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 :)

@W8alphamum you are welcome. Feel free to ask, here or on PM, if you have any question re: WHS.

@W8alphamum DD had very similar target schools as yours. Think you are on a good track, good luck.

Also, last year Ukusmum also had the very similar list of schools as yours. Her summary impression for each schools before the offer day are in the following thread, you can had a good read.
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/secondary/4723610-sw-london-private-grammar-applying-for-year-7-in-2023?reply=123431641&utm_campaign=reply&utm_medium=share

On the topic of prep effort/schedule, @Ilikelists , I'm not sure if you remembered, there was a heated debate last year.

Aside from individual children's natural
ability, there are a number of important contexts that need to be looked at first:

1. What school are you aiming for? What is the level of selective academics? London or not? It would be a step-scale range from top 10 to 30 and 60 selective schools.

1. Do you apply for both grammar and private school? Is there catchment or Sibling preference ?

1. Is your child in Prep or state schools? How much effort and support does the prep school provide in this process, for example cover a higher level of Y6 curriculum at Y5?

There are always some outlines, and outliner is more likely in MN due to selection bias, but to have a realistic chance one should look at what is the recent overall preparation effort of the students who get admitted to the target schools. In my experience, in those very top academic schools, the range of difference in preparation effort is not as big.

Also, one should always be wary of those using non-qualifiable adjectives that cannot be measured, such as "little efforts" or "hours of hours", "to the eyeballs", "crazy amount" . I remember last year two posters in MN didn't even agree on each other what "a few hours a week" meant.

What is included in the schedule? Tutor time? Homework? Time to read and learn new vocabulary? Review homework time? Attending mocks? Doing past papers? Time spent at class hours for 11+ related preparation?

I had a summary post that personal direct experience by a number of mums contributed last year, no generalisation here:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/secondary/4723610-sw-london-private-grammar-applying-for-year-7-in-2023?reply=123329581&utm_campaign=reply&utm_medium=share

@SamPoodle123 sounds like similar preparation so far, I am not sure when we should increase it.
@PreplexJ great summaries, I will go through them!

@Westlondonmum2024 @PreplexJ , very useful information about prep. Please note not all private schools are up to this level of clarity and prep. We found boys schools are more clear in their process whilst some all girls are too vague so not very helpful.
Friends in state school gave their DC some tutoring for maths subjects not covered and types of questions in VR or NVR.

All very good points. I forgot to mention these things. When you ask about prep, sometimes people do not disclose all the information as well (perhaps they just arent thinking about it). Like when someone says "my child did no tutoring" but what they did instead was hourly prep with parents, loads of reading and a course here and there during term breaks or summer.

Some prep schools help with a lot of prep and some do not do much. So I believe the amount of prep differs depending on each individual.

I forgot to add that in addition to the tutoring and atom, reading books is important. My ds does not do it nearly enough, but I will try stopping screen time during the week so he reads more. Atm he reads probably 10 minutes a day during week and weekends perhaps 20 minutes (when I really would like him reading an hour a day!). Sometimes if he really gets into a book he might decide to read a lot more on his own.

Reading is vital - and not just reading from a list of favourite books or authors (series) but also getting out of your (child’s) comfort zone. Anthology series are a good way to discover new authors. For instance, The Illustrated Treasury of Modern Literature for Children is a good example (unfortunately it is out of print but possible to find second hand).

And going beyond the “recommended books” on a topic - for instance if you pick for your child to read books about the war, go farther than Anne Franck’s diary - have him read The boy in the Striped pyjamas or Blitz Kat, or the Silver Sword. This helps not only dig deeper into a topic but also explore various writing styles.

Just joining this thread too. We're more SE London than SW, but our DS will be doing the exam for Emanuel next week. Then we have other SE school exams the following week and early Jan.

We're currently feeling really nervous about how he'll do with them all. He is dyslexic so struggles with English particularly. He should get extra time and use of a computer. Generally though he just doesn't seem to be where he should be yet, at least not consistently. He's at state primary and hardly anyone from his school tries for private secondary usually, so he has no one else around who is doing the exams, which has made it a struggle to get him to do the extra work he needs. I'm just worried now that it's too late for much improvement and we'll just have to cross our fingers and hope he does ok on the day.

welcome @Brugmansia! DS has Emanuel next week too and then yes, SE exams the following week and in Jan, though we live SW too. We're finding it a bit difficult to know what to focus on for these last days/weeks as all schools have a different format. Emanuel's does written papers but Dulwich has changed things this year and it's virtually all new online stuff for example, and it feels impossible to have any real sense of how that will go!

