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Secondary education

Connect with other parents whose children are starting secondary school on this forum.

PART 3: SW London Girl's Indies 11+ Results, Decisions & Panic Over?

361 replies

MumsRule20 · 26/02/2021 14:27

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WELCOME TO PART 3!!

Previously…

PART 1 started by Oceane11plus in July 2020 for the SW London Girl’s 11+ 2021 cohort (pandemic year).
PART 2 continued the journey (exam pandemic panic).

Both Part 1 & 2 quickly reached the MN quota of 1000 posts!

Will PART 3 be our final episode? Keep supportively posting as we make our final decisions on offers, WL movement & starting Year 7 (hopefully post-pandemic)...

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OP posts:
HeliK · 04/03/2021 18:54

@WarmAndco3y Congratulations and good luck with Woldingham.
We also accepted offer at Bromley High.

@Stircrazyschoolmum Thank you so much for your kind words. I agree that in two months time this all will seem insignificant.

This group is very supportive and I would love to be part of Y7 group.

MarshaBradyo · 04/03/2021 19:00

I agree with Stir I have no doubt whichever school is chosen your Dds will really thrive and be very happy.

I am an interloper with a Ds (someone kind pointed to this thread as we were trying for Alleyn’s and no boys on SW version were).

But I remember many names from the early Atom threads. We used it first a month due to that thread and I really think it was invaluable in terms of format practise. Really grateful and the support has been brilliant.

WarmAndco3y · 04/03/2021 19:03

@HeliK & @Stircrazyschoolmum thank you both.
DD burst into tears and was inconsolable for a while, after we told her. But we’ve just been looking on the Woldingham website and her siblings have been trying to cheer her up. Feel really bad about that level of pressure at this age.
She just asked me if we can go and see the school soon after lockdown, but I don’t even know that is going to be feasible.

GoldenRuby · 04/03/2021 19:13

@WarmAndco3y there are regularly cyclists and sometimes joggers who go through the road through the Woldingham grounds, so if you wanted to to do that you probably could. The barriers to the front and back drives will be down at the weekends, but pedestrians can get onto the site. You can take the train to Woldingham station which is in the school grounds, then it is probably a mile up the drive before the buildings start.

HeliK · 04/03/2021 19:14

@WarmAndco3y I totally understand what your daughter must be going through. My DD still has her heart set on JAGS and she is still hoping a miracle to happen. It is not easy and I agree the level of pressure at this age is too much.

Woldingham is very good school with a massive campus so I am sure once you visit the school, she will like it.

Tr0ubled · 04/03/2021 19:20

Have had an email from Alleyn’s saying that regrettably they can’t offer a place to DD. As their offer deadline is tomorrow I’m assuming that they’re close to (or even over) capacity already in order to be able to say no to WL beforehand.

indimum · 04/03/2021 20:36

@WarmAndco3y, Woldingham is lovely. Some of DD ‘s friends going there. We were lucky to have seen the school last yr when we went for a Choir competition. They showed us around, DH had seen it after senior schools fair. My DD loved it. In the end it was the travel which was deciding factor for us not going. They have wonderful facilities, and your DD will love it.

I am all for yr 7 thread. I have got so much information on this thread and support. When new life in big school starts, it will be useful to get such support.

HappyasLaura · 04/03/2021 23:38

I’ve been lurking here for a few days despite my dad being a little younger as we will be in this position in the next couple of years. However, she is currently in a state primary.
Can I ask if all of your daughters were in prep schools ie you had guidance from heads as to what secondary schools would suit your girls?
Debating moving her private or wondering if getting a tutor and going to schools’ open days will give me any insight as to what schools are right for her and more importantly, which she has any chance of getting into.
She’s sporty, bright and confident but from the sound of this thread, she’s no brighter, sportier or more confident than anyone else’s daughter.
Sorry to derail but grateful for any guidance.

