As the Tiffin results day looms, a second 2019 SW London grammars and indies thread

[FlumePlume]

A new thread to avoid the doomsday scenario of running out of posts as envelopes are opened on Friday, waiting lists move (or don’t) and e-mails are opened on 1 March.

WHS Is it state or private ??
Better than tiffin girls ???

Sorry for being naive just trying to understand

That’s worrying jk. Did they forewarn you? I hope no other schools are retracting offers

They will tell you in advance if the offers may explode. We called KGS this year to double check and they assured us was open until March 6

We didn’t get TGS and our state offer is much further down our preference list. Although we won’t tske TGS I would be interested to know her score. Do we have to request or will they send it?

@ancientgeordiegirl I think G&L is Tuesday at noon.

@JugglingMadly thanks - bloody typical as that’s 24 hours after I have to accept IPS! Has you heard of schools ever giving wiggle room on their acceptance timings?

ancient - yes it’s noon on Tuesday. What a nightmare that you have to accept IPS on the Monday - I wonder if IPS have done that on purpose as I think most schools’ deadlines are on the Tue.

I don’t think the WL at G&L has moved at all yet and as I think I said earlier, there is still one more offer holder visit on Monday morning. If it’s anything like the one we went to there were about eight families at it, so not swathes of undecideds tbh. I wonder if the registrars might be working over the weekend as they are in other schools? It could be worth ringing them and asking? Orfinding out if IPS have a “cooling off period” in the contract?
Are you happy with IPS in any case?

Btw - congrats to everyone who got Tiffin and Nonsuch offers. Is that it now - all results in?

I double checked for the amount work (I asked the other half).
3 hours a week would be a more accurate measure of what she did.
It felt like more....she was quite a reluctant learner in Year 4 and the beginning of Year 5, so actually getting her to sit down and work was hard.

In terms of extra-curric, during term time she had weekly swimming, lacrosse and violin. We also did quite a bit of hiking as a family in the non-winter months. Then she also had time for her own unsupervised activities -- making up secret codes, playing with her sister, reading, watching videos, making dens, collecting sticks.

I think it helped that her primary school is walking distance from our house, so she did not waste time commuting.

For anyone now hoping for TGS off the wait list it’s worth following the thread on the 11+ forum as people will start to post what scores have been offered off the wait list and when. I understand if you don’t get a place you can find out your mark not week, although I’m not sure how. Do they email?

I think TGS said they would email scores on Monday to anyone who applied but didn't get a place along with the lowest score offered so people can try to predict their chances.

Any views on G&L v TGS would be much appreciated.

For example, are kids encouraged to ask questions in class when they are confused? Or do kids feel pressure to pretend they understand and therefore don't ask questions when they are confused?

Is mental health an issue? Are good results obtained via the stick or the carrot?

At G&L, the teachers seemed very engaged and personable.

I have no idea about TGS beyond the very strong academic reputation. I would expect a good social and ethnic mix, which is the norm back in Canada, but seemingly rare in London private schools (the fees limit the social diversity, but some ethnic diversity remains)

When I looked at destinations, there seemed to be very few students from all female schools going on to do Maths, Engineering and Physical Sciences. For example, one year SPGS had two going to Oxford to do Maths. G&L none. Another year, SPGS and G&L both had one each doing Maths at Cam. This seems appallingly low, given the entrance requirements. Does TGS do better on this metric?

Canada Uk WHS places a strong emphasis on STEAM ( STEM plus art) , and says that half the girls leave to do STEM subjects at university.

Canada - I could be wrong as I’ve thrown all the SPGS info away now, but I’m sure I read that out of something like 105 girls at SPGS, about 90 are doing A-level maths? This is one if the things that worried me tbh. DD’s maths is good, but her strength is her writing and she’s very self-motivated in this respect, in a way that she not when it comes to maths. I wouldn’t want her “shoehorned” into doing maths A-level because of a culture that this is the norm or seen as preferable. Of course, things may change and she may surprise me and be maths and STEM all the way and this would obviously be fine too.

So I can only presume that if only one girl from SPGS goes on to do Maths at degree level, then it’s not through lack of encouragement or opportunity!

