St Mary Magdalene Academy Islington, Aptitude test

[worriedandstressedAAA]

Did anyone's DC's sit the test last Saturday? DS did so curious to know how others found it. DS said it was ok ish but that he ran out of time on the VR so had to leave a whole side of questions, so not holding out much hope that he got into the top 20. Apparently 400 sat the exam for 20 places to the odds are pretty rubbish. Surprised that many took the test as it's not an outstanding school. Guess we are just pretty limited for secondary school options in this area.

Mine took it said it was fine though there was a section she had to guess. Timing ok but she's never done anything like it before so I don't know that I entirely believe her. The few snippets that have come out subsequently (is 'totally-made-up-random-series-of-letters' a word?') aren't particularly inspiring.

It's 18 places but you don't have to come in the top 18 to get offered one, top 40 or even 50 is fine. Because of Highbury Grove's travails, SMMA has become the best local co-ed option and because of the primary school and the faith spaces has a small catchment, hence the aptitude places being only option for loads of families who might live pretty near. It's by far our nearest secondary but we wouldn't get in on distance.

From the school's POV, they get 18 high ability children who wouldn't get in otherwise, plus all their siblings. The very act of applying and turning up on a Saturday morning means the parents are more than averagely invested.

Do you want your DS to go there?

Thanks hothouse. Did your DD say how many questions there were in the VR section? DS said he missed out a whole side so really don't think he has much of a chance. He is usually good at VR. Did you tutor/do any prep? Also, how does it work with the places? How can they offer to top 40 or 50? Do they over offer? Also, any ideas when we will get the results? thank you!

DS not set on going at all so won't be disappointed. Quite funny as he said in one of the VR questions with the mixed up letters, he came up with the word "shit" but wasn't sure if he was allowed to use it so called the teacher over to ask who found it very funny!

No, they won't offer 40 places with the hope of 18 accepting as a private school would do because it's a centralised admissions system run by council. What will happen is that they'll offer to the top 18 candidates who qualify for a place and who want to go there and don't qualify for somewhere they want more and don't qualify for a distance/religious/sibling place. Which will probably be 18 of the top 40 or so.

Let's say no.1 on the aptitude test wants to go to Henrietta Barnett and has done well in their entrance test, then they'll be offered HBS. And therefore no.19 at SMMA has moved up a place. No 2 on SMMA aptitude list actually lives near the school so is offered a distance place. No 3 has a sibling at SMMA (weirdly I know a good handful of siblings who do the test anyway) therefore has a sibling place; no4 wants to go to Camden Girls; no 5 prefers Central etc. In this scenario you've already got down to no 24 (or whatever).

Does that make sense or am I talking a word that can be made up of the letters in HITS?!

Results this week I think. We didn't do any specific prep bar a few 10-minute VR papers the week before.

ps where did you hear 400? I wondered if it might be even more.

My ds is a y11 student at SMMA and was there helping out at the aptitude test on Saturday. He reckoned there were about 500 students there (the hall filled twice).
Good luck to your dc.

Thanks Hollywell. Hothouse, I asked the admissions officer on the open morning last week how many would be sitting the exam and she said 400. I was very surprised - thought it would be much fewer. Very weird as DS also sat the Dame Alice Owen exam in July. Apparently around 150 kids typically sit for that exam for 20 Islington places which would make the odds much better. I had it in my head that Dame Alice Owen would be far harder to get into that SMM.

Sorry, the DAO exam was in September, not July.

It's not quite that simple Worried. They are 20 Islington places at DAO in total i.e. including siblings, Musical Aptitude, Looked After etc so it's probably only 10 actual aptitude places.

I also think the level of the DAO applicants is probably higher. At my kids' primary, loads have a punt on SMMA, while few if any do DAO - either they haven't heard of it, don't want to travel that far, whatever. The few that do will have had tutoring.

Does anyone have a sense of how the SMMA aptitude test compares with grammar and independent exams? Is it harder or easier? MY DS is going for several independents, some highly selective, others less so, and I wonder how much of an indication the SMMA results will be.

We're expecting the SMMA results by the end of this week. Right?

