Prep School and Common Entrance

[angrysquirrel73]

We are thinking of moving our DCs (yr 6 and yr 3) from an all through school to a prep school. A change has been forced on us due to a change in the school's provision. Other than that we have been pretty happy - my only beef being DC1 is not being challenged in maths.

Both children are academically able and in the top 10% of their classes. DC1 is well motivated, DC2 needs more supervision ;-) but is young.

In years 3 and 4 DC1 was given different maths homework and the teacher differentiated the work well. But now more children have joined the class and so far this term it has been revision of long division which DC1 has already mastered and done twice and has said they have learnt nothing this term and is on the verge of boredom which is sad for them. They all have the same worksheets at school and the same homework. I have asked the teacher to meet to discuss this. This is not the first time and I already raised my concern in Year 5 and not much has changed.

So for one reason or another we are looking at other schools. My concern of course is to choose a new school that will suit the children including being sufficiently challenging.

DC1 would also be swopping from the current curriculum to common entrance and has no experience of latin. So I am wondering how hard is common entrance? Can you cover what you need in years 7 and 8 or will they struggle? Do you need to do latin?

How does your prep track your child's progress and report it to you? And how frequently?

Many thanks for your help.

My children attend a 3-18 school. The problem I found with the prep is that they don't prep in any way for outside exams. Ds1 is in year 7 now, but had to do the prep work for the 11 plus on his own time. He passed with a good score for all the schools we applied for. I know the preps that end at year 6 really focus on the 11 plus syllabus so we were definitely on the back foot.

He was happy to put in the extra work needed, he actually stayed at his own school with a very generous scholarship due to his results but I was glad he had options. Ds2 is a few years behind, very bright but less studious so not sure what will happen when it's time for secondary applications!

Hi my children attended a prep school. They did 11+ and left the school at the end of year 6, so I cannot advise CE. However, Recently most of 13+ schools discard common entrance and they tend to pre test (ISEB etc) in autumn term of Year 6 and give conditional offers in spring. Then, they test again in Year 7/8 just to check if they keep desired academic standard. So, many schools have already closed the application for 2023 entry. So your choice for DC1 would be narrow. (I know a few schools just test at Year 8 but not many) It’s better to check if your preferred schools still accept applications for DC1.

Thanks for your messages. The senior schools we are considering set their own 13+ exams (maths and english and possibly science) so though the children would follow the common entrance curriculum they wouldn't be relying on the outcome of the exams IYSWIM.

I've checked and the one senior school does its own 13+ exam in October of Year 8 and the other in January of Year 8.