Art Scholarship 11+ - assessment sessions

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My DD has been fortunate to be selected for three Art scholarship assessment sessions on the back of her portfolio submissions.

All sessions are about an hour, then an interview with the Head of Art/ Art faculty member. Apart from one school which advised they would be using Charcoal so could be messy, no further info is provided.

Has anyone been through the process and can provide information as to what generally she can expect? I am assuming it probably is a first hand observation drawing excercise for most?

Congratulations. Your daughter must be very talented. Might you be able to share which 3 schools she has applied to? Also, how many years back does her portfolio go? Many thanks and best of luck!

Observational sketching is usually the deciding factor. That, and showing a genuine interest in art.

Friend is an art teacher and every year gets at least one child apply for a scholarship, submit a brilliant portfolio, and actually be really rubbish at art in real life (usually parents have “helped” with the portfolio art work).

My DD was awarded a full art scholarship at 11. She just has natural ability and spends most of her free time doing creative stuff. Pulling together a portfolio was easy as she had so much work to choose from. She flew through the practical assessment and talked freely and confidently about some galleries she had visited. It’s just obvious she has “it” and it’s a passion.

Thanks, she’s over the moon even if she doesn’t get it as she knows it’s hard to get shortlisted. The portfolio pieces were largely year 5 work with I think one from Year 4. Mixture of drawing, painting, prints, sculpture and digital art. Her preference is drawing though so I’m hoping that helps her.

In respect of the schools I don’t want to be too outing but there are two girls 11+ consortium schools and one girls GDST school.

Well done on your DD getting a scholarship. Very impressive!

That’s very helpful, and hopeful then the assessments play to her strengths.

She’s constantly drawing and has for years, and the portfolio is definitely all hers and largely independent. Only a few pieces were included from art class where they were a different medium than what she could do at home like ceramics.

Interesting about galleries - will need to speak to her about thinking about artists that inspire her she can talk about as well. She’s incredibly passionate about art and the artistic process and how creativity is important for society in general so I’m hoping her passion shows during the process and she doesn’t get too bogged down in creating the most perfect piece as part of the assessment.

DD secured an art scholarship from a consortium school last year. She had three assessments and all three asked her to sketch an object/person that was placed in front of her or at a strange angle. One of those was actually to sketch the portrait of the person across from her. Good luck!!

My dd had one at a co-Ed London independent and it was fairly relaxed. The teachers looked through their portfolios while the children were assigned two or three different art tasks to see how they went about it. But it felt more like an art class they were all taking together rather than an intense assessment. Hard to get any more detail from her but she was successful. As you say, her portfolio was easy to pull together as she had lots of things and a couple that had been part of special projects at her local primary. We’d thought about what she could say about art she’d seen or responded to recently (e.g. we’d been to Yorkshire Sculpture Park over the summer) but she didn’t actually need any of that.

Hi OP
I am another person curious as to which schools these are! Only as I’ll be looking to apply this year for 2026 entry (based in SW London if that helps) .
Would love a DM if your schools are in my area, many thanks :)

Just to update this thread for those looking to go for Art scholarships for 2026 entry (and beyond as it maybe helpful to others!)

DD was supposed to have 3 art assessments but in the end only did 2 and one clashed with another and couldn’t be moved. It’s worth looking into this when applying as we hadn’t clocked the clash until too late and generally for art sessions they appear to like doing them as a group.

Both assessments were a still life drawing exercise (one was flowers and one was a shoe). Then in one of the interviews they asked for 30 mins writing about a piece of art, and the other was a short interview with an art teacher talking about a picture. Neither school wanted to see the portfolio again.

The portfoilios submitted were a mixture of charcoal, pencil, painting - first and secondhand observations as well as some ceramics and print making (cyanotype, mono and Lino). There was also a digital art piece in there too so she had a wide spectrum of art to show off her interests.

I am please to report she gained scholarship offers at both schools!

May I ask (as a total novice) how you researched and decided on which schools to apply to? Thank you!

Good question. We initially researched schools that we thought would be a good fit academically not ones that were art focused only. We applied to ones which had art scholarships as well as those which didn’t but all of them had good academic provisions AND Art / DT focus (as not all offered art scholarships at 11+ but almost all did for GCSE and/or A level). Our decision making on offers included what the Art scholarship offered - some art scholarships want more ‘performative’ elements from students so the expectation is they need to commit to X and Y in terms of shows / competitions etc. The school we chose in the end didn’t expect that and their scholarship programme was much more about enrichment and opportunities than making them ‘work’ for their scholarship. It felt like the school we chose would nurture and develop the talent much more than the other one. Happy for you to PM me more if you want more specific insights.