SW London Grammar and private senior school entry 2025

[Wlondon14]

Hi! I know there are a few threads like this out there, but they seem to focus on grammar schools outside of London. I found this group really helpful a few years ago when my daughter was going through this process.

Where are you applying, how did you find the open days? Are you using Atom learning? What is your prep plan for the next month?

I have a son applying to - St Paul's, Kings, Latymer Upper, Emanuel, Ibstock, Hampton, Harrodian

Has anyone heard from St Paul’s boys, 13+? I am certain it was due today by 5pm but no news

Curious how did the G&L interviews go for everyone? Dd was off school today because of them.

Very busy and A LOT of girls. Registrar said around 450.

Oh wow. I wonder how many applied. It did not feel so busy when my dd did it two years ago, but then it was a 15 minute interview, so in and out fast.

Prep heads sometimes find out a day before parents. Ask your school head first thing Monday if still no news.

Alleyns interview mails are out, good luck !

we haven’t heard either. Hopefully Monday?

Also waiting on St Paul's 13+ and haven't heard anything, but we hadn't been told a specific date either. Had hoped for today!

I wanted to share DD experience on how schools seem to conduct interviews, including for highly selective schools. the interviews have been conducted based on alphabetical order of surnames or alphabetical order of schools or both. I have not seen any signs that it is based on ranking of how the children have performed in exams.

This is not what I experienced. For two of the most selective private schools there definitely was no alphabetical order. I am at the top of the alphabet and did not go first. Apart from spgs where girls seemed to be grouped by school, none of the other schools used that. My daughter was at several group assessments and did not know anyone and most of her school mates had different time slots. I could not discern a pattern.

For 2 highly selective schools, our experience was alphabetical order for surnames and another school was by grouping of schools. I was just trying to put across that I didn’t get a sense that it was based on how they had performed in the exams at least for two highly selective schools. For group assessments, the girls seemed to be mixed with other schools. So far, DD did not have any of her own schoolmates in her group. All the best for results!

No you are right, there doesn’t seem to be a pattern. But out of the 6 schools we tried, 5 didn’t use alphabetical order either surname or school. Equally it sounds odd to do it all randomly. I am still baffled by the high number of children interviewed. A lot of it doesn’t make evident sense but there must be a method in the madness. Regardless, we will never find out. Best of luck to you too.

The sheer numbers baffle me too! Just hope the DDs get offers!

We had a different experience. For one very highly selective school, we believe that the interviews were in exam score order, for two reasons:

1. The school made a major boo-boo that year and sent out a full list of the interview schedules to all interviewees (!). DD ended up attending the school so we had a list of all the students who started in Year 7, and it was very clear that a much larger percentage of the early interviewees joined the school than of the later interviewees.
2. Quite a few girls from DD's primary applied to that school that year and their interview order lined up very well with our assessments of their academic levels.

This was several years ago so things may well have changed.

Also, many schools ask for availability....at least the ones we applied to. So interviews were based on when we were available (meaning no interview clashes).

Perhaps, this could be the case with the school...but many schools find out your availability before setting the interview slots. We have had to say for each school the date or time we preferred because of clashes for 3 out of 4 schools.

We were not asked to provide our availability before appointments were sent out. That said, the school clearly coordinated with their neighbors and obvious competitors, and you could ask to reschedule if you had a clash with a school further afield.

My anecdote is about only year at one school. I make no claim that the practice is widespread. But I'm pretty sure that the school did indeed try to interview candidates in exam score order that year.

It would make sense for one school we interviewed at. There is no other explanation else than random which in itself doesn’t make sense. Therefore I would agree with you that this is the case. Only
one school we tried offered an alternative date. For all others we were just told when and that was that.

What @NaughtyParent says makes sense as applicable to schools where parents don't select the interview date, or give their availability. And to support this, one would think that these schools want to keep an eye on how many firm offers they can make during the interview process, rather than discuss all shortlisted candidates at the end of all the interviews. By interviewing the top candidates first, and establishing that the interview corroborates the exam performance, they then have a more concrete idea of how many offers they have available to give to the candidates lower down in the rankings.

DC's might perform differently at each school as, at least for girls, the format isn't uniform, some paper+ online, some just VR/NVR, some only online. So if there is a pattern for interview call back, it could be different for each DC's interview depending on which format DC perform best at.
For us, interviews varied in terms of fixed day and parents selecting availability.
We were not grouped by school but coming from state, there were small numbers from our school so we may have been grouped with state applicants.
So I think the schools each have their own unique pattern!
We are top half of the alphabet, so perhaps an afternoon slot isn't a good indicator for an offer! It makes me nervous, I just can't wait for the results to be out!
Best of luck to all!

I would not worry if you had an afternoon slot. From my11+ experience with my dd she had a 2:30pm interview slot and got an offer.

How about a very selective school which interviews in 4 days consequently? Do you think that interviews in the first 2 days will make more hope ? Our surname is almost the last in the alphabet.

No one really knows. It is purely conjecture. Were you the last to be interviewed? We are at the beginning of the alphabet. We were in the first batch (of only 2) for 2 school. For the others we weren’t first, therefore they weren’t doing it alphabetically. Confirmed by the fact I knew a lot people there. So either they have an order of sorts, or it’s purely random because interviews don’t matter that much. But if you are interviewing 400+ candidates, random order seems complicated.

Morning ladies, I just want to offer a different perspective for those of you waiting for interviews, offers and waiting list places. My DS (now yr 7) excelled academically in primary (highest possible grading in every subject, glowing reports etc). During the 11+ process I thought he would be turning down a range of offers from private schools in SW London, as his big sister had done before him.

I don't know what happened - whether DS choked in the exams or whether his tutor failed to prepare him or maybe his sister was just more mature at handling all the pressure but ..... no offers. I was absolutely blindsided. His primary head even reached out to the schools, asking them to reconsider him, to no avail.

SO DS has gone to the local state and he is thriving. The pupils have been streamed for maths and he is in the top set and making friends with the other studious boys. We are using the extra money to boost him to make sure he gets the same opportunities as our DD at private school - music lessons, sports clubs, lots of theatre and educational holidays. We are taking the kids to Asia later this year. His state secondary is massive and does have a very broad intake, but runs an enrichment programme for bright kids which hopefully DS will be selected for, where children are offered Latin, trips, extra reading and so on to stretch them.

As a nice side note, we've done the maths and we'll be able to pay off the mortgage much sooner. What felt like a disaster has actually worked out fine. Good luck to your DCs, it's such a stressful time, I know.

No, I don't think it matters! DD goes to G&L and had a 15 minute interview two years ago...that is it. Her time slot was 2:30pm and she had a straight offer. I do not think your day or time slot is done by exam score...more likely it would be done by alphabet or school.