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.

@MeimeiApril my dd had the same kind of interview. I would say the most non related and annoying interview was probably spgs. How on earth they can see academic potential by asking these silly questions under pressure. Other schools we applied seemed to be organised and well thought out questions which you can clearly choose between candidates and confirm ability and you can see they use it to choose between the applicants. What is also unfair is some did get mathematics questions at spgs so not really a fair playing field when one dd gets academics and others get some weird questions.

@Lovemyyorkies maybe the interview is not to see the potential. Maybe it doesn't matter after all. 😂

@SamPoodle123 i have heard the same! Wish I knew if it was true!

@SamPoodle123 I speculate some schools have different benchmark (boys vs girls, state vs private) because the school want to achieve certain statistics, it is just my speculation and I guess we will never know.

That is what I felt they were insinuating. They basically said it is easier to get in from state then private....but my kids are in state and the majority do not get in to the competitive private secondary schools.

This was said to me by one private school parent last year and by a different one this year.

Harrodian said in the admissions email they took different education backgrounds into account so i assume that means state versus prep as they use ISEB which the preps do prep for and state schools don't.

I think the out there interview questions are probably more to see how you think, can you think on your feet, change tack, defend an argument, use critical thinking. You cant prepare for questions like that so I imagine quite a valuable tool for schools! DD loved the Harrodian interview as it was just so wacky and out there.

This is an interesting point.

State school kids don’t tend to have CAT scores for example. I think many schools want to ensure they take a certain number of state school kids each year. I def don’t think it’s easier for state school kids but a headmaster at a school DS applied to told my DH to ensure DS focussed on VR and NVR practice for the exams as, in the headmasters words, “the prep schools really nail that”. Absolutely zero prep for 11+ done at state schools so makes sense.

Re the weird questions in the SPGS interview, I think it's probably just that they want to listen to them thinking through something they probably haven't thought about before. And I imagine they are probably also trying to see if a child is prepared to put a (possibly wrong) idea out there and have a go at following it to its logical conclusion. I don't think it matters if they get the answer 'right' or 'wrong', but it probably does matter if they are or aren't prepared to give it a good go. Again, just speculation.

I don't think this is true at all. It's the same as when prep school parents say 'all prep schools are working 2 years ahead of state schools!'. Also not true!
And pretty rude actually to insinuate it's easier for state school pupils to get in!

I had the same thought; it doesn’t seem to assess academic potential since it doesn’t touch on academic matters. It mainly observes a child’s reaction to weird questions.

But maybe the ones who got a maths question performed less well in the maths exam?
I think the 'weirder' questions allow the children to show their personalities more- there is often no right or wrong answer.

As long as we're speculating, I'll speculate that the ones who got math questions got borderline math scores on the exam, and the ones who got English questions got borderline English scores on the exam.

But did they also have time for the "weirder" questions in addition to the math or English questions?

Yea, I felt it was a bit rude the way it was said. I always heard the prep school kids are ahead by 2 years lol. Perhaps some are. I did hear they finish the curriculum ahead so they can spend the time prepping for 11+ I guess it also depends on the school.

I would love to know what goes on during the admissions process behind closed doors.

Like @farfallarocks said, it might assess 'how you think, can you think on your feet, change tack, defend an argument, use critical thinking' - which are all academic skills in a way, or at least feed into the ability to apply other academic skills.

Exactly. They are exactly the questions used in grad interviews too for Goldman, McKinsey etc. I totally see why they are helpful in differentiating between lots of strong candidates. They also slow a little more personality to shine through?

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They generally don't really need to assess academic matters in the interview though- unless borderline or potential scholarship level- as they have the exam results. What they will be looking for is fit for the school, 'teachability', arrogant/rude (!) children, personality, ability to think on their feet etc.

I don't think Grad interview in Goldman or Mckinsey use these questions. Nor they have 15 mins only grad interview.

Is anyone waiting for Reed's tomorrow? Such a popular school - quite rightly.

My DCs gave some bizarre interview answers but all worked out OK. DS got into LU and not St Pauls. His cousin got into St Pauls and not LU. Both interviewed for both. They are similar in terms of academics but very different personalities - both totally in the better school for them.

I can tell you @PreplexJ that they absolutely do. You are right they are not 15 minutes.

That is all great if they used this method for all applicants. However few children had purely academic maths problems so is not a fair system to do such different interviews. Speaking to others the level of how weird the questions were also varied. You can’t give some traditional interviews and not others. At grad schools is usually same playing fields and assessment center type environment which now schools are trying to duplicate which I think are great.

I think those critical thinking questions are also much more tutor-proof / prep-proof than bog-standard "tell me about yourself" or discussions about obvious topical subjects. The fact is, a child can be intensively tutored for maths, English and even Paper C at SPGS. It's harder to prep for critical thinking, and is feasibly a more accurate insight into a child's natural ability to process and analyse ideas - which is at the heart of SPGS's educational ethos.

Depends what is the wired questions we are talking about, it is a very big definition, so I can also tell you they absolutely do not.