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

@Stircrazyschoolmum the interviews are one on one for 15 min .
All the best ! I can understand your anxiety but have faith .

We got one!!! OMG.. that was stressful!!

Yey @Stircrazyschoolmum really happy for you! I think you said it was one of your top choices. Great news!

Wow!! Well done everyone.
I was holding my breath @Stircrazyschoolmum when I saw you had posted.
All the best with all your DDs’ interviews
We are waiting on Alleyn’s ( since the shifters the goalpost.
And JAGS for sports scholarship assessment, heaven knows how they are going to make that work. But I guess we should at least be updated, one way or another

Silly predictive text, I meant since Alleyn’s shifted the goal post

Yayyy @Stircrazyschoolmum . All’s well that ends well !
Wondering if Putney will still check the academics in the interview as I would presume they have already done that with the ISEB cutoff . How seriously should I take ‘no preparation required ‘;)

Yes, very relieved. DD broke down in floods of tears but has gone to bed smiling. Hard to know what they will glean in 15 mins. They must have an army of interviewers if they are doing them in a single day!

@dazedandconfused11plus it’s in our top two. DD hasn’t seen it but I really liked it, very warm and buzzy.

Well done everyone on PHS! I’m just lurking on here now as we’re not waiting for anything else.

Congrats everyone on PHS. My daughter is there and absolutely LOVES it!!! We couldn’t be happier with the school! So happy to see some good news.

Welcome @EITEL. Sorry to hear about the nos - how did your DD handle it & how did you break the news?
One upside about lockdown for me is DD not being subjected to all the playground chat. She's far less emotionally invested then her peers in the process but does start to feel she ought to get worried when she's in the middle of all the swagger.

I've often wondered about why there has consistently been a SW London thread on MN & not one for other parts of London. My N1 sister has not shared my experience & doesn't understand this 11+ process at all. She applies to 2 schools advised by her prep in the knowledge she'll be successful. She thinks all the fuss & stress is just typical of me and doesn't believe me when I explain that many of us go through it. She thinks applying to 5 or 6 schools is just hysteria & madness. I'm not sure whether she's right or not. Are we all lot more frothy in the SW?

I’m amazed a prep would only advise applying to two schools @PatoPato. Must be a different world up there in north London! Our prep advises five schools, and this year they allowed a few more as long as they were all ISEB. I wonder why it’s different in north London.

Welcome to the thread @EITEL I'm sorry your DD didn't make it to 2 of your preferred schools. As others have found (and judging by threads from previous years), it seems that the schools look for slightly different aspects whether it be VR, NVR, English or Maths - and also children perform differently for different exams depending on the day and all sorts of other things out of our control. They are only 10/11 after all! So don't despair - you still have 4 more to hear from - and anything can happen between now and February.

I don't know much about the N London schools but they seem mightily academic so perhaps it's all relative! I said earlier up the thread that it all seems a bit 'random' this year anyway, and I think that goes both ways in terms of unexpected nos and unexpected yeses. And some of the less academic schools do seem to do brilliantly with their more mixed ability intake so in lots of ways their 'value added' is all the more impressive.

Good luck and stay 'breezy'!

@Stircrazyschoolmum well done!! Thrilled for you and everyone else who made it for PHS. Was biting my nails whilst you were waiting for that darn tardy email. Fab news.

@EITEL We are same area as you and also state and have posted on our choices in thread. I, too landed here after not being able to find anywhere else to post or find out what was going on with all the exams and ISEB.

Sorry you have had 2 no’s including your first choice. Some good advice from the supportive and lovely crew above who have covered what I would say too. Hang in there, you still have a few to go.

@PatoPato - interesting to hear this about your sister’s experience. Also on the reason for very few threads on the N London schools - I think perhaps maybe because it is even more competitive and an area where so many know so many so they don’t feel comfortable sharing? I wonder? 🤔

Has anyone heard from LEH ? I have had no response to emails and my DD keeps on rushing to the door each day to check the post.

Would be get a result date especially since their interviews are planned since 19th and there is a week left now

We are also waiting on LEH. Nothing in post today, though somebody did say that we would receive an email when they are posted out. I notice that Hampton is on the list of areas for postal delays.

I’ve had a look back on last year’s thread and LEH sent an email on Thursday 16th to say they had posted out interview invites and invites/rejections were then received in the post by everyone on Friday 17th. So I think the earliest they’ll arrive in post for us is this Friday. Although the exam was much earlier this year than last....

That. Ames sense. Eeek, this is so stressful.

Friday 17th for interview on 19th 😳

That will be a record of the quickest one ever !

SW London has a higher concentration of elite schools, NW London (Habs / North London Collegiate etc) is just as frantic I'd say. However SW London threads usually include all the West London schools in Hammersmith, the schools in Dulwich / Clapham / Putney / Wimbledon and Richmond plus the City of London schools so its a rather large area. More schools you can realistically commute to means parents are tempted to apply to more I imagine.

Why do LEH insist on post?! It’s so old fashioned and unnecessary. They’re sending emails to tell us they’ve posted a letter - they could just send us the results IN the email!

@Trialsat11

Friday 17th for interview on 19th 😳

That will be a record of the quickest one ever !

Nope, we got an e-mail today from Claremont for an interview tomorrow. And KGS only gave us 24 hours notice of the re-arranged exam date. Feels like it's all a little frantic this year.

For anyone waiting for LEH , letters were placed in the post today as per email from them .
This week is nerve wrecking !

@EITEL welcome to the thread. Fingers crossed for your other options. This year is a strange one indeed.

We just got an email from JAGS, just informing us of how the rest of the process will run. Next week Wednesday we’ll know if DD will be called for a remote sports scholarship assessment

We've had a similar one from LU; DD isn't applying for sports or music scholarships, so it's just a case of waiting with bated breath. My heart nearly stopped when I saw their email in my inbox! No result till 12th February.