SW London girls independent/grammars thread 2020

[autumnnightsaredrawingin]

Last year, there were two amazing threads which were super helpful about exactly this, so I wanted to start a thread for girls due to start September 2020. If anyone from last year wants to contribute please do!

We have narrowed our choices down to 5, sadly not in the right postcode for Tiffin, and decided not to do the Sutton grammars.

So, she will be doing PHS, WHS, LEH, SHS and Woldingham. Also registered for Emanuel but we may pull that one.

Hi @ColaPip, it's such a hard time of year to get them to work! Definitely winding down here and not planning to do much until the weekend. Have been doing a mixture of timed and non-timed papers depending on her mood - when she's tired she hates being up against the clock but if we have something fun to do and she wants to finish quickly she'll agree to timed. Glad we can have a few days off now. Your dd will be fine - at this point, it's just good to do a bit here and there to keep them ticking over. Hope you all have lovely Christmases and can forget about the 11+ for a while!

Thanks @givemesomewineplease ! We managed to forget all about exams over Christmas and now gearing up to do a paper tomorrow.
How's it going for everyone else?

Hi all.

We are doing ok. She has done loads of maths papers and typically getting around 90% which is good. English has been more of a struggle but she’s done some compositions and a couple of comprehensions, and I’ve made her read a book! She has done no reasoning which I’m not happy about as LEH is a week tomorrow and includes reasoning. BUT Putney and Surbiton are only maths and English and so I’m happy she’s taking those seriously. I will try and get her to have another look at reasoning though.

I can’t believe we’ve got an exam THIS week! Putney on Saturday as she’s doing that date not the 8th due to the Surbiton clash. Good luck everyone!

@AutumnNights - you sound very on top of things! There doesn't seem to be much VR or NVR in many exams except perhaps LEH. What maths papers are you doing? 90% sounds v good. We're doing bits of everything and some papers are much harder than others so scores are variable.

Does anyone know if the Consortium paper has much VR or NVR?

@givemesomewineplease thanks, although it’s really only maths she’s on top of- like I say, English has been more of a struggle and she’s not touched reasoning yet. But as you say, it’s only LEH with a reasoning part in the exam now. We’ve done past maths papers from Dulwich, The Perse, Hampton, Alleyns etc. Interestingly, Dulwich papers are the ones she’s scored best in, whereas the perse (which is not a London school) she found much harder...

We are not doing any consortium schools, so I’m not sure on that, sorry.

Loads of luck to all over the next 3 weeks and beyond.

Sounds like it's going well @autumnnightsaredrawingin. We can only dream of 90%! DD is weakest in maths so we've been focusing on core skills and techniques.
She's also doing Putney on Saturday. Will be very glad to get that one over - I think it will be a massive stretch but she's dead set on sitting it . I'm just hoping it doesn't put her off for the other exams..

@givemesomewineplease DD is doing the Consortium exam too. Apparently it's a combination of comprehension, maths and reasoning and is broken down into separate timed sections. I've heard that timing is typically very tight so tell DD not to panic if she doesn't finish every section!

Hi, DD did the Consortium paper last year which was the first year they used the new format. I just asked her - she doesn’t remember any NVR on that one.

They should have sent you a sample of the format? I think this is the best prep your DD can do, to be honest, just familiarising herself with this and reminding her of the importance of putting the correct type of mark in the correct box!

On the day there is a recorded message that tells them when to turn over the next page; how long they have for each section, etc. It wasn’t all multi-choice. She just said she remembers having to write a short passage in response to a text.

The main thing was the timing as they had literally a couple of minutes to do various sections of multi-choice style questions. I got the impression, they are not meant to finish all the sections, so do tell them not to worry. Plus they are given time to check their work.

DD really enjoyed the morning and said everyone was super-kind and helpful. They were given snacks and mini-dolphins at G&L. The whole point of this new exam is that it’s designed to be tutor-proof, similar to CAT tests they do routinely in schools anyway. They feel girls are under too much pointless pressure in the run up to 11 plus, with some doing endless prep papers while other girls do relatively little. They want a fairer and less stressful process for all.

Good luck!!