HappyasLaura · 04/03/2021 23:38

*dd not dad!

indimum · 05/03/2021 00:33

@hHappyasLaura, there is a good mix of prep and state school families on this thread. My DD and DS were both in prep. The school did very well in preparing for 11 plys exams and whilst many children went Independent secondaries, fair few were successful in Grammar schools. We had excellent advise from the head, and my impression is they are happy to call the Sec schools if they think your DD and a school are good fit. Their reference and recommendation counts a lot too.
Having said that , the decision to go provate or state has many factors to consider. Depends on the state primary you are at now and their track record in terms of sending children to your desired secondary school. How well do they prepare children for 11 plus? If they themselves have a secondary school , they may not offer much support in terms of Grammar school or independent secondary. In which case having a Tutor may be useful .
Even with prep schools, not all do same level of preparation. You can check out what their provision was like for remote learning and their published destination offers. Most schools have some relationships with few secondaries , as feeder schools. They also offer support for interview practice, which can be daunting for all at this age.
However finances are a major factor. If this is mot an issue, then other things you are getting is perhaps a more focused and happy children as your classmates, less disruption and pleasant and varied school experience. Also may be more general confidence ?
If your DD is 2 yrs away from the process, I would not visit schools too early. When we did it for my son few yrs ago, they all merged together in my mind and we had to go again , closer to his application process to chosen few. Then again , if we had visited early on for DD we could have seen few more schools.
I am sure there will be few more replies , so more insight from other families. Good luck , for what is inevitably a stressful period for DD and parents. I am just so happy and relieved to be on the other side !!!

indimum · 05/03/2021 00:36

@HappyasLaura( typo late night🥺). In case you wonder why I am writing at this hour, it is because I am at work ( hospital) 😇and having quiet period.

Oceane11Plus · 05/03/2021 07:46

Good luck @WarmAndco3y @Tr0ubled @HeliK and all those still on WL. I am sure your DDs will thrive at any school - they’re clearly very bright otherwise they would not have been put on WL. It’s just that numbers were so high this year! As I’ve repeatedly been writing on here, we made positive choices with elder DCs to reject the most academic offers and we could not be happier with our choices. It’s so easy to be blinded by league tables who are in fact meaningless - just a function of selectivity at entrance and by no mean of value added.

And you never know, you might get a positive surprise. I’m sure a lot of people don’t bother to reject the offers, they just let them explode. I’m also sure many people would have paid two deposits (we did it years ago with another DC!) and some families will be moving as well (we know a lot of people considering to move out of London and even the UK).

Tr0ubled · 05/03/2021 08:21

Thank you @Oceane11Plus, it’s hard not to get caught up in this whole process so a little levelling reminder every now and again is well received. They are all good schools and you’re so right about looking at value added rather than just a super selective school with amazing results.
Keeping everything crossed that by the end of today we will know exactly where our DD is going!

HeliK · 05/03/2021 08:25

Thank you @Oceane11Plus.

Good Luck and best wishes @Tr0ubled.

eglantine7 · 05/03/2021 09:24

Good luck @Tr0ubled and @WarmAndco3y

I am in full agreement they are all excellent schools and don't be blind sighted by league tables.

Indeed, we embraced our offers after a disappointing 11plus. We are happy to be going for Ibstock Place!

alltheleaves · 05/03/2021 09:46

@HappyasLaura delurking as my dds are also state educated and, while it felt like a minefield trying to get through this process, it was actually possible.

The first thing I did was look at what felt like every school (within reasonable travel distance) in the area and compiled a list of favourites. I had one school I really loved so after that I had a target, although I tried to make it clear to the girls that we'd be happy with all of the schools we applied to.

My girls do well academically but their primary school (especially from last March) wasn't at the same level as the 11+ tests needed them to be so we had a tutor to fill in the gaps. Our tutor was lovely and put up with me emailing her all my worries about their gaps in learning but was incredibly reassuring that the schools I'd chosen were attainable. Definitely discuss your aims with a tutor or similar from the start, it's their job to be honest with you as it reflects badly on them if their pupil fails all their exams!

