SW London boys, 11+ grammars and independents

[Jumpalicious]

Hello, I know there’s an excellent thread for the girls. Not sure if there’s one for the boys? Anyone want to come on board? I know we can’t divulge details of round two grammars since there will be late sitters, but was thinking more of a support thread. Any takers?

@FlyingPandas Thanks for that info!!

@GrammarHopeful That’s great about your son, esp after last week. we found Whitgift much much better than Hampton too... btw did you get an email from Hampton yesterday with a link to their e-news letter?

Been lurking on this thread for interest (we're going through the same process but not at the same schools). Just to say, there's very little consistency as to whether state primaries do CATs. Some do, but loads don't. I think it's a bit more common in grammar areas because Year 5 CATs give a useful indication of whether a child has a good chance of passing the 11+. My older DS got an academic scholarship a couple of years ago, and I suspect his CAT scores (around the 140 mark) did play a part in that, particularly as it wasn't an ISEB school and he may not have performed quite as well in the entrance exams as some of the prep school kids, as he didn't have lots of preparation and tutoring. The CAT scores were probably a useful indicator of potential in his case.

@1980sMum - seems other people have chipped in in my absence ( thank you) but I keep going back to CATs because our prep school did the tests in year 5 and year 6 and also make such a big deal out of the results: i believe it is a way for the school to make suggestions for secondary schools, mostly 13+ entry btw, and to advise parents of the national level their DS falls into. I personally really like it because till then, I had no idea how talented or not my DS was.
There are 4 subjects: Verbal, Quantitative, Non verbal and spatial. Each skill area bears a maximum score of 141 against a national average of 100. Combined average across the 4 subjects, above 127 is deem very high (9 on the Staline). What is also important is the individual scores as they may indicate specific strength about the DS. For example - if seeking an academic scholarship, Quantitative is seen to be representative of Maths, a high score in this subject could be of interest in schools that promote maths etc

Just saying, but Hampton asked me for a copy of both years. I don’t believe they could be taking into account because as rightly stated above, State schools don’t always run the year 6 CATs exams and it would not be a fair comparable. Btw I am unfamiliar with Atom. But they might complement or reinforce strong ISEB scores.

The CATs details can be found here:
www.gl-education.com/media/352160/cat4-teacher-guidance-international-edition.pdf

To answer your question my DS has scored 140/141 in 2 subjects and his average is 135. But he did not get Wilson offer, at second stage, because whilst he scored highly overall, he missed the English written threshold!
#fun games

How is the Iseb ultimately different from cat tests given both test the same four areas? Tho if Iseb has clustered so many, below the cat tests from what you say, then could it actually be a better sort of test, really drawing out the most potentially able kids?

Ps that’s a genuine qu btw... I’m as frustrated as everyone with this year’s process, argh! It’s just I don’t have experience with caf!

@Jumpalicious I’d be interested as well, not that it makes any difference given the process will run as it will.

I had assumed CAT and pre-ISEB would be similar, and they are both run by GL.

I had also thought the whole point of an adaptive test was to stop clustering at the top and bottom by having exams that are too hard/too easy. Have folk heard that it hasn’t worked out like that for the schools?

I’m also wondering how it works if your child is doing well and starts getting harder and harder questions - surely they end up with lower marks than kids who stay with the easier questions?

@noto I think (well, assume) with the Iseb, the harder questions are worth more marks. Ie you don’t get the same marks by answering 20 easy questions.

@NoToMisogyny @Jumpalicious I think so. We did some practice on Atom and you could get a really good mark without finishing and also getting quite a lot of questions wrong at the end of the test. The question at that point were crazy hard.

Thanks to both of you - yes that seems totally logical!!

From what I understand, on Atom (& possibly ISEB), the top performers all effectively flat line into a cluster at the top, making the ability to create a ‘normal’ distribution curve harder, & not without serious algorithms + age weighting’s to normalise a skewed result. Hence I believe CAT scores are used where possible, to add quantitive metrics to the decision process, as many preps would have undertaken in yr 5/ 6.

DS is at a prep school and I have no idea what his actual CAT score is. I get a report with a chart showing where he is vs the median but no actual number - I assume it's being supplied to secondaries along with the reports, but obviously haven't seen that to know for sure.

Anyway, the point I was going to make is that it all depends on performance on the day. DS did the ISEB in school over two days, invigilated by his form teacher who did all the admin for him, whereas he did KGS at home with a panic partway through as we rushed to submit the scans of documents. I have no doubt that he will have done better in the ISEBs, and that's a more accurate representation of his ability - the KGS exam format just didn't work for us and I'm sure he suffered as a result.

