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

@Trialsat11, so sorry to hear that. Big hugs for your DD, she has done well with all the other ones so far. It could’ve been just an off day, or just the format, with all the changes and curved balls the pandemic has thrown at us, our DC have done well to get this far...

Give her lots of TLC and tell her she has just been redirected, in another direction. Wishing her all the best with everything else.

I’ll be honest I’m filled with a degree of concern, which I didn’t have with my older ones

Sorry to read that @Trialsat11. I know it's easy to say but try and not be too disheartened. Your DD has done very well already and these tests can throw inconsistent results... I remember how stressed we were when DD1 did not make it to interview stage for a school, we thought it didn't bode well for the rest but in the end she received offers from all the other schools, some (much) more selective than the one which rejected her in the first place.
As far as this particular CEM test is concerned, I wouldn't be surprised if the school in question set a much higher threshold this year to cull more candidates and minimise the number of girls sitting the written exam in January.

Sorry to hear @Trialsat11. I try to tell my DD that the 11+ is a sorting out process, where everyone ends up at the school that’s right for them, rather than something you pass or fail. If she gets rejected by some schools that’s a sign that the system is working as it should.

She seemed to take some comfort from that even though I am obviously hugely anxious about the whole thing. I’m trying to insulate DD from that anxiety though. Good that your DD has progressed at other schools so she knows she has done well. Hopefully she can chalk SPGS up to a combination of it wasn’t meant to be / the test was a bad fit.

Thank u so much for all your encouragement and kind words .

She has gone to school today finally after refusing all through out yesterday and it is indeed heartbreaking to see them in such a fragile state .
I did explain to her that probably it was not what the right school would have been for her and it is good that we can concentrate on the remaining January exams now !
On that note , does anyone know what is the breakup of time for Surbiton comprehension and creative writing ?

So sorry to hear your news @Trialsat11 It sounds as though your DD had her heart set on SPGS. Given her previous successes, I'm sure she'll shine at any school, and really they're ALL good schools! Sometimes it's better to be in top part of the cohort to instil confidence.

I heard a similar story at our school with a DD not passing the SPGS pre-test this year (top student, passed the first round of grammars like your DD, etc.) Maybe the numbers sitting the written exam in January will be lower due to the covid situation?

One thing I'm struggling to get my head round is the large number of schools using the ISEB format and therefore presumably all the selective schools will be interviewing the same candidates. I appreciate like always these schools will make more offers than spaces available since children apply to multiple schools. However, doesn't that automatically exclude the children that are lower down the rankings than say the top fifth/top quarter?

In previous years the same thing would obviously be happening but at least the schools held slightly different exam formats, leading to different performances on the day for each child. Furthermore, I suspect that the schools using ISEB will have received more applications this year given it's so easier to 'pop' another one into the list. Hmmm...?

Yes, January seems like an age doesn't it...

Totally agree dazedandconfused11plus

I imagine this is why the schools have preferred to have their own assessment process even though it usually means a very busy and potentially exhausting January each year. It does mean if a child has a bad day on the ISEB they will be overlooked in the process.

I do think however, that the schools will be wary of placing too much emphasis on one day, especially this year when the switch to a computerised test was made so recently. JAGS is interviewing every candidate and assessing a creative writing piece so they will have some extra information to go on, and perhaps references from schools will also be taken into consideration when deciding who to interview.

The ISEB will also throw up 4 results and different schools might place more importance on reasoning, while others don't.

@dazedandconfused11plus in addition to the above, I imagine different schools will have different pass marks depending on how selective they are.

In terms of applying to more schools, if that happens I think it will be more problematic for the schools than the students as arch child can only go to one school, so it my just mean they use their waiting lists more. We actually had to drop a school because of the closing dates and not wanting DD to sit ISEB too early. Although another school is still considering DD even though we did it after the deadline.

Our headmistress (who is very on top of things) has been in touch with the schools using ISEB and they have all assured her they will be relying much more on references and CAT scores (if applicable) as well as ISEB results to select interview candidates. Most of them are planning to interview more candidates than they usually would, and interviews will be more in-depth than in other years, including oral comprehensions and oral maths problems.

That's interesting (and reassuring for us!) @Flossietea I think you're right, most schools will probably follow this approach although we have one school (JAGS) who did interview everyone and these were not academic interviews but rather short and plain vanilla... I guess they have the writing task to help them form a better opinion (although I wonder how much weight can be placed on a self invigilated task...). In hindsight I worry sometimes we have been too "honest" with this writing task... I did stop DD after 25mn sharp, she did finish it but she certainly hadn't filled in an entire page as she took a good 5mn to plan and even more time to think about interesting vocabulary and sentences.

