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Secondary education

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

Original poster

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

994 replies

EmotiveBubblez · 28/09/2022 07:18

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.

OP posts:
learning2fly · 05/12/2022 18:06

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SamPoodle123 · 05/12/2022 18:45

We are the same. I assume the feedback will be similar to the other adaptive tests taken. Different for all since it depends how you do. Although, interesting to hear back if anyone sat it already. Are the new components tough? Same levels as the samples given?

learning2fly · 05/12/2022 18:50

Yes assume the same. Gather that it is the usual adaptive sections of VR, NVR, Maths and English plus two other non adaptive sections more like puzzle solving and using codes? But may have that wrong. Grateful for any further insights

bjmin · 05/12/2022 20:23

HighHopes3 · 05/12/2022 17:22

How many are expected to go to interview stage?

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That's more difficult to say as it's spread over different days as I recall. Good luck to everyone who's applied.

se21mum · 05/12/2022 21:06

Hi, I just wondered if anyone else had DC applying to Alleyns and if they had heard how many had applied this year? Thanks.

LondonMum20222 · 06/12/2022 07:49

PreplexJ · 05/12/2022 14:59

@LondonMum2022 80% seems to be a lot, think about 500+ applicants this year how can they sits all DDs (400+) on a single day in January

Btw, is that an official figure of SPGS applicants this year? I've heard numbers ranging from 500-800 over the past few years, so it would be really good to know if there are accurate (or thereabouts!) figures this year @PreplexJ

Parent123456 · 06/12/2022 10:42

On the consortium not sure how other found it
My DD said the maths / vr / nvr and english were very time pressured and she could not finished at all, not looking good.
The 2 other parts she did not find the answer to some questions and said it was tricky..

School told them it would be infinite number of questions but it was not, a few girls manage to finish.
She said was quite similar to the CEM pretest of city and you had to be very quick.
Now very long long wait until January.

QuiteAJourney · 06/12/2022 10:49

@Parent123456 the issue with adaptive tests is that it very difficult to guess if not finishing / finding it hard is because the questions get trickier (a potential sign of the DC doing well) or because the DC has had a bad day. There is a fair amount of discussion on the topic earlier in the thread where general views were both a dislike of the opacity of adaptive tests and also an agreement that it was basically impossible to guess performance on the back of DC's feedback on the day.
As you say, the long wait can be tricky (but what is done is done and we have this little group to compare notes / vent / support each other)

SamPoodle123 · 06/12/2022 11:31

Yea, I feel these adaptive tests are way more stressful for the ones who are good in the subject, as it gets them to the more and more difficult questions, then they worry in the end if they are not finishing early like others. My dd found the emanuel test experience much better.

Parent123456 · 06/12/2022 11:33

thanks for your support, I am not really buying the adaptive questions though. DD said that they all had lots of same questions but in a different order..

QuiteAJourney · 06/12/2022 11:51

@Parent123456 I am very sceptical about the adaptive nature of tests and think that they are much less sophisticated than the marketing of the companies involved.

It seems quite categorical to say that they all had same questions but in different order - maybe there are some anecdotal coincidences and/or general themes coming up (I have noticed, with Atom, that they have lots of questions that are of a similar style but with changes, for instance in the complexity of the calculations / information provided / additional steps required to get the final answer to make them more or less challenging). If you are sure, you may want to provide that feedback via your school so they can pass it onto the Consortium. As previously discussed on this thread, there is a distinct possibility that this year's experience by the Consortium schools will need to be revisited - the more feedback people provide, the better.

More generally, if that was indeed the case and the kids all had the same questions in a different order, it would have been not that different from a more traditional exam where everybody has the same questions and is assessed on the same basis.

SamPoodle123 · 06/12/2022 11:54

@Parent123456 that is interesting. How does she know? Did she ask her friends after? How would they all remember exactly when they had the questions? I think it would be difficult to determine. My dd and her friend sat an adaptive mock test together and it is true they had at the start some questions the same, but her friend was stronger in maths at the time so the questions began to be different. In the end his score was higher for the mock test. We sat and compared the questions. And I have a feeling atom is the one doing all the adaptive tests for the schools. So it is probably similar.

futomaki · 06/12/2022 11:55

In the last ten years, how many different tests has the London Consortium used?

