SW London Girls' Private & Grammar - applying for year 7 in 2023

[EmotiveBubblez]

i myself have been looking for this thread and have been unsuccessful. Saw a couple people mention it over the past day or so on the 2022 one.

so here we go, albeit a bit late.

has everyone visited all the schools on their lists?

how many schools are everyone applying to?

what schools are you applying to?

how is the preparation going?

i know some exams have taken place, how did they go?

wishing all the whirls good luck with preparation and exams, hope we all find the right schools for our daughters.

@HighRopes so do you think they use references as well as the grade (given 500 kids all get a similar grade)?

I've got no skin in the girls' school game btw, I'm just interested in how they decide this stuff. I have a DS and they have all been paper exams so far, except Radnor House which had a never ending computer test apparently...

@KindergartenKop No idea, sorry. My dd didn’t have a reference, so it can’t be a vital
part of the process.

Hope Radnor went fine. It seems a lovely school - we ruled out because of distance but seems to have a lot going for it.

@QuiteAJourney it's a bit far for us too tbh but I wanted to apply to a spread of places because I wasn't sure of his ability.

Hi all, for those who sat WHS last year, did you receive a letter or email with results from the first round? think we are expecting results on Friday

It was 2 December last year, by email.

@highRopes thanks

On the issue of notifications, I notice that quite a few schools still refer to posting letters ... which concerns me a bit in the context of a potential postal strike and also as quite a few people might go on holidays: That applies to us for Christmas, for instance, when we are expected to receive news from a couple of schools (any idea if when they say "posting letters" they refer to both hard copy but will also be sending emails?). Thanks

Last year, every school we saw was via email.

At least last year, if I remember correctly, they pretty much all send an email as well as posting a letter. If I remember correctly, Emanuel were the only ones who only send the letter without the email but I may be mistaken. KGS and many of the consortium schools etc were email and letter or email only.

@futomaki , @swgeek , many thanks, very useful (and reassuring) to know.

My son said Hampton and Ibstock at the weekend like some of yours. He also found the Ibstock online test time pressured. He enjoyed the group task though. Hampton he enjoyed the English, found some of the maths good and some tricky and found the words and reasoning hard.

Also, does anyone know if the kgs scholarship interviews / subject specific interviews came out with the general ones? I assume that they did.

Two weeks and all the exams are done for us!

@secondaryquandries , the KGS mentions scholarship assessments in November, so I assume that the invites were sent out on the 21st November or thereabouts.
I would assume that the academic (subject specific) interviews would have gone out at the same time too. It would make sense to send all interview invites more or less at the same time to start organising things (I envisage that it will be quite a logistical exercise!)

@secondaryquandries , in the past the KGS scholarship assessment exam had all the 10 plus successful candidates as they don't sit the 11 plus exam. I don't know of many 11 plus candidates who have been invited over the years.

Does anyone know of anyone who has been given a subject specific interview for KGS rather than a general interview?

@Dallasdays , we do not...but our DD's indie is really strict about children (or parents, for the matter) sharing news during the exam process, quite naturally (kids that have been successful telling other kids that have not been successful would never be a good idea, especially when you are trying to keep everybody's morale high). Same with the parents.

My DD and her best friend both got academic interviews and shared the news with each other because they are like sisters since they were born (I do not think that they have ever kept a secret from each other!) and the families have been friends for decades, but the girls are adamant that there is no talk at school about results (just comments about how they found the exam) and that, when a particularly 'gossipy' girl tried to extract information, all others just clammed up (and mentioned that, if she tried again, she will be reported to the teachers).

Thank you - by academic do you mean general?

Sorry, I meant general!! (silly of me!).
General and delighted with it! :)

Maybe they're all just general this year?

My DS has a subject specific interview for KGS so not all general. He has a maths one - so I’m assuming it’s because that’s his weaker subject and is more borderline than the general interviews.

Thanks all, that's what I thought. I have to say that one advantage of state primary is that no one is talking about exams/relative performance at school. Though obvious disadvantage is the lack of prepping And advice. Do you all have many left?

We are at state too - just Emanuel and Claremont left this fri and sat....

Only Emanuel left for us and (finger crossed!) second stage Ibstock. Exams done after that and awaiting for interviews / group exercises, etc after Christmas.

We've got 4, potentially 5 if he has passed Ibstock first round. State primary here also.

QQ for those who had children sitting Ibstock on Saturday - my son found it similar to everyone else on the thread - difficult and time pressured. He mentioned there was no pen / paper for workings so all the maths / anagrams etc had to be done in his head. Is that really correct? Sounds unnecessarily harder than it needs to be and v different to all the other exams with computer tests