SW London Private & Grammar - applying for year 7 in 2023 (Part II)

[QuiteAJourney]

Continuation of the thread
SW London Girls' Private & Grammar - applying for year 7 in 2023

www.mumsnet.com/talk/secondary/4643252-sw-london-girls-private-grammar-applying-for-year-7-in-2023?page=40

Looking forward to continuing the journey with all of you!!

@SamPoodle123 , we are still going through the process but some schools have notified on the day itself (e.g. IPS, KGS) whilst other have done it slightly ahead of schedule (WHS, Woldingham). From our limited exposure, all emails (both acceptance and rejections) seem to be going out more or less at the same time.

But, of course, it may be different depending on the school. Did you have any schools in mind?

My dd applied to Putney, G&L, FH and Emanuel. So we are waiting to hear back from all :) Well, FH interviews everyone, so we won't hear from them until after interviews, but the others ones all by Jan 9th I think. Putney mentions on or before Jan 6th.

@QuiteAJourney I am curious if the schools gave you any indication on how your dd did on the exam? I know most schools won't, but I have seen on here that some might give you an idea if you ask.

@SamPoodle123 , the only school in your list that we have also applied to is Emanuel. The email they sent before Christmas referred to them sending a communication on progress (or not) to second stage on w/c 9th January, so it could be after the 9th.

We have not asked for feedback on the exam - and I am dubious that they will do it whilst the admissions / selection process is still ongoing and there are still factors to be considered. I think that people sometimes ask (and get feedback) after the process is over - we got a couple of offers and, although we have not asked, one gave us feedback by inviting DD to the academic scholarship assessment.

@QuiteAJourney that is amazing she got asked to be assessed for the academic scholarship! Well done to your dd.

@SamPoodle123 thanks for your message - that is very sweet of you. She is keen to attend, if only because of the experience (it helps that, otherwise, she has finished all exams and only has interviews and group assessments left).

On your original question, has any of the schools sent a 'next steps' email to you? I suppose you are unlikely to hear anything before the 4th, as schools will be closed before then. Given that PHS has an assessment on the 18th, I am assuming that they will communicate at the latest one week before that. Sorry for not being able to be of more help - I appreciate that the waiting is one of the worse parts of this process!

Hi, I have till now been extremely transparent with my child about the 11+ selection process. She has some rigorous exams coming up and I am also expecting a few results just before her exams. Should I reveal the positive or negative results to her before the exams or is it a good idea to hide it till the exams are over?

Our experience so far has been that they've notified by the date mentioned or on the date if specified. In regards to feedback I know that LU tell you where your child performed in the cohort if they weren't invited for interview but you have to request it.

Yes, they all sent an email that mentions around when we would know by and also the interview dates. FH the interview date is on the 11th (but they interview everyone, so we have no idea how dd did on the test). It is so nerve wracking, as we have no idea how she did on the exams....and also all the adaptive feedback from others kind of freaked me out.

@Workhar A tricky one - is she likely to find out through other means? For instance, some of our friends were not minded to tell but the fact that quite a few kids will be taking the day off from school to attend the second stage of the school in question made their plan pretty untenable.
If not, I would go for keeping it under wraps until exams are over.

@Workhar oh yea, that is an interesting question and something I need to consider as well, but more so for interviews. DD has an interview on the 11th and we will find out by then if she made it to the interview stage for the other schools just before....I am wondering as well if it is better to not reveal until after the interview or as you find out.

So many at our school applied to Emanuel that I wouldn't be able to hide it from DS as he would just ask me.

@Daydreamscometrue , we are in a similar situation though Emanuel might be less obvious as I think that the second round is spread over several days. IPS was impossible to hide from DC (we were lucky as DD was called for stage 2) as it was one of the most popular options in DD's school and all those called to stage 2 'disappeared' on the 9th December.

@QuiteAJourney That's true re Emanuel. At our school, 6 applied to Ibstock and two went through to the second stage. I had thought they'd take more. What were the numbers at your school?

I do not think my dd would easily find out, as only one other dc in her class applied to Emanuel and Putney. They are not close friends. However, they did chat a little about it at school so it would be a small chance that maybe. I guess if she heard and asked me of course I would say. But lets say if you had the option of not saying and they did not hear...would you tell them?

I would just fib until after all the exams are done, it's not like she's going to check the dates on your emails. If her friends have heard then say that they have several days of the second stage or something!

In my case, I think/hope I might be able to hide, at least for a couple of days. (Although I am terrible at keeping secrets within the family). But again..a lot depends on when the results will be out and we don’t have a definite date. So tempted to go on a rant again: why would they take weeks to reveal the results of a computer based test? What are they calculating?

@Daydreamscometrue I would say some 15 applicants (difficult to know precise numbers as not openly discussed and there were different slots but it has traditionally been very popular and even more so this year) and I think that 8-10 went through.

@Workhar I really don't understand why such a long wait either! Emanuel, I understand as it was paper test. But the ones that were on computer should not take this long. So frustrating to wait.

In my child’s school, around 12 applied to Ibstock and I believe almost all got through. So I was under the impression that they take a lot of students through to second round.

@Workhar I think it is a question of timing the results so we get all (or at least most of them together) and ensuring that the sequencing with grammars is right.
I find quite interesting that some 'out of London schools' release results before Christmas when they run a very similar timetable to the London schools (including, in some cases, relying on the ISEB).
I completely agree that it is rather strange and adds to the stress, but very little that we can do about it (or, from conversations with our indie on this very matter, that the primary schools can do about it - they find it as frustrating as us but they are on the receiving end of the process too)

I only certain of 4 out of some 15 not going through, so that tallies. I was quite surprised that they were taking so many to second round, tbh.

The interesting thing is that there seems to be no correlation between time taken to mark and the type of paper. KGS and LU (both with lengthy paper tests) produced the results in 2 weeks and 1 week respectively. Others take much longer for ISEB / Atom based tests which you computer generated.

Most children I know who sat Ibstock got through, barr one. And of those that got through, a few didn't get through any other schools yet so they seem to be taking a large cohort through (just anecdotally as we decided not to go for it at all)

@QuiteAJourney do you know how many applied to KGS vs got an interview?