SW London grammar and private year 7 entry 2024 - Continued

[11plus24]

New thread continued here

It's a long standing acceptance that it's more difficult to achieve a straight offer from Tiffin Boys than Hampton but if your achieve a high WL offer from Tiffin by the end of the summer you should end up with an offer, as per the ds of the poster.

Re vat on fees, the parents of the dc currently in year 6 viewed secondaries over a year ago when vat on fees seemed more distant and perhaps open to legal obstacles. Now it may be a reality soon plus the around 5% fees hike for Sept 2024 at most schools im sure all admissions depts are wondering what will happen.

@11plus24 @SamPoodle123 , it depends whereabouts you are in the country. London is still going to be competitive.
More DC from state primary going to private secondary due to family saving money in the earlier years. Some schools have generous bursary levels. Some schools allow families to forward pay school fees.
Westminster going coed in the next 2 years and it seems City of London too. This push towards coed means more will apply 11+, and there are schools with siblings discount.
It is worth checking what the fees covers, we know London schools that kids required to buy textbooks and notebooks, folders etc and others supply them which is included in the term fees. Some schools have laptops free/ cheap rentals whilst others have high price laptops to buy on top of school fees.
Competition levels in London grammars and independent will still be intense.

Just to add a thought on considerations re state/grammar schools vs independent. I had the same hesitations last year (not a grammar but a very good state school vs a top independent school). Ultimately, the variety of clubs and sports was one of the key reasons we went for the independent school. Now, 9 months into the school year, my DD practically attends NO clubs and she continues doing her sport training at the other end of the city. It’s really tiresome and makes me wonder if we made the right choice. The school is amazing, we really love it, but clearly DD is not using opportunities it provides. Something to think about.

I agree Buru. We are in a similar position having chosen independent school over a good state school. It very much does depend on the interests of the child at the end of the day. The sport provision at our independent school is terrible, as is the food. The class sizes are indeed smaller, yes, but there is quite a lot of cover lesson / teacher absence and the offerings for trips etc is not as good as some of the state schools that my DC's friends are at.

If I were choosing now, I would think very carefully about rejecting an offer from a good state school. The climate at the moment is such that children at state schools have access to so much more when applying for university - e.g both Durham and Oxbridge have masterclasses and A-level preparation for Maths and Science which is available to state schools only. This is quite separate from those projects that support disadvantaged families (and I wholeheartedly support). There are opportunities out there for a child interested in Science, Music and possibly other subjects that you are unable to access simply because you attend an independent school.

Totally agree with this. Personally I would pick a grammar school over an independent school for this reason.
My oldest is at a top independent school. 50% of leavers now going to US universities because they can’t get in to the better UK ones. My son is still a few years away from this, but that’s not something we would want for him so it’s a worry.
Also echoing the other poster re the clubs. On paper they look great. In practice most kids do few of them as the timings for the ones they want to do doesn’t always work with their schedule, or they are full already , or not open to their year group, or just not that great.
Music lessons are during lesson time. So many parents don’t want their kid to miss a lesson, so do it outside anyway. They just come together occasionally at the school for orchestra.
For our son, all his sporting activities we continue to do outside, as the standard of coaching of a specialist club is higher than what he would get at school. That is true of most of his friends, and certainly any of the children in the A teams: football, rugby, swimming, cricket, tennis, let alone any specialist sport is done outside.

i think the thing which would be hardest to replicate outside school would be drama. So if that is a big focus, then yes that could be a consideration. But for the rest - you will continue to be taking them to the extracurriculars anyway.

Interesting views on the factors to consider when deciding between state (non selective) / grammar / private. We did not consider grammar (the one do-able for a logistics viewpoint did not feel right for our DD, and the logistics were to great). We had a good state as a 'back up' but felt that our private options would work best for our DD - smaller size (both of classes and overall school), more options for languages and GCSE / A-level, a curriculum that was less formulaic and better catered for the intellectual curiosity of our DD and the range and type of extra-curricular. So far, expectations have been more than met, as well as an environment where being 'geeky' and wanting to do well / making an effort is embraced by the students. Our DD is making good use of the clubs and exploring new interests and also deepening her engagement in existing pursuits (musical ensembles, choirs).
I think that it is very difficult to generalise - it depends on the schools under consideration and the child ...and, of course, the financial impact / affordability.

