SW London grammar and private year 7 entry 2024.

[Hatty999]

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/secondary/4907226-sw-london-grammar-and-private-year-7-entry-2024

This is the previous link. Hope it works.

I don’t think the majority of girls are tutored at Tiffin Girls School - I’m not aware of any tutored once they are in the school, and certainly not my DD in 6th form. Majority definitely tutored for the entrance exam - for speed and exam technique and to cover syllabus not covered yet (possibly not an issue from private primaries?).

Haha and the all important snacks of course!!

Personally, I think it just allows the secondary schools to be quite lazy. The schools are able to rely on the tutoring happening alongside, and when ther results of the school are judged, it's hard to know what is due to what....if the teaching is so-so, it doesn't matter, as the tutors pick up the pieces. ... which obviously disadvantages those children not tutored, and also means the school may not see if a teacher (especially in something like maths) is not very good.
I genuinely think some of the top schools would slide somewhat if any outside helped stopped.

tutoring on top of private school, continuing into senior school and up to GCSE and beyond seems to be common among parents I know.
At the senior school linked to the prep my DS attends, there are weak teachers who have been left in post for years, and it's known among the parents that if your child gets one of them at GCSE you must rush out and get a tutor. So just how bad the teacher is never comes to the attention of SLT or governors.
Academically selective private schools are fairly rotten places in many respects - they select on the way in, are complacent all the way through, but take credit for the "output" even though most of the kids, who are bright with supportive parents who value education, are exactly those who would do well regardless of the school.

Absolutely agree with this - and in my opinion this has contributed to Tiffin Boy’s Ofsted performance- they will give you loads of excuses for their grade going from a 1 to a 2 but it seems they have let it slip.

We tutored state school DS to cover maths syllabus, VR and NVR and close (our perceived) gap between state and prep school kids. Then found out all our parents with kids at prep schools had secured tutors for their DC on top of the prep they were already doing at school. Makes me wonder how level the playing field can ever be between state and private applicants.

And it’s such a generalisation to say that if you tutor kids they risk getting into schools above their natural capabilities. We tutored state school DD to cover same gaps in exam prep between state and private and she got into Tiffins and LEH among others and is flying - no suggestion of further tutoring beyond 11+.

We tutored our DS for a few weeks last year, after we found out all the other parents at our private primary were doing it! It’s so easy to get sucked into the machine. We ended up stopping fairly quickly as we didn’t feel it was helping. In fact it was probably net negative, as you can easily overload kids at this age and having lots of different teacher/tutor voices we felt was more confusing for him than helpful. He’s ended up doing well in the exams and has got interviews at places other heavily tutored kids didn’t get. I’d definitely advise tutoring for state school kids to learn the exam techniques, but it seems completely excessive to double up if they’re at a prep school already.

@Bluerose2020 , we know DCs in London super selective schools to be tutor on specific subjects to be top sets. This allows them A levels choice, so if you middle or lower sets Maths and get 8s you not prefer as those getting 9s in top sets that are GCSEs levels in Year 7.

Not all schools are like this but some are based on this vibe for the all important leavers destinations, rankings etc.
We know families that insist on tutoring so in lessons, DC is marvellous because they gone through with English texts beforehand so it is revision and not first time discovering the books/ poems.
Others, will rent summer holidays homes in MFL ie. France or Germany and tutor to get best results. We were told a GCSE top mark in German was able because they memorised a few paragraphs and essays reviewed and changed that can be used in any settings etc.

Schools select students by academic performance. Pushy parents choose highly academic schools. The higher the rank of the school, the more competitive the type of parent vibe. Sometimes they forge a culture of doing whatever it takes to win.

My SIL’s DC is in a top West London private school with a high number of Ivy League and Oxbridge offers every year. She is telling me about last year, how many parents were not happy with their three-star predicted grade instead of four, and had to hire additional tutors to help them push further. How many parents were not satisfied with their non-Ivy League or Oxbridge offers because their entrance exam (BMAT, etc.) score was not in the top 10 percentiles, so they needed more tutoring and an extra year to polish their application profile with the hope of reapplying in the next year cycle. This adds more pressure on the students in the year below. The school can do very little or has no incentive to influence these parents, and the extra A-star or Oxbridge offer will add to the school’s result tally, which attracts the next batch of pushy parents to join.