I did have a look at the G&L leavers destinations. Maybe you’re right, there’s only about 10 going in to do medicine; another 10 doing science degrees, but I can’t see anyone doing maths as a degree choice on its own and far more doing arts or humanities- based degrees. “Liberal Arts” in the US seems to be a popular choice - I guess this is students who opted for the IB which is less specific than A-levels? Maybe they’re doing maths within the IB? There is no IB at SPGS.

At LU, students don’t have to do all 3 sciences. One of mine dropped Chemistry. I don’t see it as a problem at all as this one is far more humanities- leaning. It meant they can do History and Geography alongside two languages which has been far preferable for this one. The main thing is to find something that inspires them, I think. That’s half the battle.

@CanadaUK , at this point really don't read too much into Oxbridge/alevels, private schools encourage dc to follow their interests. If you follow the Higher Education Oxbridge MN threads you will see the whole private education sector has had a shocking Oxbridge conditional offer time this year due to factors that aren't relevant to this thread but if Oxbridge is your ultimate aim for your dd you should consider staying in the state sector.

Does anyone want to join me in speculating how much the grammar schools offers and Monday independent deadlines will affect the independent schools' waiting lists?

We are waiting for a London independent school place but holding an offer for another less academic school which we will take if nothing materialises on Monday. We will also decline our Tiffin place today.

Heard from friends at our schools yesterday -

Wimbledon have now more or less filled all their places and while they will monitor things over the week end, they don't expect to be making many offers on Monday, if any.

LEH will make further offers on Monday and are keeping several waiting list families in the loop with the expectation of an offer.

I think it will work differently for different schools, depending on deadlines. SPGS has a 9.00 Monday deadline, so no chance to see what happens after state offers and make a last minute decision. WHS deadline is 12.00 Monday, so I think things might shift a lot late morning / early afternoon there. KGS is (I think, didn’t apply there) a few days later, so I would guess that will move a lot on Tuesday.

Oops, cross posted. You have more inside info than I do, Geogra.

Yes KGS is Wed 6 - no time deadline. For WHS am sure there will be people who still haven’t responded either way yet and they will only know at 12 on Mon. PHS is 9 on Monday so that is when they will know I guess.

Ibstock Place and Emanuel are also Wednesday. All the coeds seem to be Wednesday.

Putney have told our school that they will not go to waiting list until Monday and they don't expect to go past the very top section. Perhaps they have over offered and not received as many declines as expected.
According to our head JAG's are not expecting to use their waiting list at all.

I decided to crunch some numbers on A-level results for TGS and G&L and then added SPGS and LU to the mix. Unfortunately, I don't have data for STEP papers in Maths or the Oxford MAT and PAT.

The data is for 2017/2018 results and just shows the proportion of students getting an A*. Blank means the data was suppressed or no one did the subject. The data is from the UK government's site.

SPGS is clearly the best performing school (not a surprise). G&L is the weakest (but clearly v strong in absolute terms). LU and TGS are about the same for Maths, Further Maths and Physics. TGS does better than LU for Biology and LU does better than TGS for Chemistry.

Some of you may find this useful. Others may not!

I guess the question with TGS is can you afford independent easily?

If so why not leave the space to a child from a less wealthy family that needs it?

In terms of comparison. I think the facilities are not as good at Tiffin especially the hall. It is generally a bit scruffier than the indrpendents I looked round. This is what I would expect given the difference in funding.

Though that said they have quite big grounds and so have good sports facilities on site, no need to travel which you have to at some of the independent schools.

In terms of extra curricular activities there is more for my daughter to do at Tiffin then she could ever possibly find time for and it is all either free or pretty cheap. So struggling to see how this could be improved on. She has been making rockets and writing scripts and doing debating as well as musical and sports activities. She has now come home to say she wants to be in a musical....

There has been minimal homework so far and the atmosphere seems very relaxed. That said they have whizzed though the year 7 maths curriculum which they are supplementing with interesting puzzles and challenges.

A few of the girls seem unusually clever the rest just normal but academically inclined.

Hope this helps someone. I feel massively relieved that I choose it as we would have struggled with the fees at one of the independent she was offered and I don't think it would have been materially different give our key objective was a good academic education.

On Tiffin, one of the big attractions for us was the music. But I’ve heard the excellent Director if Music has left and not been replaced, and that the deputy head of music also left. Maybe one of the Tiffin parents in this thread can confirm if that’s right (or not)?