Upcoming girls’ independent SW London schools 11+ exams

[Oceane11plus]

Are there any parents on this board with DDs due to sit independent school exams in January? If so where do you stand in terms of shortlisting schools, revisions etc Are you planning to do any work over the summer?

We are still in the process of fine tuning the list of schools... We will probably end up applying to about 4/5 schools, of which 2 are in the same consortium which means 3/4 exams max.
As far as I am aware, our prep has not recommended any specific revisions for the summer, but I was still planning to make her write some maths, English and VR/NVR past papers, as 2 months without doing anything seems too much so close to the exams. I was thinking of making her do one paper a week in each subject, on top of reading and boosting her vocabulary, with two weeks in August without any paper/formal work.

Any tips on what we should be doing at this stage and over summer holidays, notably from parents with past experience, would be super useful!

Thank you

This is so interesting - wish I had seen the thread and your message as I had exactly the same experienced but quizzed a friend whose daughter started there last year and she said they are very communicative with their parents and almost so much so. So, it seems lack of comms and update of info on their site are not indicative. I almost didn’t register for this reason but my daughter was insistent that I do. Very odd though.

I have had a busy household over the last week or so. Welcome to all the new comers.
And well done to those who have got more exams out of the way.
@Stircrazyschoolmum, glad you DD came out smiling, I’m sure it’s a good feeling to be able to relax a bit.
DD did the 2nd part of Sutton grammars on Saturday. She was pleased with the English. She said the maths was more challenging, although she answered all the questions. She was less chatty than when she came out of the other exams she’s done.
We’ll see!!!
Now counting down to ISEB. Then that will be it for us, bar 3 sports scholarship assessments. Hopefully they should be more enjoyable than tasking

Welcome @NK590aaa7cX128066d0cb6, which school were you talking about in your message? Sorry if I missed an obvious post!

@Oceane11Plus

Welcome *@NK590aaa7cX128066d0cb6*, which school were you talking about in your message? Sorry if I missed an obvious post!

Sorry, I forgot to reply directly it was for the comment on FH. Also apologies for the long username! Need to configure! Only started to use MN

@NK590aaa7cX128066d0cb6 I thought it might be! That's very reassuring to hear as it would be a perfect school for us in many aspects but my subconscious had almost discarded it due to this lack of communication! We actually keep forgetting we still have this exam on January 8th

Hello,

We went through this stressful process last year and I totally empathise with you all.

We ended up choosing FH SS for our daughter as we felt it would be a good fit (strong pastoral care and a bit smaller). She started in September and we have been so happy with the school so far. Our (slightly anxious) daughter has been well supported and I can’t speak highly enough of the enthusiasm and drive of the teachers to create a very special environment. The communication has been fantastic (given the pandemic, obviously we are all at arms length)

I hope this helps- our daughter had offers at Putney High, Sydenham High and several boarding schools. For what it’s worth, we loved Putney and agonised over turning it down, but we all felt FH suited our daughter better.

Thanks @bashstreetkids for popping in. FH SS is a school I really want to like for various reasons (unfortunately we did not have a chance to see it). If we are lucky enough to have some choices to make come February, I'll probably be in touch with questions

Absolutely- please do! We had an invaluable SW London girls 11plus thread last year and I was so grateful for all the insight from parents who had girls at the senior schools we’d applied to.

@PatoPato hopefully you can see it now

technical issues on my phone last night when I could not find this thread anywhere
I'm sooooooo glad it wasn't pulled.

Phew!

So are all those who are done with the ISEB (ours is Thursday) just waiting for 'the call back' for interview?
Did you get any kind of 'thank you for sitting the ISEB' from the schools and have any of them (PHS, WHS, G&L) given any indication when that might be? If not it must feel like a bit of a vacuum.

We did not get any email after sitting the ISEB. Both PHS and G&L wrote they will write to all applicants in January so we’re not expecting any email until then. For those applying for scholarships (not our case) it might be different and they might get a call back from PHS already in December.
It’s a long wait for us before we find out more hence me killing the time on this thread in the meantime
Hope the pretest goes well for your DD

Hi, does anyone have an insight on which part of ISEB G&L will give more emphasis to? Is it all four parts?

We had no acknowledgement or thank you for sitting ISEB. I think our ‘owner’ school is Alleyns as they had first deadline with PHS as close second. PHS has sent us a ‘virtual’ advent calendar but no indication of further dates. Radio silence from WHS!

@Mimijoyx No idea sorry but my gut feeling is that the emphasis must be fairly broad based since they made the conscious decision to switch to a CAT type of test a few years ago along with other consortium schools, which must mean they value VR/NVR as much as maths and English. I also believe that if some subjects mattered more than others they would have told parents as other schools seem to have done.

Yes radio silence here too. Vacuum is the right word! Does anyone know if the ISEB schools will have already asked for the applicants' school reports - and therefore be making decisions about who to invite back in January interviews based on both school reports and ISEB results?

Strange to think there is some spreadsheet containing DDs scores saved somewhere, holding the clues to the next 7 years of her life!

I wonder if the other ISEB schools DD has applied to are aware of the 'holder school' and therefore see it as our first choice? Right now they're all first choice!!

Nice touch from Putney - that singer (day 1) is so talented!

Good luck to your DD for her ISEB @PatoPato

any child sitting the ISEB will be using only one school set of login details, so if you apply to more than one schools other login details will not be used.
our school asked us which login details we wanted to use, if applying to several schools using ISEB.
the school whose login details have been used by your child will receive the results within about a week, the other schools will have to request them from ISEB which will take longer.
I don't think the schools will be able to work out which other schools your child has applied to, they will only know if they have used or not their details. as some schools sitting the exams will be using the first sets received (for convenience), I don't think the senior schools will read the use of their login details into them being a favourite or preferred school.
I hope it makes sense.

Thank you @montlieu that's really helpful

JAGs have requested references already - DD's teacher was doing hers last week as he asked her a few questions about extra-curricular/ positions of responsibility at school. They also know where else she has applied as they requested that information on the form where we confirmed where she'd be taking the ISEB - I wasn't especially convinced about their need to know that to be fair.

SCHS - has anyone had the creative writing assessment yet? I've just checked the website and apparently they were supposed to be posted on on Fri 27th to be sent back by 4th December, but we've not had anything yet and starting to run out of time!

@stellagibbons we got our SCHS writing assessment on Friday x

@LittleBlackBear - thanks! By post? Our post is rubbish at the moment (every other day at best) so I'd better speak to them tomorrow!

@stellagibbons - our school 'hosted' the SCHS Creative Writing assessments today in the English lesson slot
DD didn't sit it so I don't have any insights. I pulled her out early today so didn't get the skinny at pick-up...not that anyone is talking!

@stellagibbons do call them to explain, I'm sure they will be understanding and you might be given an extension. Good luck!

Thanks - I had 4th December in my head as the deadline, but hadn't actually twigged it was going to be sent out by snail mail!

It wasn't in with the bear was it? I'm having a mild panic I might have chucked out out with the box!