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 :)

We've got two tomorrow, which I don't think DC is thrilled about. The prospect of missing a whole day of school is a bit of a silver lining though apparently!

having scrolled through last year's thread, I think the Emanuel email came on Jan 9th and LEH on Jan 13th so we have another week to wait.... not expecting anything this week.

Emanuel invites for interviews came last year on the 10th of January - we got our invite at 7.30 pm!

They did say on the 12th for Emanuel so it wont come til Friday.
state school go back to school Monday 8th so nothing before that for sure.
the wait is terrible indeed😅

Emanuel definitely said “by the 12th” rather than on the 12th so suspect we will hear Tues/Weds

Oh ok did not pay attention to that detail 🙃lets see then ! The sooner the better

How did DSs who sat 11+ Whitgift this morning find it? Mine thought it was generally fine, but he wasn't familiar with the Critical Thinking part and couldn't really describe it to us. Any clues?!

A bit like VR and NVR according to friends who sat it @ALongProcess

My DS was at Whitgift. He said critical thinking wasn’t too hard. I didn’t get much detail from him but it sounded like logic word problems. Not the classic VR / NVR you get on Atom. He said the maths paper was the hardest with quite a few challenging questions. Harder than their sample paper that they sent us.

I don’t suppose anyone knows what proportion get through to the interview stage at Whitgift? DS is usually solid in maths but is a bit concerned about that paper. I did tell him that if he found a question hard others would have done too.

How did people find St John’s or Epsom the last two days?

We did St John’s. My DS said no surprises but the abilities test was the hardest part with lots of questions and not much time, but I think that’s what you get with a CEM style test.

@londonlady2023 yes DS who is fairly sound at maths found it harder than expected and didn't finish all of them - definitely harder than the sample questions

CEM select is an odd choice for St John’s and new this year . Isn’t that the set of tests that got Ibstock into so much bother last year? The time pressure is totally unrealistic and sort of pointless isn’t it?

It really does seem pointless. Why not just do the time in a realistic way and see what they can do? Madness.

Good luck for KGS interviews for tomorrow ! Ours is in the afternoon … 🙃🤞🏻

IPS was indeed CEM last year.. not sure if it was the test itself or the school setting the bar too high for going to second stage.
I remember the faces of the DC coming out of the first stage of IPS.. most of them pretty disheartened and thinking that they had done really badly (even the ones that comfortably went through). I know for a fact that several preps provided feedback to IPS and they seem to have listened.

Thank-you! DS is tomorrow. Not sure what to expect at all?! Good Luck also to all those interviewing…

There are 20+ schools known to be using CEM select as their 11+/13+ pretest this year. I don't think it is just an odd choice for some schools.

https://atomlearning.com/blog/cem-select

It’s great IPS has taken on feedback. We didn’t apply but friends who have reported very positive experiences so far!

Dd enjoyed St John’s today and came out happy. all crossed. Lots of her friends doing Epsom tomorrow too. Whitgift I also heard the maths was hard and this was from a bright spark ds who is strong at maths!

good luck to interviewees tomorrow!

I’m reassured that it wasn’t just DS who found the Whitgift maths challenging. I was a bit worried but I guess they’ll look across the whole cohort.

I also don’t think the CEM Select gets the best out of the kids. We’ll have to see how we get on. I also heard the Epsom tests were very pressed for time but that isn’t one of our schools.

G&L emails are starting to go out. My DD missed out unfortunately - gutted! But moving onwards and upwards and focusing on the other stage 2 interviews we have coming up

G&L no for my DD this morning too. I’m a bit disappointed but not that surprised. She’s not fussed as she didn’t particularly like the school for some reason - trying to trust the universe will ensure she ends up in the right place😬

Same sentiments - I think I’m more sad than my DD is. She is very very keen on Putney so fingers, toes and everything crossed for second stage!!!

My daughter didn’t get into G&L - quite upset for her. She said the exam went well.