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.

Still waiting here. I was also wondering about an IT issue.

Fortunately only one other child at DS' school is applying to any independent schools. He's a really good friend of DS and there are only 2 schools that they're both applying to.

LEH invites are also out! A yes for DD. Any tips for interview at LEH would be much appreciated.

Finally an email but it's a no for us.

Same for us @SilverLake ☹️ah well - not meant to be, so there it is. Sorry you didn’t get better news x

@Summerma same here !

Another no for us. That just leaves Alleyns to hear from which will almost certainly be a no.

That is really not ok!

Everyone being quite cagey about it at our school, as it should be IMO. Only say if asked directly.

School websites with their offers and acceptance are not always correct and should be taken as an indicator. One year, Prep school got wrong for GL, SPG, LU, FHSS and Emanuel plus putting offers in 13+ for others years where the offers were not confirmed and dropped due to not maintaining standards as required or during 13+ process were required to do more exams. Also, we had City offers and no acceptance when Year 5 DCs, a few took their offers but not Year 6, they counted the offers in Year 6 tally.

Anyone went for G&L interviews today? How was it? Anyone sat SPGS on Monday?

Hi Everyone

Thank goodness I finally found this post. I have been really worried and stressed as my DD sat the SPGS exam on Monday. She found section A of the maths pretty straightforward but she missed out 3 questions in section b and 1 and 1/2 questions in section c. My DD said it was very difficult to finish the paper. How did your DD’s find it? Is missing these questions critical? Would appreciate if someone could shed light upon on this and even those whose DD’s have sat in the previous years

By the way I contacted SPGS and was informed that the results will be out by next Wednesday

My daughter took the SPGS test on Monday and the CLSG test and LU interview later the week. She thought the maths section B was harder than section C, and she was not sure if she completed it. She also felt the English was a bit rushed, but otherwise she thinks fine. She also moaned about the lunch was not very filling :) We have the CLSG interview next week and she is feeling happy now.

When my DD sat the SPGS exams (some years ago now), she did not finish a single question in the third section of the Maths paper and was still fine. So please do not stress unnecessarily. If she's done well in other papers, like English or Comprehension, it may still be fine (DD loved both of these and probably did well as that is where her strongest subjects are).

Sorry to hear. When do you hear from Alleyns? We didn’t apply there as too far from where we live

DD did the SP exam last year, she said she have 1-2 questions not sure in maths section C, but last year's maths was not really difficult according to her. Anyway I think it is less about the absolute mark but about comparison against the peers who took the exam at the same day across three papers (heard they have some internal weightings), as well as other non-academic criteria. The school aim to cut the number by half for interview.

As for CLSG interview, last year is 15 minutes, well structured, firstly some questions on 2 picture shown for comparison, then some general questions to find out your DDs interest etc.

Good luck

@BonjourCrisette thank you so much for the prompt reply. Really appreciate the feedback - my DD also really enjoys English and Comprehension as well and felt she did better at those. Keeping my fingers crossed!

@PreplexJ thank you for replying back as well and providing the insight on how they will mark it in terms of weighting - much appreciated. I am hoping it all goes well for my DD.

Thank you to the above OPs for sharing their experience from previous years. I noticed there is not much about SPGS on this thread for this year. I would love to hear from parents of DD’s who sat SPGS this year.

I am fairly sure that Preplex has no more info than you do on how it is marked, @BrightEyesMum so take that with a pinch of salt. If she (?) does, she should state her sources.

Of course one should take the story from many moons ago a spoonful of salt, as I always did to those repeated ancient Ads on MN.

@BrightEyesMum I forgot to add, the school will also weight in the CEM performance into consideration too. We have heard the marking and weighting info from the real parents in the undecided meeting last Feb.

Also there is another post last year where you can find the similar information.
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/secondary/4697901-sw-london-private-grammar-applying-for-year-7-in-2023-part-ii?reply=122816790

My dd had a similar experience a couple of years ago, and was asked about some of the maths questions at interview, and was offered a place.

From the school’s website “The first section will feature questions that are fairly straight-forward ‘sums’, designed to establish fundamental arithmetic concepts are in place. The second section will cover questions which are more problem-solving in style and the third section may have multi-part questions; these questions will be based on material the students may never have seen before.”

I take that to mean that part C is designed to stretch the most able and not to be finished by most. I know one parent with Maths A level who tried it and couldn’t do it in the time!

Like @HighRopes my eldest DD also did spgs 2 years ago and found the maths paper straight forward in section A, more challenging in section B and downright tricky in section C - I can’t remember exact details but feel sure she would have left a fair few out. She enjoyed the comprehension paper and felt she’d done well in that and English is her strongest area. She went through to interview and was asked 2 maths questions in that - one, she had to explain how she did a question that she got right and two, she had to - with a bit of guidance from the interviewer - try to tackle again a question she had got wrong in the paper. She was offered a place and is currently in y8 there loving it. Happy to share more (feel free to DM me) re interview for those that get good news next week.

Sorry, failed to take my own advice. Bad Bonjour.

In contrast to the interview experiences above, when DD (and her friend) did the SPGS interview last year, it was quite short, about 15 mins, no academic question such as English or Maths asked. Both offered a place in the end.

Congratulations to all your DCs who have studied hard and sat these exams, wishing you all the best.

My DC is in yr5 and we are preparing. It’s hard to judge how much prep should be done, we have a hectic schedule DC oldest of 3.

DC at state school & is top stream state school English & maths but struggling to get to grips with 11+ maths. DC loves reading & scores 8-9 on atom English .

How much study is usual? Our State primary only has weekly maths & spelling homework. No comprehension or descriptive writing. What could help us is to have an indication of homework do private school yr 5 do eg at the GDSTs /Bute House/ Newton Prep/ Rokeby etc or boys preps - is it maths, comprehension & writing? Is it 45 minutes supervised prep at school/home everyday? Just trying to level the field for our state DC.

Does anyone have a schedule that worked for them? We are aiming for independent single sex or co-Ed in SW London.

And in downtime do you play games, chess, bananagram, wordle etc or let them play on PS4/5 or watch Netflix?

Anyone get extra maths tutoring ? We don’t want to overload DC but looks like we might have to do this!

I’m asking now as I suppose those parents of DC getting through to interviews have an idea on planning & scheduling that worked .

thanks all