SW London grammar and private year 7 entry 2024 - Continued

[11plus24]

New thread continued here

Wonderful news! Congratulations

Congratulations 🎉

Has anyone heard of any movement on LU reserve list?

No - i was firmly told by PHS that there was no more movement on the WL now, praying for that to change over next few months, so any movement anywhere would be good!

Yes, they apparently only had 1 or 2 spots become available from the reserve list.

@Margot2017 thanks! It’s so interesting that they were so popular this year despite dropping GCSEs. It can set a precedent for other WL schools.

I have heard that other indies will be doing this before too long. Given the rationale for having GCSEs in the first place, schools at that level shouldn’t need them…

Apparently LU offered more places this year than usual as they couldn't be sure if the changes would affect acceptances. So maybe less movement on the WL than in previous years.

@CocoC I’m so sorry you’re going through this! Have you accepted another independent school? Are there any good state options. DDs friend got a WL offer for Putney on Friday and the mum was told that they made very few offers through the WL!

@mummyquestion hope NHEHS came through for you?

Hi, it didn’t. We’ve accepted our second place option and are good with it. DD is excited and in hindsight it may be better for her.
did you get you school of choIce? X

@mummyquestion yes we accepted PHS.

That’s amazing! Congratulations!! I heard PhS only took a few girls from WL so it’s wonderful news.
NHEHS took one from the list and were then full…. It wasn’t meant to be for us x

Haven’t accepted other independent school, this was the only one we really considered , because of the sports focus.

Did she get the offer last Friday (ie 2 days ago, after the 5th March deadline ? Or was it the Friday before ?).

@CocoC she got the offer on the 9th. We agonised between PHS and IPS but eventually settled on PHS. I have my reservations about the new head and too much focus on sports but I couldn’t change DD’s mind!

good luck with your other options! There’s still hope that few spaces may move till September 🤞🏻

Remember that things may also move after the deadline for accepting state school (esp grammar places) eg if people turn down grammar places someone may accept it who had also accepted an independent school place and then there’s a ripple effect as those get released

It wasn’t a WL offer, she got the offer which was a huge relief. In our prep only one got an offer from the WL so far! It’s crazy to think the competition has become so fierce. I remember from my older DD who did the 11+ 4 years ago that many waitlist offers were made. We were thinking this year might be easier as London birth rate was lower and there’s a cost of living crisis as well as prospect of 20% fee rise!! We couldn’t have been more wrong! Our prep is rather academic and most academic girls had PHS and NHEHS as sort of a back up to their first choices (G&L, LU, St Paul’s, COL)! Not this year, some have ended up with non desired outcomes.

So my message to parents doing the 11+ next year is to acknowledge how fierce the competition is and to have a wide range of schools. There also seems to be a strict quota for prep school children. I fully accept that this makes the playing field level but it’s an important point to acknowledge as a prep school parent.

@CocoC DD’s friend got the offer from Putney on Tuesday morning! Sorry I thought you asked when my DD got her offer!

@Iffiyas what did you discover about quotas?

sone schools have strict 50% state admission criteria

Really?? Which schools? I’m surprised that many would apply to independent/ private schools. From my children’s state primary school about 3/90 every year go independent/ private.

Which ones told you that? We asked at quite a few open days and were told there were no fixed quotas.

Yes, but there are way more state schools than private. So 3 pupils out of every state school adds up to a lot of applicants for the top independent schools. There are several parents who choose state for primary and indie for secondary because they cannot afford fees all the way through. Several top indie schools want to avoid becoming full of super-rich, entitled kids and a high number of state school applicants provides diversity of sorts.

That may be true but I very much doubt independent/ private schools have a quota of 50% state schools children … I’d like to see the evidence for that, hence I’m asking someone to name the schools feels like rumour and speculation to me! I’m sure they’d go out of business if they wanted to have 50% state school children.

@Hatcher also I live in a fairly affluent area I bet in some areas they aren’t any children from state schools applying to independent/ private schools.