hear the numbers sitting for each school and how many offers are made and how many on waiting list (it must be a fine art not to over or under offer).

I know WHS was close to 700, I assume PHS was similar? No idea about the others or how many offers they make. I did go through the local prep schools recently as they publish offers received, and you can see from that there are a lot of offers going out even without the state schools, but I couldn’t put a figure on it.

I think the schools are pretty cagey about how many offers they make as they don't want to admit to how many won't accept. I've read people on here say that certain schools only over-offer by 10% and frankly I don't believe them (other than places like St Paul's Girls which does seem to have very high take up). I think most over-offer by at least 2x even up to 6x.

If you look at Bute House leavers destinations, for example, in 2018 there were 31 rejected offers for G&L, 16 for Latymer Upper, 12 for Putney. And those are there very sought-after schools and that's going to add up. In fact at Bute, it looks like the average girl received 4.3 offers. That means that every girl is rejecting well over three places.

I wish the system were more transparent. I've no idea what's going to happen up in the frozen wilds of North London with my dd, hence wasting my time speculating on a SW London thread!

Nor do I Patience!

The school starting with 'F' had fifty more acceptances one year than they expected though.

Yikes really OVienna, 50! That's two whole class loads.

I think it must be very hard for schools like F as for a lot of people they're a back-up to more local/more academic schools. But they don't want to under-offer and end up going to wait list. A woman at City Girls told me that they had to do exploding offers 'because we're such a popular school'. Actually I think for popular schools it's much easier to get the numbers right so I don't buy that, ahem, argument.

1indigo thanks for sharing that really useful info re CAT scores for various schools.

I know they are further east but do you or others happen to know what CAT scores are generally needed to get into Alleyns and JAGS or Emanuel?

Did your head collect these CAT scores from the secondary schools themselves or from years of experience observing which pupils from their prep got places within these schools?

Many thanks for sharing this valuable info.

Ps yes thanks 1ndig0 for sharing the inside track on the interesting but slightly scary world of the CAT score.

PPS well done JimJam daughter. It must be such a relief to have one in the bag. Is it a favourite?

Out of interest, does anyone know if everyone who doesn’t get an offer gets put on the wait list for Putney High? We are on it, and am wondering if, in reality, it’s just a polite ‘no’.

Thanks Patience, it’s not our first choice but is an excellent school, so should we not get our 1st choice we will seriously consider it.

SW12 - no, some girls get definite No's from PHS. Well done on the Wait List!

That’s an interesting question, SW12345mum. So far, I don’t think anyone on the thread has had an outright no, so from that you could be right. But I know there are some people still waiting for letters.

X-posted with winter!