@Iateallthesmarties894

For all those stressing out that their DDs didn't finish the ISEB math section, don't despair - its a good sign. Three years ago the only child in my DS' scholarship class to not finish was a total math genius - the type of child that was doing GCSE math for fun at the age of 9 and I think he is now some sort math Olympiad champion. He was quite upset about it at the time but subsequently found out during the scholarship process for his senior school that he had scored 142 despite not finishing - he had got every single question correct and was on the most difficult "path" but ran out of time. They have to design the test so that you don't get loads of kids getting the top score otherwise what's the point....so don't panic!

At the ISEB the one line Ds remembered was not to worry too much if you ran out of time. It’s trying to find everyone’s level - or words to that effect.

@Oceane11Plus. My DD’s JAGS interview had a maths question. She also also had a reasoning type question. She had 8 questions in total. And a world view type one.
But I do agree those schools that haven’t used ISEB in the past will probably be using all parts of the process more. That must be true of JAGS at least as they’ve interviewed and got all applicants to do the writing piece.
I also stopped DD bang on time. Don’t want to be instilling cheating ideas plus if she is asked she would probably come out with ‘mum let me have a bit more time’
Her filter is a bit loose and it might just pop out in conversation.

Ah really?! To be fair I did not listen to the interview (DD would have totally frozen had she felt I was behind the door). She told me she had only one “different” question related to a prompt she was shown on the screen. She also had the opportunity to ask a couple of questions at the end.

I have also read that some schools are taking only a part of the ISEB score like LU is taking only Maths and English ( it’s not on our application list ) .Also , WHS emphasised on Reasoning scores and the head did mention that school references would be taken into account if the child has got low scores in one section .
It doesn’t help us much as DD found Maths and NVR challenging but I’m hoping that the adaptive nature meant it becomes more challenging . Interestingly she did mention that there were some Maths questions which 4 of her friends got - so wonder how adaptive it is

Big hugs to you and your DD @Trialsat11 it’s a brutal process and so hard to get a knock. If it’s any reassurance, it happened early on to a couple of pp last year and they went on to secure many offers and have very happy DD.

@Dyslexiaismysuperpower I’m not sure how the schools make these kind of decisions, but I’d say definitely book some chats with the relevant SEN person at each school. You would usually have had the chance to chat with them at an open day so I think this is perfectly reasonable.

We are all done now till mid Jan. WHS have said they will send second round invites on 14 Jan. Does anyone know when PHS send theirs?

Thanks a lot @Stircrazyschoolmum
I believe PHS and WHS always time their invites to go out round about the same dates to avoid a lot of disappointments !that was the trend up until last year .
Incase it is of interest to anyone , Surbiton has reduced the duration of their English paper to 1 hour now because some people are giving it online which to me is a major concern as to how will the fairness be ensured as we will be giving it in our prep .

My DD is doing Surbiton online at home and I have some major questions about how it is supposed to work! They haven’t provided much information so far but I have to say the whole thing sounds pretty fraught with problems. Not least I do not feel comfortable with relying on our home broadband! Hopefully they’ll release more information soon about how it’s going to take place and what format the exam will be in.

What a mess the this pandemic has created!!

@Dyslexiaismysuperpower I don’t know much about this, but my DS’s school which is fairly selective, take students with dyslexia and other cognitive conditions. They have a good SEN department.

Does anyone know when the Woldingham offers come out and more generally - do the schools communicate by post or email?

I thought the Woldingham offers were due out last weekend? I’m pretty sure they said earlier they would be sending out offers on the 5th of December

When my older DD applied, the offers were sent out by post

@Stickyspiderman I had asked Woldingham when the results would be shared, they had told me they would be sending out decision letters via email by the end of the term , Dec 15th.

@Mimijoyx you are probably right. My enquiry was right at the beginning when they were trying to sort DD’s ISEB out and we couldn’t do it, because she said their offers will be out before we managed to do it.
Obviously things have evolved since

Another (covid-related) conundrum: if we still aren't able to physically visit the schools before the deadline for accepting offers (usually early March), then I wonder whether schools will extend their deadlines? It's so bizarre to be making decisions for seven years of a child's life, to the tune of £100-200k, when you can't even inspect the product! Obviously hoping we will indeed be able to do in-person visits but it's possible that London schools in February and March will still not be able to allow external visitors. Any thoughts?