If we hadn't had endless lockdowns I would have sent the girls to assessment centres to do mock exams so they got used to doing work in timed settings. We had to do this at home instead, which wasn't ideal, but in the long run reflected the situation they did take some of their exams in. Our back up choice (which is a lovely school so we'd have been really happy there) had exams in November and announced results in December. This was great because they were able to go into their other exams knowing what it was like to take them and also knowing they could pass them.

I'm really lucky because our London primary has a really close-knit community and two teachers the girls have had live on our street. Both of them have been through the 11+ for their children, and I was able to have friendly neighbourly chats about schools with them, safe in the knowledge that they actually knew my dds' academic abilities. As well as talking to them I have amazing friends who do have children at preps (one posts here, hi L 😊) who put up with my endless freak outs and questions about it all. Seriously couldn't have kept going without them talking me off ledges! Also freaking out to them meant I think (really really hope!) dds didn't register how stressed I was at times.

And after all that we got places at 3 out of 4 of the indies we'd applied to, including my favourite, and they're off to the favourite in September.

So, tl;dr, it's stressful but possible from state! And I think it's stressful regardless.

MarshaBradyo · 05/03/2021 09:52

Happy we are moving from state primary. We did minimal tutoring though. Just four half hour sessions to mark past maths papers with an economics graduate and one month on Atom to get up to speed with format. We would have stuck with paper only but ISEB was online.

It’s definitely doable but you may feel you would like more prep.

MarshaBradyo · 05/03/2021 09:54

I’ve also used a pre-prep for other dc and really they both (state or private) ended up at the best schools for them.

HappyasLaura · 05/03/2021 10:13

Thank you all for taking the time to reply, this has been very useful, am making notes, esp wrt mock assessment centres. I had no idea such places existed.

Sounds like either way it’ll be a stressful process. The joy of London day schools!

Stircrazyschoolmum · 05/03/2021 10:22

Another state primary mum here. We did one hr of tutoring from Mid Jan in year 5 and Atom from late Sept to Early Dec due to ISEB. We got offers at all 6 schools so it’s definitely doable. DD is a hard worker and bright but certainly not an academic genius.

In hindsight I think she would have enjoyed year 5/6 in a prep as she has coasted a bit recently and is very frustrated by the high jinks and misbehaviour that occurs in our class. The challenge in a ‘outstanding’ state primary is the huge range in ability. (A gap that has only widened in the past 12 months) so if your school refuses to set or stream you are always working at the pace of the slowest. You then get bright, bored kids mucking about.

If you are able to provide extra stimulus and extension work at home (nothing high pressure but for example get The Week junior and discuss current affairs, learn an instrument, take LAMDA lessons, play chess or scrabble etc etc) If these type of things are things you can do (or do already) then you can probably save your cash for secondary!

Stircrazyschoolmum · 05/03/2021 10:24

Ps. Good tutors get booked up very early so if you are year 4, to you’d want to be finding one now to start next Jan. Due to the pandemic I know some mums who are starting in September but be wary of burnout/boredom I’d only do this if you feel there are specific gaps to cover..

eglantine7 · 05/03/2021 10:53

We moved dd over to a prep in year 4 from a state school where not many attempted independent seniors. Knowing what I know now, unless they are very unhappy, don't move a happy, confident and able child from a state primary. Just stay in the loop with what's required for the exams and a small amount of excellent tutoring.
Really you only get the benefits of the prep if starting very early.

onemouseplace · 05/03/2021 10:55

@HappyasLaura We are also state primary and I would say the hardest thing we found was getting any feedback from DD's teachers about the right level of school to pitch at - we knew she was bright but genuinely didn't know whether it would be enough to have a chance at the super selectives or not. In the end we narrowed our choices down to two (an academic and a back up) plus a selective state.

