SW London grammar and private year 7 entry 2024 - Continued

[11plus24]

New thread continued here

I suppose this is possible, the school wants to have a more balanced composition of the class.
I also suppose most of the private schools adopt an “over offer” model with a tightly controlled WL, because filling a place from the waiting list is not straightforward since the WL candidate might have already settled down somewhere else.

Still waiting!!

Perhaps some direct parents prefer to give nuanced, i.e., less than glowing, opinions in PMs rather than risk outing themselves with public posts?

Same here. I have been told to wait until the acceptance's deadline, and to be honest the wait is killing us.

Same here still crossing my fingers and it hurts😂

Hopefully people will do the right thing and release places before the deadline. Sadly I know some people
are just incredibly self centred ( my colleague is holding 6 offers and knows which one he is accepting and just couldn’t understand why he would release them. I gave up trying to make him understand and concluded he had an empathy bypass!) We have one final offer holder day tomorrow, hopefully confirmatory and then will release final school. 🤞 good luck

This certainly possible, the one as far as we can see in public posts is definitely unbalanced compared to what I gather elsewhere.

We are also still waiting for wlt (for Emanuel). Not heard anything except the generic email. Good luck to those still waiting!

Thinking of all those waiting on WL’s! It seems whatever the outcome of offers, this process remains entirely stressful. We are stuck between PH which we know a lot about and feels a “safe” option and Ibstock Place School which DC prefers and has a scholarship for but feels more the “unknown” as not all reviews are good. @PreplexJ please do message me directly if you have insight into these two schools but prefer not to share here. Where else can one gather reliable information from school families?

@HappyPoet Please just be aware some posters seem to delight in knocking schools they have no first-hand experience of. Why? Who knows. I don't have dc at Ibstock but have several friends who do and they're all very happy there. I'm also very good friends with a teacher who I know is incredibly hard-working and dedicated and achieves great results in their subject, this person rates the school, having taught in several in W London. If you prefer Ibstock I would go with that feeling but I appreciate it's a hard decision.

@HappyPoet Just be careful of taking advice from people with no first-hand knowledge of a school. Some Mumsnetters make lots of pronouncements about a huge range of schools, all based on hearsay (and some clearly based on their own personal prejudices - you see the same posters criticise the same schools, of which they have no first-hand knowledge, across multiple threads).

There have been some good posts both on this year's thread about both PHS and Ibstock. I would just double check you're getting advice from people who actually know the school well, rather than people who just have a lot of (unfounded) opinions.

@HappyPoet My sentiment on the prevalence of positive feedback (as you can see above up threads) on the public site is more a general one rather than specific to Ibstock, as a matter of fact I never mention this specific school in the thread.

Regarding some posters who repeatedly accuse that the comments are unfounded or not first-hand, I would suggest a reader focus on the substance rather than the form of the content. It is a public website and when someone claims first-hand, it could be false, or could be very specific to one’s personal prejudice.

It is much easier to verify based on the substance of the information rather than who says what or does what.

One decision making factor that has become more pronounced for me is the mobile phone policy. I am keen on schools who enforce handing it in rather than just having it on you/in bag etc. I think it is so important

I think it is also important to recognise that some parents might have never had to engage with the school much if their DC have never run into problems either academically or pastorally and are lucky enough to have a decent peer group.

Those parents will therefore have a very different take on a school than those who have needed help or support from a school and found that it was lacking and not remotely as promised at open days.

Some DC can be in exactly the same school and even in the same year and some will be taught by wonderful teachers and others by weaker or more unpleasant teachers.
Some might be offered numerous opportunities and others constantly overlooked. This obviously leads to vastly different experiences of the same school.

Staff changes can also not be predicted as has happened with Ibstock and not only the change of senior management but of key people such as the Head of Music and Head of Sixth form. All of a sudden the school you chose at 11 is a completely different place with different priorities and policies and a totally different feel.

It is a gamble and for many it pays off but for some of us it doesn’t.

Where else can one gather reliable information from school families?

To make things simpler, you could ignore mumsnet’s comments, regardless of whether they are glowing or critical, truth or propaganda, and trust what you see in school and follow your intuition.

We saw a couple of schools using Yondr pouches (Google them for now they work). They both said they were really happy with the results but I've not heard from parents how effective they are.

DS's school use Yonder pouches so no access to their phones all school day.
I think DD's school have something similar now but she's in 6th form so they can have them during the day. They were meant to keep them in their locker when she was younger but they never did so I can totally see why they introduced a more 'robust' system..

@vivalasviva , they did get more 'robust', indeed 😌Ended up being, according to reports, the first school in the country to have 'clear' locker boxes with all students leaving the phones there on arrival and picking them up when school finishes. As you say, only 6th form are exempt.
As @farfallarocks says, worth looking at the mobile / devices policy (e.g. approach to using computers, headphones, etc. onsite).

Has anyone any feedback for Surbiton they would like to share. Pls feel free to PM me. Thank you

extremely happy girls and the academic level seems really on the up too. Very strong in sport. I heard only positive about Surbiton High .
(but I'm not a parent at Surbiton )

There must be a better way to manage the waitlist process. Perhaps return 50% of the registration fee to those that reply early? It must be a pretty stressful experience for the schools too, scrambling around on deadline day to fill places

I get that @Balhamdad11 but lots of families are waiting to hear from grammar or other state options. Wish those schools released admissions sooner.

Does your opinion mean it's better to trust other/oldest reviews? I haven't applied to Surbiton High because we live in Fulham and it seems to me too far but I heard fantastic opinions from close friends about Surbiton and I simply thought to reply

@Balhamdad11 I think there are various ways the whole process could be improved but actually I suspect that demographics will solve a lot of the issues naturally….

The birth rate dropped off year on year after 2012 so I think this year’s 11+ was peak madness and future years won’t have quite so much competition and (hopefully) won’t feel the need to apply to so many schools. Which will help with WL management as well as many other issues.

Fingers crossed anyway as I also have younger DC!

Very true @minipie , plus VAT will also reduce demand I suspect.
have you made a decision? We just confirmed and paid deposit and feel a huge weight lifted!