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?

We have friends with DC at Radnor and Halliford who are very happy with the schools. Both are selective, but have a lower academic “bar” to get over than many of the other London / Surrey independents.

Good luck to your boys, @NoToMisogyny and @Queenofhearts1 I hope their interviews go well!

Re tutoring1 I would just be honest. I have no idea whether DS was asked this or not but he would have said yes if asked. I really believe they assume all boys will have been tutored to some extent.

I don’t know how many boys Hampton are interviewing - but from what I’ve read on other threads they will almost certainly be interviewing far more boys than they have offers to make (and they have said themselves, they are interviewing more this year than they usually would, due to ISEB). I read a ratio of 400 interviews to 250 offers for a comparable London school, for example.

Hampton like all the indies will over offer. They have to - it’ll be the same pool of DC who have applied to anything up to 5/6 schools (possibly more this year because of ISEB) and a child can only go to one school at the end of the day! It’s a predictive gambling game for the admissions teams. How to offer enough places to fill their year groups comfortably - but not so many that they get so many acceptances that they have to put on a bulge class - it must be a minefield. I’m very glad I don’t have to do it!

@Jumpalicious I would say 45-50 minutes travel time maximum - you have to factor in bus or train delays and I think any more than that would be exhausting for DC.

@After8itsgrownuptime that all makes sense. Thanks!

Thanks everyone - all v helpful points.
I think our list is Radnor, Halliford, Claremont (although maybe too far from what you're all saying), Hampton and KGS although I'm worried the last two are not the right fit although DS1 is v bright and sporty (I'm not sure why I'm less keen on St Georges and St James?) DS2 less so and they're close in age so really want to go to the same school which is annoyingly a really important factor too as most don't offer any kind of sibling advantage. Although could do Radnor and move DS2 there at the same time to yr 5. DD considerably younger can worry about her later?

@noideaboutanything , it's such a difficult process and the list of schools you have is typical of the area and many will sit that combination.
But when it comes to offers I have a ds at Hampton and the ds is his class had offers from KGS, KCS, RGS, St G's, Epsom, St John's and Tiffin/other grammars. They hadn't sat Halliford/Radnor/Claremont because their prep school/ tutor would have said it was not necessary due to the level the ds was working at prior to Yr 6.
It's a tricky journey and very very long.

Thanks v much for the advice @FlyingPandas, much appreciated!

And best of luck to your DS next week @Queenofhearts1! I cannot WAIT until our interview is over

@NoToMisogyny @FlyingPandas thank you so much.
Can't wait til the interviews are over.
We will be done.. yay!!

Joining this thread very late after lurking for a while. My DS has got interviews for SPS, KCS and Hampton coming up. Just interesting to read the thoughts of others in the same boat. Will update as and when we have some experiences to share!

This has been such a useful thread. Just wondering if anyone here for WUS or Dulwich as I have not seen any mentions (unless I've missed it)? My DS has interviews at SPS and WUS. Not heard back from Dulwich yet.

Thanks for all the excellent advice here. Does anyone have experience of the Harrodian 11+ interview?. We would like a coed school and there is limited choice in this part of West London. Any recent experience or feedback on the school will be appreciated.

@SophieDahling: can't contribute, I am afraid, as DS didn't get KCS interview, but our experience of Hampton is up the thread, if you haven't seen it. Sounds like a very solid set of schools there, well done to your DS!

@Banners75, not on our list, I am afraid. Re your co-ed comment, have you considered any of Latymer Upper, Ibstock Place and Emanuel, which should all be reachable from Barnes?

How is everyone holding up? It feels like for us the home straight is approaching for us.

We have KCS interview coming up this Friday, we have no idea what to expect! Anyone know what kind of thing Kings are going to throw at us in the English section?

Looking forward to some clear months without the schools process always sitting in the back of our minds.

Good luck for KCS, @Growupsofast, hope all goes well!

All ok this end, DS is finished as we only applied to 2 indies, so trying not to obsess too much. What will be will be etc etc. (Although I will admit to lurking on the girls’ thread as there are some very interesting posts on there about atom, ISEB, interview to offer radios and so on...)

Good luck to anyone whose DS still has interviews to come. I’m presuming by the end of January everyone should be done?

We're finally done! Not sure DS's last interview went very well. It sounds like the intended icebreaker questions didn't really work for him (e.g. he doesn't have any siblings) and he didn't really get into his full chatty self until time was almost up.

I guess all we can do now is wait for the post/emails from the various admissions offices. In the meantime, DS wants to celebrate finishing by putting his NVR revision book through the shredder!

flyingpandas Unfortunately St Paul’s is likely to linger on for months for some people. We’ve been told we have an interview but not given a date. Could be any time between now and June!

Thanks @Growupsofast. Not too long a wait then!

Really impressed how many of the DS’s here have done so well at securing interviews etc for the schools they are interested in. Gives me hope for our own journey this year.

Good luck to all of you waiting to hear. Fingers crossed for you x

@NoToMisogyny glad it is done, and tbh you never really know do you.

The wait is an odd thing to do to anyone in an interview - it would be off putting for an adult never mind a 10/11 year old.

Is that it now? Or more left?

Thank you - it was incredibly off putting. It would have turned my head inside out if it were me! They’ve just phoned and asked for DS to do another 5 mins with the maths teacher because there were problems with ‘screen sharing’ (don’t know what that means in this context!).

After that, that’s pretty much it. Just waiting to hear from KGS today but for some reason I have a bad feeling about that. We were in the first batch of those doing the tests and the tech issues were incredibly stressful!

Is anyone else refreshing emails to check for the KGS interview?

While we twiddle our fingers for news from various schools - does anyone else think it is odd how popular/active the SW boys and girls threads are here on Mumsnet? Wonder why that is.

I don't think that's very surprising-MN is much more middle-class and affluent than most of the population. Also in part it's self-perpetuating: these threads are lively so people post on them even if they're not in SW London or they don't currently have DC going through the process.

I think it’s interesting how much more active the girls’ thread is!

@NoToMisogyny I agree the girls thread a hive of activity. The boys schools have not enabled the process dragging out the interviews and sports assessments pulled. Nor would I believe, marshmallows and pasta survive for the purposes intended for the interview.

@NoToMisogyny, sorry your DS's interview with Hampton had not gone as planned. It's clear they are interviewing a lot of boys, as of course they are very popular, and it's inevitable technical glitches and overlaps between sessions will happen. I am sure they will take that into account in deciding who to make the offers to.

And yes, for some reason, girls' one is more active that boys', and I have posted there on occasion too now, as sometimes you need just get things off your chest, as this process is way too stressful!

@EshSchools, yes, looking forward to learning whether DS will be invited to an interview. It'll be the last one for us, so can't wait to get done with it all!

Chiming in on Hampton: this was the least successful of the three interviews my son sat. I think they tried to do too much, having two separate teachers involved, 15 mins apiece. And why faff around with maths questions when all kids at this stage have shown they are good at maths?