We didn't get a tutor but did work with her at home ourselves. She did a spot of V/NVR from the January of Yr 5 (just those 10 min bond books once a week). We didn't do much English as her creative writing has always been very strong. We did barely anything during the first lockdown as it was enough for her to get her schoolwork done. The biggest issue for us was plugging the gaps in her Yr 5 maths knowledge. We also did do a month of Atom in the run up to the ISEB which was useful but not essential.

If I had my time again (and I will with DD2!) I would do more targeted practice of the actual exam board we were sitting for V/ NVR (we did some GL stuff, but left it a bit late). I was also incredibly naive about interview practice and DD's first one was awful.

So, in summary - perfectly possible from a state primary, but it took a fair amount of legwork from us plus we nearly dropped the ball on a couple of key elements.

HappyasLaura · 05/03/2021 11:28

Huge thanks again for all the insight.

I’ll check out Atom too, whatever it is.
The school she goes to is great. Very dedicated teachers and strong leadership and they’ve do seem to challenge the bright kids.
Thanks for advice on getting a tutor arranged early. I’ll bear all of this in mind and feel so much better about the fact that it’s all very doable from the state system.

And sorry again for detailing the thread.

MumsRule20 · 05/03/2021 11:36

@HappyasLaura speaking my own recent experience and with DD at a rather average state primary, I would be wary of any over tutoring - just some prep for the specific exams and what to expect. Our DD was tutored to help with learning gaps after no supported remote learning last year.

If you are applying for an selectively academic school make sure your DC is thriving academically at her state and is capable, confident and achieving good results / strong annual reports and meeting all expectations or above expectations of the curriculum and overall and as feedback in the parent teacher meetings you have. These are key indicators in whether or not she is capable of not only doing well for 11+ but also able to do well alongside other bright and children at a e.g. a selective private where all the children are of high ability. You don’t want her to feel out of her depth and unable to fulfil her potential from having been over coached to pass but unable to sustain continued learning at the same level / accelerated pace.

Obviously, carefully consider the schools and best fit for your DC - will it be a non-selective / moderately selective / or highly selective academic school? Lots of choice.

Those I know at prep schools have all had guidance and backing before and after from their heads on which schools they should apply for and spent much of Year 5 drilling them for 11+ as the schools reputation depends on destination leaver results. It is a different ball game but essentially one your DD will be competing with come 11+. I think the key is not to over prep or over push, she may also not take to it and hopefully a good tutor to help prepare for the exams will be able to advise on her overall capability, as sometimes being ‘bright confident and sporty’ might also not count for much if they underperform on the day. As it turned out a number of children at some of the preps we know didn’t get an offer of a place or WL. So nothing is guaranteed either way.

You will get a much clearer idea of your DC’s fit for school in those few months around application time.

If you are not fully familiar with the schools and their reputations, then do as much research on schools as possible, maybe sound out a few 2 years before, make notes then narrow it down to a focused selection and best fit knowing your DC’s needs a bit better in the year of applying. Closer to the time, try to speak to parents and kids at those schools and visit and observe at the school gates!

My DD and I chose the schools together as she loved scouring the websites (favourite thing was looking at school menus)! so she got a good feel and ended up knowing more about what they had to offer than I did. Really check through all the school website pages and look at their social media accounts etc. Get a full feel and understanding of what they have to offer, the heads vision and aims and where you feel you / she will fit in.

Coming from state primary you need to ask yourself when making your selection - do they have a good balanced % intake of kids from state and prep or is it more geared towards prep kids / is diversity important to you / how will she or you feel amongst only privileged kids or one with a more mixed demographic / should the focus be more around academia / arts or sports or music or a general good all rounder etc. etc.

The more questioning you do in advance as essentially you need to do the job of really finding right fit for your child. The more prepared you and she will be and the process will seem less overwhelming and daunting. Research will be your best friend.

Might be worth starting a specific thread on this too :) Good luck!

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