SW London Grammar and Private year 7 entry 2024

[lolo99]

Not sure if this thread has been started but if not, I would like to share experiences, tips and generally talk about schools and their pros and cons and processes to ease the anxiety and pain for us parents :)

"Some parents got VERY into the league tables and whether school X is the better choice because slightly higher than school Y. Clearly exam results are an important metric for sure but context is very important and exam results in large part are driven by strength of intake."

Agree think it is better to look at league table into general buckets of schools over a few years other than exact position on a particular year.

It is probably only useful to as one of the many factors to gauge the potential difficulty of entrance, along with other factors such as location (London or outside) , broading or day, state or private, coed or single sex.

@PreplexJ there is the list! Thanks, I found so many exam paper websites in my search. What an industry.

So a quick question, particularly for those who have gone through this before.
Do you think it is worth arranging any formal interview practice? Our tutor is arranging some sessions and we're deciding whether to sign up or not. My initial thought is not to. My DS is very extrovert and confident so if he actually gets through any of the exams this is likely to be an area he will do better on anyway. However, there may be specific areas of questioning that it may be worth getting him used to and ready to answer properly (so he doesn't just go off on a tangent and ramble about Fortnite the entire time).

I would recommend doing them. For us the aim was for DS to practice having a conversation with an adult he is not familiar with. And you get detailed feedback in the end which was helpful.

We didn’t with DS1 but went for walks with him over Xmas and threw him occasional curveball questions. Planning same with DS2. If you’re going to do formal practice just do 1 or 2. I think it’s important they sound authentic and not rehearsed when they answer (he was at one group activity where they had to talk about favourite books and one kid said War and Peace 🫣)

on interviews we did an online seminar with the Education Hotel plus a mock interview. That was helpful particularly given we didn’t have prep school support. The feedback was useful.

There was also a useful booklet which helped me work with DC on how to respond.

Looking in their website it looks like £50 to get the seminar recording and booklet or £180 for that plus 1 hour of interview/feedback.

I really wouldn't bother. Just get them to think about what they like doing at school and out of school. What book they're reading etc. Think about things they like about that school and any questions they may have. Absolutely no need to pay for any sort of help. Mine were at state schools and did have a tutor for a bit for exam technique etc. He gave me a list of things they should know for interviews - world leaders, capital cities etc. Nothing like that came up at all at any of the London independents they interviewed at.
Was more along the lines of looking and discussing random picture and objects, what were they doing after the interview or at the weekend and so on. All very normal chatty stuff.

I think it depends on the dc. I thought looked up some random questions to ask her as fun. I explained the main thing is do not worry and they are just trying to get to know you or see how you think. We did not practice much because by the time the interviews came around dd was done with it all in her mind. She felt she did not need any prep. And she did really well. If any of my dc were shy, then I would definitely get them to do interview prep to help them feel more confident.

I think you can do some practice if you want to, but not necessarily to be formal one. Prepare some philosophical kind of question that had no right and wrong answers, let your DC explore and come up with their own answers with reasonings.

Definitely no need to over prep, the interviewer want to see a real 10 years old kid being an individual itself.

Good luck for everyone's DC doing the Emanuel exam today.

Hear, Hear!

Good luck also to those getting results from WHS first round.

Did anyone's DD sit the Consortium exam yesterday?

I have heard from parents at 3 different prep schools that there was overlap in questions between the PHS exam last Friday, the Ibstock exam on Saturday and yesterday's Consortium exam (all set by Atom). This obviously puts girls who've sat two or more of those exams at an advantage, and clearly is a breach of the security of the Atom exam.

Has anyone else heard this? It would be really good to hear about it, if so. If Atom have set aspects of the same test across different schools, it needs to be raised urgently with the Head of the London Consortium and the head of Ibstock (the PHS exam was first, so that's not affected).

Also, does anyone know who the current head of the London Consortium is? I think it used to be the head of FHSS but now they've left, I can't find who it is.

Oh my, that's no good. Possibly just same questions with different numbers substituted etc? Didn't realise Atom also set the actual exams.

Good luck to those sitting Emmanuel and anyone getting first round of Ibstock results today

Wow! To recycle questions from one exam to another would be outrageous and it is not surprising that those impacted want to raise it with the relevant schools. Also, if you are at a prep, worth asking the head to contact IPS and Consortium.

PS sometimes schools lurk in these threads .... if so, that would prompt them to look into it.

I heard a little girl on the way out of SHS exam saying the questions were the same as PHS

Is that Surbiton High or South Hampstead High?

It is not unusual to have recycle questions if the schools decided to use external providers to provide with multiple choice type of questions. This is not limited to online test such as Atom or CEM select.

The recycle is also applies to schools (grammar or indies) who use GL to provide with their NVR or VR papers. Imagine how many combinations and permutation you can have for NVR questions? They have to be drawn out from the questions bank.

Now sure how much unfair advantage? But I think those schools with second round wrttien paper exam kind of mitigate this issue. Obviously this does not apply to Consortium schools.

@PreplexJ I don't think your DD is sitting exams this year? You may feel less sanguine if they were, but thank-you for your input.

Surbiton High!

@11PlusCraziness I was trying to point out that these kind of issue does happen year after year as each school manages their own exams without much coordination between schools.

Not sanguine towards it but I think parents might have to look forward anyway. Good luck.

Atom are such an industry, quite surprised schools are now using them for the exams too, feels slightly unethical to me ( marking their own homework!)

So many kids at the Emanuel exam today all lining up in the freezing cold.
Part if me thinks there has to be a better way than this process with it’s tutors and online platforms and poor kids.

We were in the Emanuel queue - just hoping the cold woke my DS up! Good luck to DCs sitting!

If questions (or a significant number of them) have been the same it would point out to a relatively limited bank and the tests not being fully iterative... which is interesting as those issues are quite central to Atom's proposition to parents and schools.

Quite! And you clearly can't have a provider setting the same exam for different schools sitting on different days when there is considerable crossover between applicants. It makes a mockery of their "bespoke" offer.