Thanks for that info @glittercats. Consortium is dd's last exam and as it's multiple choice I'd rather put it to the back of my mind. The only samples we have are the handful of familiarisation examples on the consortium website for each section. My dd has never done a CAT type test apart from last month at a school assessment so she's not had much experience. Thanks for the heads up on timing. Really keen to have it all over with now. She's sitting it at G&L so she'll love the dolphins if they get them again this year! What school has your dd ended up going to?

She ended up at G&L givemesomewineplease. It seems lovely so far and she hasn’t looked back. Really friendly, caring and down-to-earth.

Sounds like your dd is very happy at G&L. It's definitely one of our favourites but trying not to get too hooked on any particular school in case the assessment process doesn't work out. I have concerns about the limitations of the consortium exam in showing ability especially in areas like creative writing (of which there isn't any!) but I have to hope they know what they're doing!

DD2 was one of the guinea pigs for the new consortium test last year. Like you, I felt it wasn't going to showcase her strength of creative writing. We really wanted her to join her older sister and if they'd still been doing the old style, I think I'd have been confident enough to just apply for the one school (she's much more academic than her sister, plus we'd have had the small sibling advantage).

From what I gather, the test delivered what they hoped it would. The head of daughters' school said the results very much correlated with what they would have expected from the information about the applicants they had (previous CATs scores I guess, not that we'd know as were applying from state school). Certainly in the small pool of girls we knew that were applying there were no great shocks.

One girl next to my daughter got very upset as she realised she was filling out the test incorrectly - horizontally instead of vertically or vice versa. So try to encourage yours to read instructions carefully and take a deep breath.

Hi again, yes that was my worry re- the Consortium paper as creative writing was DD’s strength but, as Patience says, there were no surprises in terms of the offers made (from our prep at least - ie the ones put forward generally got places as they would have in previous years gone by). I think WHS was the one that threw up most surprises tbh. I seem to remember one assessment involved building a tent or something? Lucky it wasn’t me, that’s all I can say!

That's reassuring to hear about G&L, and hopefully it will hold true this year too! Creative writing is one of dd's real strengths so I was disappointed they removed it - however a multiple choice exam does seem less stressful for the kids.

Good luck to everyone with exams today and tomorrow! DD's first is on Monday. Let us know how your dds get on.

Did anyone's daughter do Guildford HS 11+ today?

Good luck everyone. Just dropped DD off at Putney. She seemed nervous but ok. Everything crossed! Good luck to all doing an exam today and over the next couple of weeks.

@anappleadaykeeps - my DD did Guildford yesterday. She really enjoyed the day but found Maths hard as all quite long word problems - our stretch school.

Do you know number of girls for each place?

DD dropped off at Putney too - seemed brutally early for them. She seemed half asleep rather than nervous - I don't know which is better!

DD seemed happy enough after Ibstock interview and computer test yesterday - she said there was lots of waiting around and was a bit drained when she got home. Can't imagine what she'll be like this afternoon...

Fingers crossed for everyone!

Good luck for everyone doing Putney today! A day off for us.

Probably best not to discuss Putney in detail until after Wednesday when their main exam is, but mine came out relatively happy. Now we just cross our fingers and wait as this is 100% our top choice, but it is just so competitive. Also trying not to put too much emphasis on it for my daughter as there’s a strong chance she won’t get it and I don’t want her to be upset. She also has her sports scholarship assessment for PHS soon and I want her to relax and enjoy that without stressing about an exam she can now do nothing about.

3 more exams to go... PHS says ‘we will contact you on 21st to let you know whether your daughter has been shortlisted for an interview.’ Does anyone know what format that takes- presumably an email?

Good luck to all sitting PHS on Wednesday, and for the interview or not email/letter. And good luck for all the others too.

That’s a good point @autumnnightsaredrawingin, I’ve asked for my post to be deleted.

Good luck to everyone with the other schools and sport scholarship assessments. DD has something every day this week 🙄. DS also has 2 this week and 3 more assessments next week (9+). I will be so glad when it’s all over! This thread is keeping me sane. But then of course the long wait will begin.

I’m not sure how Putney will communicate about interviews - hopefully by email.

Last year, PHS interviewed every candidate over a couple of months, so there was no email or letter.

I think these days, schools email at the interview stage (SPGS do that, for instance), but the offer is by a letter. But you could call and ask to be sure?

I think they do email because they include a link to confirm, rather than hundreds of people responding to I funicular letters about specific times /dates.

Individual, not funicular!