Just got our letter. DS was ranked below 200. Oh dear. DS is also doing a number of entrance exams for independent schools, though not super selectives, so now very worried he is not going to stand much of a chance for those. He did miss out a side of questions which would have impacted his score but still! How did everyone else do?

Mine didn't do as well as I'd have thought given her confidence and how well she does at school. Out of the dead cert range, possibly in the range of offers being optimistic. It's also dented our (over) confidence in how she'll do in January 11+ tests.

I'm wondering if perhaps it's become quite filled with kids who've done the grammars and so are drilled in these sort of tests. At least you've got the excuse of ds missing out a whole page worried and you know what to work on.

Sorry to hear that Hothouse but sounds like she still did very well. Am also feeling very pessimistic and wondering if it's pointless trying to get DS into a selective and if we should either move house or settle for the local (not very good) comprehensive where I fear DS will not do well. You could be right that it is filled with kids who have prepped for grammars and are using SMM as a back-up.

Just opened the letter. My DS is number 81. Does he stand a chance?

According to the letter, you have a chance up until rank 200 so yes, he does, although not sure how likely. He did well! Which other schools is he applying to?

Thanks worriedandstressedAAA (good name!),

In addition to SMMA we are going for 6 independent schools - 3 highly selective, 1 semi-selective and two non-selective ones. Our local secondaries are unfortunately not good at all, so SMMA was our only hope of a place in a non fee-paying school.

If he were to get into one of the independent schools we'd definitely need some kind of a bursary as I'm a single parent and 20K per year is out of the question. So, the stakes are high! Yikes!

Just to make you feel better, my dd did the SMMA test a couple of years ago and didn’t do particularly well, despite being extremely good at reading and writing - she just doesn’t do well in verbal and non verbal reasoning style tests when under time pressure. She then did some exams for private selective schools and did very well.

Thanks Notcontent.

That does indeed make me feel better. There's hope...

My DS still gets caught out on small silly mistakes. He's overconfident which means he always thinks he has done enough, when in fact he needs to go back, improve his work and correct his mistakes. I bet he'd have ranked a lot higher had he gone over his work and checked it. But what can you do?

Hopefully he will get with the programme by the time of the next round of exams in Dec/Jan.

Thanks notcontent.

Northlondon, which non-selectives are you applying for? I am trying to find non-selectives but drawing a blank. We definitely need some back-up options.

Interestingly, we got DS's result for Dame Alice Owen today. He didn't get in the top 325 (we weren't expecting him to as didn't really prepare, did it more as practice) but he did get around 70% on the verbal reasoning which I feel like is a good attempt. Or am I kidding myself?

Don't want to out myself but dd's older bro did Mags test a few years ago when it was more obviously a language aptitude test and didn't do particularly well (given how many fewer entrants there were). Also didn't do well in grammars. Then did the three most selective boys/co-ed private schools within reach of NE/Central London and got two of them and was interviewed for the other.

In other words, did really well come January. I think it focussed our minds a bit. Also I do think immature boys (of which he was most immature) are at a disadvantage doing exams in September. They're all older come January but I think every week makes more of a difference when you're so very young to begin with.

Feeling more chipper about dd. It was the first ever timed exam she'd done and I think we need to do some timed papers over Christmas in preparation for the Consortium exam (more VR, non VR etc). Was in top band for Camden, we found today, which is a relief.

Hothouse, which 11+ exams is your DD doing? How many hours prep per week is she doing? We are only doing 2 hours per week with tutor plus maybe another hour max when we can squeeze it in. He's worked his way through quite a few Bond books and has done maybe 2 or 3 past papers. Think we are doing to need to ramp it up but DS is far from motivated to say the least.

Hello, just bumping this thread to see if there was any news on who got into SMMA. My child did the test a couple of weeks ago and is ranked in the top 80. I heard it went to around 80 last year. Anybody know?

@sticks1 I think it actually went to around 120 last year...

Thank you for responding. I really hope we’re in with a good chance.

@sticks, congratulations to your child. My son looks hopeful for a place too. A pleasant surprise for us after a poor showing on the QE boys exam. Got me wondering if SMMA is harder to really prep for, and maybe slightly off the radar of all the hard-nosed tutoring agencies because of this?