I also felt tutoring was hindering rather than helping my son. He’s naturally very bright, very teachable and self-motivated to do well (unlike his siblings). But after a full on week at school and on top of all the preparation he was doing at school and for homework, tutoring was tipping him over the edge. After he was in tears begging me not to have him attend, I stopped it pretty sharpish and felt awful for setting it up in the first place. It’s the only time he has ever cried over anything school related. I think tutoring serves its purpose for filling in the gaps but not every child will benefit and I can’t see the point if a child is already performing at a top level. Time will tell if I made the wrong call but so far, so good with the selective schools so I’m hoping he will be ok.

I think it definitely depends on the dc and the school. DC at state schools are more like to benefit from a weekly tutor session to fill in the gaps not being taught at school. Also, the work at school is too easy (even the most difficult option, as in our primary they have levels you can select for school work and hw). Anyway, if a dc is willing to do the extra work and their school work is not challenging enough, then why not. But obviously if it makes the dc miserable, then I would not go for it. My ds is happy to do it...even with his full schedule of sports.

For us lock down was a disaster, we were working full pelt trying to save our business and 60 jobs and the kids were left to their own devices. So after that dd had big gaps in her maths. Home school was a much better experience for those who had someone dedicated to them. We used a tutor to plug that gap ( what happened in year 3 she asked, it’s like she missed a whole year, yup!) and frankly to protect our relationship with dd which had started to become tense around school work. Another Covid hangover ! I’ve told dd to be honest about this and the reason why if asked.

Oh yes, I forgot about this...lockdown happened just after I had a baby! Perfect timing to suddenly have to home school (not!!!)....so homeschooling went out the window pretty much.

For people with DC going to Alleyn's on Saturday - doesn't 10 minutes seem v short for a one-to-one interview?

Looking at other schools - DD had 20 mins at Sydenham last week but JAGs were quite vague about length when I look back at that email.

So Alleyns and Emanuel are on the same day! Wonder if they do that on purpose to smoke out your top choice.

They did say in the email that it seemed a particularly busy day for 11+ interviews across London and they tried to accommodate everyone who had other interviews but the times were now fixed!

So that makes sense if Emmanuel on the same day.

@minimiffy think there's probably a lot you can gather from an 11 year old in 10 minutes? The key thing for Alleyns is to be keen! Answer everything with a smile and be effusive about all your hobbies and interests and why Alleyns is your top choice (😉)

Harrodian interview emails are out :)

Thanks! DD is a bit shy so I am a bit worried she won’t do as well in a short interview but will try building her confidence up. Easier said than done!

A recent poster on this thread (sorry I can’t recall who it was) described the Harrodian interview as “quirky”. Whilst I’m not entirely surprised I wonder if they would be happy to expand on this. Feel it could be a bit of a curveball compared to others DS has had which didn’t have too many surprises.

Thanks @farfallarocks my DS has an interview at Harrodian , so 3 interviews in a row ☺️then we just need to wait for offer day ( more nail biting😅)

@travelturtle any good news for you ?

Harrodian are also managing expectations by saying many more children interviewed than spaces, even for siblings. Again not a surprise given they also have all the children moving through into Y7. I don’t suppose anyone has intel on numbers interviewed, number of offers, number of spaces. I recall it was a limited number of spaces. Not holding my breath on this one even though we really like the school.

I think you may be referring to a previous post of mine . My DD had an interview (and got an offer) last year - in addition to the usual questions, there were questions about hypothetical and somewhat surreal scenarios ...would you rather x or y (with the x and y being quite surreal)? there is no right or wrong answer, just a way to see how it your DC thinks / what matters to them. I think there were also one or 2 puzzles - less about solving them, more about discussing with the interviewer how you would approach them ...My DD knew how to solve one, got stuck on the second one but got some pointers from the interviewer and then knew what to do. She mentioned to us that the interviewer was very nice and encouraging and had told her that he was just interested in how she approached things.

It was one of the interviews she enjoyed the most and she came out with a big smile (it was also our final one and she even told the interviewer how we were going to celebrate!).