Parent123456 · 06/12/2022 12:15

Well they did discuss it at the break and were comparing there answers (talking about the maths part) think they had 20 questions in total and could remember some of the questions . when I discuss with teachers this morning they did agree that this did not seem very adaptive and they saw question 1 for one coming as questions 10 for another. not sure how their algorithm works but sure to be fair they should all start with similar question (maybe with different numbers) and then move on up or down. the lack of transparency and disparity in terms of difficulty (even when you do a mock on atom website) is just ridiculous, one can score top score one day and be 5th quartile the next with no time to finish half the questions.. if the same disparity applies the day of the exam, there could be lots of big surprise

iRobot2022 · 06/12/2022 12:45

I think an unfortunate by-product of this erratic atom testing is that parents will feel it necessary to apply to more schools to factor in that in any given test their child's score will fluctuate wildly for no apparent reason.
Atom as a learning tool is good, my children enjoy it and it is very helpful for setting work and focussing on weaknesses. I just do not think it is suited to testing at all.

Workhar · 06/12/2022 12:47

@Parent123456 adaptive exams are so opaque that parents can do nothing but speculate. One random & imaginary explanation of 2 kids getting the same questions in different order can be : one kid went to a higher level after answering the easy questions but was unable to answer the tricky question. So the computer brought the kid down and again presented the easy question. OR. It’s not really adaptive and it’s just the computer randomly picking the questions from a question bank. Whatever the case may be, i a not a fan of these mysterious adaptive tests.

ViolettasAria · 06/12/2022 14:50

LondonMum20222 · 05/12/2022 14:11

@Lolakath19 All very wise, and a parent very much after my own heart! We are also not tutoring (and have no intention of doing so) and it genuinely alarms me when DD tells me how much some of her friends are doing on top of prep school and a significant amount of homework in Y5 already. But there is always that fear that you're the only one not tutoring, and if the vast majority are being tutored in order to get in, then your child may be equally bright but may not get a place somewhere just they haven't been flogged to exhaustion for over a year.
I hear parents talking about still doing VR / NVR / Atom practice the weekend before a week of exams and I think those kids must be utterly drained. But I do understand why people feel the need to do it. It's a brutal process all round.
I also strongly agree that it's much better for a child to be at the top of the cohort of a "lower tiered" school (and, as I've said here before, all the schools we're discussing are national Top 50!) than struggling near the bottom of a top tier school. And there's plenty of research to back that up - that children are happier (and, ironically, more successful later in life) if they're thriving at secondary school (whatever the school is) rather than in the bottom quartile of a "top" school.

my daughter got into SPGS with this exact approach (also not English and view tutoring as something you do if you are temporarily struggling in a subject) so you are definitely not alone. good luck!
back on this thread now as im going through it all over again with my son, utterly drained from the whole process. one more child to go after this and then it will be time for GCSE im sure....

LondonMum20222 · 06/12/2022 15:32

ViolettasAria · 06/12/2022 14:50

my daughter got into SPGS with this exact approach (also not English and view tutoring as something you do if you are temporarily struggling in a subject) so you are definitely not alone. good luck!
back on this thread now as im going through it all over again with my son, utterly drained from the whole process. one more child to go after this and then it will be time for GCSE im sure....

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That's really reassuring to hear -thank-you! Is your DD happy at SPGS? I hope both you and your DS are managing okay second time around. All such a stressful process.

QuiteAJourney · 06/12/2022 17:37

Good luck to all those doing LU tomorrow!

bjmin · 06/12/2022 18:38

QuiteAJourney · 06/12/2022 17:37

Good luck to all those doing LU tomorrow!

LU was funny experience for my DD. She said the boy next to her copied all of her English answers during the entrance exam. LOL

QuiteAJourney · 06/12/2022 19:29

@bjmin That is awful!! Both in terms of not being addressed by the invigilators and of the kid thinking that it was a good idea!

bjmin · 06/12/2022 19:31

QuiteAJourney · 06/12/2022 19:29

@bjmin That is awful!! Both in terms of not being addressed by the invigilators and of the kid thinking that it was a good idea!

We thought it was kind of funny. Can you imagine if that DS was accepted because of my DD's answer's? Imagine how he's doing on his own now! LOL

LondonMum20222 · 06/12/2022 19:39

bjmin · 06/12/2022 18:38

LU was funny experience for my DD. She said the boy next to her copied all of her English answers during the entrance exam. LOL

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That's outrageous! Though my DD says that happens in online tests (including CATS) all the time at her school, so it'll be interesting to see how rigorously her school invigilates when they do Consortium / ISEB...

Mamabear12 · 06/12/2022 20:11

I am surprised no one notices this?? Very odd. You would think there is someone walking around watching to make sure no cheating.

11plusdoneanddusted · 06/12/2022 20:16

I invigilate 11plus etc sometimes- would definitely be noticed. I know a few invigilators at LU- they would have clocked it I promise! Isn't LU just comprehension and a story? Would be quite hard to copy? Multiple choice would be easier but you wouldn't know whether the person you were copying from would be worth copying from, unlike at your own school!