Hi @Brugmansia 👋yes we have Emanuel next Fri as well. The process there has changed a bit over the last few years when my DS1 sat it (they used to interview everyone) but they still say they will take a large proportion of kids through to the next round for interview/group activity and I know they also take account of school reports so it’s definitely not all on the exam. Good luck to your DS.

@travelturtle @Brugmansia i believe someone last year called to ask for feedback at Emmanuel and they were told interviews were given children who scored 115+ on all sections of the exam. I think her child scored very high on one section but below 115 on another section so her child didn’t get an interview.

Yes, and I think the dc ended up doing well and getting an offer at a more academic school.

@ALongProcess we did this last year for our dd and just before the exams we focused on what the upcoming exam was. Luckily her exams were spread a week apart.

DS is year 5 so we are prepping.

I wonder if the Dulwich exam is similar to the London Consortium. The link directs you to a familiarisation test online and mentions creative comprehension and puzzles and problem solving.

Thanks for the info on Emanuel. Looking at their past papers I can't work out what 115 equates to. Do you know?

Emanuel is not a favourite of ours and we considered not applying, so we are slightly seeing it as being another practice in exam conditions.

Emanuel - you need to get 75% in all the papers, that is what they said a the open day. After than then yes, big focus on extra curricular, well rounded pupil. The pass mark for siblings is lower, more like 60/65%.
They have so many applicants because many use it as a banker school/early exam practise and for others it is an aspirational option and everyone in between!

Last year they over offered hugely and had an extra class so imagine they will have to be more conservative this year.

DD has just finished her ISEBs at school so at least that is out the way!

Dulwich and consortium have switched to Atom. I think first round at Putney is something similar on Friday?

We have Emanuel and then a big gap until Jan for the next exam which is nice but I am worried about maintaining the work over xmas. It drags on!

Emanuel school website said sibling policy is 65% and 115 for verbal reasoning, good school reports and headteacher reference. 75% for those not under sibling policy.

Thanks, that's very helpful.

After Emanuel we have Dulwich on 8th and ISEB at St Dunstan's on 9th. If Dulwich is more Atom based I'm hoping that will be helpful as DS will be doing the same type 2 days running, before having to switch to paper based in January.

@Brugmansia it looks like Dulwich is Atom based if you look at the Dulwich website.

I would focus a little more on written for Emanuel, then after that test focus on Atom and then back to written once you are done with the online tests.

DS sat 5 schools last year, mostly written.

DD will be sitting some girls schools next year and I understand many of them are computer based.

How much Atom have your DDs done prior to sitting the exams? How many hours a week?

Hi @ash86i so we are in the same boat, but opposite. My dd sat them last year and 2 exams were online and one written. For my ds, who is in year 5, it seems all will be written, except one exam (Dulwich).

May I ask where your ds applied and how he found the exams? What was his prep like?

For my DD, we only started end of May in year 5 because we decided last minute to do 11+ (if we knew earlier we would have started prep earlier, as would not want to chance it!). But she did well. She did an group zoom tutor session once a week and then Atom. She spent probably 1-1.5 hours on Atom a week total, but closer to the exam probably more like 2-2.5 hours (2 months ahead). I also made sure she read some books recommended by Atom learning. She kept her full schedule of activities/play dates (something every day and weekend twice a day! the only day she did not have something was Tuesday, and that day she had her tutor session). If your dd exams are online, then Atom is great for this, esp if you are applying to consortium schools or other schools that use Atom for their exams.

For my DS we are doing Atom and face to face tutoring because online in a group I think would not suit him. I try to give him a written comprehension once every few months (but stick w Atom bc it is easier). I promised myself after Jan, we will up the written prep.

@ash86i

"DD will be sitting some girls schools next year and I understand many of them are computer based."

Depends on which schools, London Consortium is computer based only plus interview.

A number of girl schools have first round as computer pretest or paper test, then second round additional written test plus interviews.

DD did Putney this morning and found the English tough! How did everyone else do?

My DD had a text she was familiar with in the comprehension so felt confident about it but was a bit pushed for time on the Maths. She said the test looked exactly like an Atom test but just with Putney written across the top.

He took Emanuel, Latymer, Hampton, KGS, Ibstock and King’s, got offers from 4 inc. a scholarship and 1 WL.

He had a tutor from mid year 5 and found the exams ok. He did 1 session a week and then 2 a week closer to exams. He also did practice papers from Exam plus, which I marked for him and went through with him.

We had a strong preference for coed schools and he had a strong preference for Emanuel which we went with.

DD prefers a girls only school and we’re looking at Putney, Wimbledon, G&L and she’ll also take Emanuel and Latymer.

@PreplexJ Thank you for the link.

I have been told that WHS could be taking in one more form of students this year. Hopefully this is a good news for DD as it is our banker choice.