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

It's great she passed one and I hope you get good news from LU.

Back to studying for the CLSG Maths and english Assessment for us.

@peacockfeather11 well done to you. I fear that the assessment will be our breaking point as basing it on the turndown of G&L and LU, and calibre of applicants, mine won’t be meeting the mark for Maths. English is stronger and also her Reasoning and NVR. Hmm, not keen on more assessments either. Had totally forgotten and had our Emanuel exam as last one!! At least SATS have been cancelled for Year 6 at the states so she can revise a bit more, I guess.

@DrRamsesEmerson sorry it didn’t come through for you but still so fantastic on LU and really keeping fingers crossed for you.

@MumsRule20 that is fantastic news - so pleased for you.
It's the most awful emotional rollercoaster isn't it. What lovely news to go into the weekend with!

@peacockfeather11 well done on your interview offer.. I’m not familiar with the date timeline for city but I’m guessing homeschooling will allow you some flex in prepping for the assessment?

Curious around your statement regarding the SATs.. our state primary haven’t indicated they are cancelled? Our school don’t start prepping for them till Easter as I think they take place in May? (Can’t say I’ll be upset if they don’t happen!)

@MumsRule20 WHOOP WHOOP!! After yesterday’s disappointments I am SO happy for you!

[quote Stircrazyschoolmum]@peacockfeather11 well done on your interview offer.. I’m not familiar with the date timeline for city but I’m guessing homeschooling will allow you some flex in prepping for the assessment?

Curious around your statement regarding the SATs.. our state primary haven’t indicated they are cancelled? Our school don’t start prepping for them till Easter as I think they take place in May? (Can’t say I’ll be upset if they don’t happen!)

@MumsRule20 WHOOP WHOOP!! After yesterday’s disappointments I am SO happy for you![/quote]
Gavin Williamson said in the Commons on Wednesday that SATs are cancelled,, it didn't get much coverage as there was so much else going on that day!

And congratulations @MumsRule20! Good news!

Positive news for us too from CLSG.

@MumsRule20 that wonderful. It’s really nice to know and heartwarming. Wishing your DD the best with her interview and rest of schools you are waiting on and of course the Emmanuel exams. My friend’s DD is sitting Emmanuel too.

My DD got a fairly decent scholarship at one school on the back of ISEB, but it doesn’t make me less anxious about whether she has made the mark for the 2 others, which are more selective, that we are waiting on. Honestly, this year we just don’t know. But the support on here keeps me going.

Congratulations @Brot64, that’s excellent. Well done you your DD.

The wait here is becoming excruciating

@peacockfeather11 apologies, mixing my posts, @MumsRule20 where did you hear SATS are cancelled?

@DrRamsesEmerson. Thank you! Yes.. I think that news got buried!

@Brot64 fab news.. well done! A great start to the weekend!

@Stircrazyschoolmum Thank you. Well interesting story. On Tues DD woke me up squealing with delight to say SATS cancelled and she saw it on Newsround. I immediately googled and couldn’t find anything to that effect and told her they must mean the KS1 SATS which were cancelled in Dec. Then the next day on the 6th, I read something hidden somewhere on G Williamson’s statement as @DrRamsesEmerson said this has been well buried and yet reported ir announced much by mainstream and only saw the statement in TES and then checked the Gov website where it confirmed. I think Mirror / Express caught on to it early but I chose to ignore those confirm but this was only coming up in TES. So DD was correct from the beginning!

@Stircrazyschoolmum our school said they will do their own no pressure test to make sure children are on top of where they need to be. Unfortunately, the homeschooling tasks seems to be quite intense this time and they are taking registration for the brief Google Meet they do every day, so not sure how easily I can squeeze in extra revision time...

@MumsRule20 we are fortunately (??) benefiting from our schools lack of strictness on HS, as such we are picking and choosing what we do leading up to Emanuel but will become more disciplined afterwards.

The SAT thing is great news at a personal level as our local state holds all their own streaming tests in Sept so no impact. I’m guessing it’s less good news for the schools but as you say, they will hold less pressurised tests to measure performance and fingers crossed all those tedious weeks revising SATS papers in the summer term will disappear.. DD and I have had our fill of revising!!

It was definitely buried in the news though.. or perhaps I was hyperventilating over ‘back buttons’ at the time!

@PatoPato and @WarmAndco3y Big thanks - certainly a good way to start the weekend. Amazing yours got a scholarship on back of ISEB - was it Academic? I would feel quite confident of a good all round result for others if so. But I guess this thread tells us differently in ways and that we really don’t know what each and every school is essentially looking at.

I had hoped to feel more at ease but more stages and hurdles and waits for us all.

That's brilliant news @MumsRule20 @peacockfeather11 and @Brot64 - that's brilliant news. Best of luck for the next round.

I saw the KS2 SATs news flash up as an alert on the BBC news app when GW was speaking to the Commons and I think it was reported in the paper the next day, but apart from that, it has certainly been rather buried.

@WarmAndco3y @Stircrazyschoolmum

Thank you

@Mumsrule20
Well done to you too. I am not looking forward to the next assessment either; English is her weakness so I am looking at their past papers now to work on those.

@Stircrazyschool mum
Thank you. There is an assessment on the 19th, followed by an interview on the 21st or 22nd. Homeschooling will definitely allow more time to work on the assessment. DD doesn't get too much work and is strong in Maths so will focus on English.

@Brot64
Well done, that's great news.

@stellagibbons
Thank you

@MumsRule20 E is next Friday for us.. I’m hoping they iron out any tech teething problems with the first cohort!

General question.. was CIty one of the schools that used to have exploding offers? (How to add more stress to an already stressful process!!)

DD is now bereft as she thinks she messed up the interview to one of her first choice schools - she’s in floods of tears. Apparently the “details” she gave about a book she was talking about were wrong and from another book in the series....I was listening at the door and she seemed to know what she was talking about but she has just told me she was winging it as she couldn’t quite remember as it’s been over a year since she had read the first book in the series....she had told the interviewer that it was her favourite book in the series which was true but it was also the one she remembered the least about. Feel so bad for her as she’s a real bookworm and reads so many books - why of why did she choose to talk about one she barely remembers!! Oh the stress of this process is really getting to me...I feel like crying too...

@Stircrazyschoolmum most of the schools over offer and said so in virtual open days.
They have to bearing in mine many don’t accept places. I remember Highgate talking about why and how they do this.

However from what I recall City got some bad press when they adopted the system a few years ago and from what I understand - it was - in fair recognition to them, because they hadn’t anticipated so many would accept their places that year. I don’t think it was recognised this was the standard system for many of the 11+ selective schools.

@Iateallthesmarties894 sorry to hear she is so upset. I doubt very much the interviewer will know which book is which in the series and so long as she reeled it off in good fashion, that is what counts. If she is a bookwork as you say, then am certain she enthused her recollection of plot and characters, what she enjoyed, general conviction and love of reading and is what will earn her kudos and what they are looking for. Don’t worry at all! Sounds like she did a great job!

@mumsrule20 thank-you for your kind words. This process is really putting us all through the mill!