Surbiton High have announced their new head from Jan 25. It's the current head of NHEHS so he is moving from GDST to United Learning.

The impending retirement of Mrs. Fletcher from St Paul’s Girls’ School next year could potentially set off a domino effect among headteachers across London schools.

I know this is an old thread but I'd be really grateful for the thoughts of the people on here. I have had a look at the dates for the assessments for the various girls' schools for next year and so far Tuesday 7 January 2025 is going to be a very busy day. It is the day of the City Girls' second assessment, the Channing interviews and FHSS interviews (I understand that these will be a half day). Did anyone else have this? If my daughter were to get through to all three, what would I do? Would we need to choose which ones are the most important to her / which she is most likely to get into?

Yup, this is a busy day indeed....Latymer interviews, Alleyns exam and St Pauls (boys) stage 2 exam.....You would think schools would consider the dates a little better.

Crumbs.

Schools where we had this situation offered alternative dates

Not the three I mentioned....I even pointed out to one of them the clash for exam date the previous year, in the hopes they would not clash again this year...did not change a thing

It has always been like that. They will ask if you have clashes. If your child is sitting the St Paul's exam for example, LU will give you a session that doesn't clash and you can pop over the bridge.
It's a massive organisational feat for these schools and dates are decided on a couple of years in advance for some of the schools.

Yes, I was told this. But doesn’t work if you have a third school in the mix, as two exams in one day plus the long interview (plus distance of schools). One is one hour from the other. It just doesn’t work. But in the end we decided not to apply to one of the schools.

Call me a cynic but I wonder if some schools are creating clashes on purpose so they can weed out applicants for whom that school is not a favourite. That way they won’t waste an offer on them further along the process, isywim.

But not many people are going to apply to St Paul's/ LU and Alleyns for example and I suspect they are keen for people to cut down the numbers they're applying for.

St Pauls/Latymer/Alleyns are very different schools in very different locations?

Think schools with similar cohorts in similar areas are mindful of dates and generally coordinate?

St Paula and Lu could be a stretch option and Alleyns a safer option. I don't think they are that different. With school buses these 3 options are all doable

How do the dates of Alleyns, Dulwich, Whitgift and KCS compare? Those are far more likely to have similar applicants. I can't think of anyone I know who applied eg LU and Alleyns or St Paul's and Alleyns actually.
But we're getting too hung up on these schools! There's not enough days for everyone to sit every school so it's a good way of narrowing down your options!

think that's the first time I've heard Alleyns described as a 'safe' option?!

Safer option ... it's all relative, my point is that I don't think the three schools are that different. Plus our school didn't put them in the same group. LU, St Paul's in one group - stretch and Alleyn has in the middle group

At this stage, a lot of schools insist they won't make alternative arrangements for date clashes. In reality, post the 1st round, some of them will / do.

That said, sometimes difficult decisions do need to be made. This year, some girls we knew got through to the second round of SPGS, WHS, LU and CLSG and could only sit 3 of those (SPGS on one day, and two of the others on the next day). For the most part, by that point, there was one school they were less keen on so the decision wasn't too hard. It's also a bit of a strategic choice at that point as to how likely you think your DD is to get an offer from the schools left on the table. But I wouldn't stress about it now - just make sure you have a good spread of schools and if your DD gets through to all second rounds, hopefully the most you'll have to do is ditch one school.

Exactly my thoughts. It is good to have a range of schools. ESP when you aren’t quite sure if you are reaching for stars or if you have a chance (coming from state school). I’ve got a slightly better idea from doing the 11+ last year w my dd. But still, feel like I’m not sure when it comes applying for ds. So we are looking at a range.

A lot of boys applied to both St Paul and LU. The written exam of St Paul (stage 2) is in the morning and you will see lots of familiar faces in LU for activity sessions in the afternoon. LU will send out Google forms prior to that and you can fill in your priority with explanation he is having exam in the morning. We did that last year and still got offers. I won't jeopardise your chance. LU in this respect has been doing a good job