As a student, he'll bring the same to any school he applies to. But some will rule him out based on a bad day. Or on an interview because he was nervous and didn't come across as his true self. It's a horrible process, and probably hugely subjective so we'll never know why people do/don't get offers. But hopefully everyone ends up at the right place for them.

And now please fast forward the next few weeks so we can start to get offers coming in and remove all the stress!

My DS has his Hampton interview next week (the extra long build up to it is stressing him no end!) - can I just ask if it’s best to be honest re tutoring if they ask?

Has anyone heard from Hampton re music scholarships interviews?

@NoToMisogyny we have our interview next week also. Good luck to our DS's!
Does anyone know how many boys Hampton interview and how many places they have available?
Do they over offer?

Hello long time lurker here with 2 DS & 1DD and soon to begin this process so reading with extreme interest! Good luck to you all and thanks for the tips for next year!
Just one question...none of you have Radnor on your list - just curious why?
Thanks!

@noideaboutanything radnor is on our doorstep but I think it’s a bit of a marmite school . I have friends with kids there who love it and friends who moved their kids from it for various reasons. We looked round it but the lack of grounds was a total no for us. I know they have sports facilities nearby but I have a very sporty DS who just wants to play football and rugby with his mates at lunchtime and you can’t do that in the school grounds as it not big enough. It does have lots going for it but not right for us. I think secondary schools are a bit like buying a house. You just get a gut feel for it and you know if it will suit your child .

We had the same issue with a sporty DS and the lack of grounds at Radnor. However, their exploding offers policy was probably the biggest deterrent for us. I'm not willing to be rushed into a decision as important as school choice.

Thanks @NeverEnoughCake2 and @After8itsgrownuptime that makes sense about the grounds and sport options. Did you have academic concerns? There doesn't appear to be much opinion online about it and from our initial investigations like the 'feel' of it, the newish head came across really well and like you it's close and that also appeals! Just not sure we want to go down the 'hot houses' route although DS1 is v academic so don't want to do him a mis-service. It's a minefield!! (And could I ask about kids being moved out - is that recent or when it was new as I was hoping that was just teething issues and not the case now but have no insight.) Thank you

@noideaboutanything I have had 2 friends move kids in the last year - one felt they weren’t stretching her very bright daughter enough and the other thought there wasn’t enough sport’s on the timetable. Both very different reasons and I’m sure lots will disagree but everyone’s perception is different . If you want somewhere less hot house. It still local, that also pushes the brightest , have you looked at Halliford for your son? The school is mildly selective but they take children with a broad range of abilities .

@noideaboutanything if you’re finding the choice overwhelming a great bit of advice I was given was to force yourself to make choices.
For instance
1 - how far do you want them to travel? What’s your max time or distance
2 - are you happy for them to travel in to London or do you only want them going out of London

Once you decide on a travel limit and direction things do get easier

@noideaboutanything

A few points about Radnor.

It's a relatively very new school, and incidentally St.James Boys school (now out near Heathrow in Ashford) used to be there.

They only take just over 60 in year 7, of which about half come up from their own year 6. They don't have space for extra numbers or bulge classes, hence they say if you really want one of those 30 ish spaces, you need to commit, ie the dreaded phase "exploding offers".

They use 3 excellent nearby sites for games/sport at St.Marys Uni and Bushy Park.
Their ISI report in 2020 gave them excellent in all 3 areas.

We have a recent foot in both the Radnor camp and Hampton camp.

Yes Hampton is a very impressively run school and we are extremely happy with it in all aspects.
Radnor has a more relaxed, less ridged feel, and suits DC. Equally we have found them on the ball during this Covid time both in class and online. Agree the Head comes across really well.

@After8itsgrownuptime agree the travel time is important. What do you think is the max ok time travel (if sitting on one train or one school bus - changing trains is massive arse, imo, so am discounting all schools that require that). In my view 50 min is ok, but maybe that’s too much according to others’ wisdom?

@Jumpalicious I think it’s a personal choice. For our family we felt 45 minutes would be our max. Any bus that got them home after 5.30 we discounted .
As they get older and visit their friends independently - I don’t want to be traipsing through Surrey at all hours of the night and equally we felt that they would be better with localish friends. Again just personal choice. It’s what fits for you