Anyone waiting for Herts / N London 11+ results?

[bluegreencherry]

Our DS is only sitting two - Habs and St Albans. Second round for Habs next week, waiting to hear whether he will get invited back for second round of St Albans. I'm finding all this waiting is shredding my nerves, so if anyone else is in a similar position with these schools and fancies a pointless chat / baseless speculation on impact of VAT on applications / the process / Plan Bs, please say so!

@honeynutcereal I don't know Belmont at all I'm afraid so can't offer any insights on how it compares with SAS. Have you searched on here for threads? Might be worth starting your own too, and looking on the Eleven Plus forums website too.

The consensus on MN is that long coach journeys should always be avoided in favour of a more local school, assuming either school would be suitable overall. However I'm going to buck the trend slightly as I had a similar coach journey to independent school and it was honestly fine! I had a good group of friends on the coach (and for the last 3 years my boyfriend, which certainly helped 😆). That said, there wasn't really a more local option, and there weren't the huge array of afterschool activities that there seem to be now. Even if there are late coaches, it does mean it's a long day. Any maybe I was just lucky. We actually ruled out any other schools for my DS on the basis he hates road travel and would be miserable having to commute by coach.

Re the callbacks, I am 99% certain that these are for strong candidates, not for borderline candidates. When there has been a callback process in the past for borderline candidates this involved as you say looking at English or maths, whereas everyone seems to have been invited for a science and geography lesson. The other boy we know who has been called back is extremely bright and I'm sure sailed through the assessment and interview.

My husband has a friend whose son got into SAS two years ago so I'm going to ask him if he can shed any light on callbacks, and I've a friend whose son did the 12+ exam so I'll ask her too.

Congratulations @BarqsHasBite!!!
Will just go with the flow. Unless someone here feels the need to ring them but you’re right; ours was Covid time so very different situation

Congratulations! I hope to be in your shoes this time next year as we'll be going through all this again with DD.

@Escapetomygarden glad your older DS is enjoying SAS, I was going to ask how he and you have found it as a school - and also what the new head is like and whether you think he will change the school much

Great news re Habs girls @Plasticmama. We had the Habs boys interview yesterday, all very well organised and they tried to make it a good experience for the boys

@bluegreencherry my DS loves SAS. And has found his tribe which definitely helps. We haven’t yet felt the impact of the new head or anything different.

Thank you all and best of luck with the callback session.

Belmont is the prep for Mill Hill…St Albans is absolutely lovely and far more academic than Mill Hill. But DS gets car sick and would get exhausted with the journey. Might be worth looking at some kind of mint supplement or something to help him. I just don’t know. Getting slightly deranged thinking about it. Feels like he is too little to be on a coach for so long too, we do a ten minute walk together to school right now and it’s so lovely.

Nothing is straight forward is it? Spend years thinking are we doing enough to help DS through his very academically average state primary to get into a good school, now to be in for a chance of a place at a first class school but there’s the commute to worry about.

Our local state option is pretty dire, 20% score 9-7 in English and Maths plus behaviour is atrocious.

Sorry rambling

Do any parents with boys currently at St Albans have insight into the clubs? Would a child miss out just doing the clubs at lunchtime and coming on the first coach home?

Am sorry you’re agonising @honeynutcereal. What does your son say about the schools generally, and how does he feel about the prospective commute to SAS?

My son gets car sick too hence us ruling out further away schools, though actually he’s not as bad on a coach and recently said he wouldn’t have minded a coach journey to school which came as a surprise!

With “less academic schools” it can be the case that their exam results are lower because they take a wider range of children who aren’t all A grade students. It doesn’t necessarily mean that the teaching is inferior or that a bright able child won’t achieve their potential. So this is worth trying to drill into if you can.

That said in your shoes I think I’d be gently encouraging my son towards SAS, albeit I wouldn’t push it if he was resistant/felt it wasn’t worth the commute. Hopefully someone on here can comment on the clubs or the school I’m sure would tell you.

I have no further insights into the callbacks - they apparently weren’t used for the 12+ assessments for one friend’s DS and the other friend’s DS did the admissions process in 2022 when it was completely different due to Covid.

Re-reading the letter I do agree that it’s not clear if they are actually another part of the assessment or if it’s to give the boys a taster and hopefully persuade them to accept an offer. The head’s talk and tour must be a sales pitch.

That said, they could have just made the offers now and invited the boys in for a trial lesson but they didn’t. So I’m assuming they want to keep their options open in case any of the boys seem clearly unsuitable in the classroom setting.

And now I’m rambling!

@honeynutcereal the clubs are optional and there are a few lunchtime ones he can do in the initial year to get into the swing of things.
I agree with @BarqsHasBite - you should ask your DS his preference.
I am obviously biased towards SAS - the teaching and pastoral care is excellent. It’s a great school.
Perhaps also remember that your DS is growing and by September, he will be readier than currently. In another year or two, you will be wondering why you were so worried. He will be fine either way. Good luck with your decision!

Think they have to make the offers at the same time as all the NW/Herts Consortium schools so that everyone has the same amount of time to consider and make a decision. If SAS were to offer now, some people that applied to say Habs may be tempted to accept the first offer on the table. Anyway, that’s my guess. Also rambling…😀
We should all relax 😀😀😀

I've got one DS at SAS who joined at year 9 (third form) and another joining in September. To the question on the 1hr plus coach journey, I'd factor in that they get a lot of homework every night (25mins x 3 subjects) so with that journey it's a very long day.

Oh good point on timing@Escapetomygarden ! 😀

Hi, we are so pleased that my son is offered callback session. Does anyone has experience in the call back session? What we need to prepare? What they are looking for from the kids in the science and geography lesson? How many kids they call back?

We’ve not been able to find out much about the callbacks, I think they were introduced last year.

According to the school website they get around 300 applications/ boys sitting the exam and they invite about half to callbacks. However when I asked the head of admissions she said it was actually more than half. We’re not sure if the 300 applicants number is down a bit this year (VAT impact plus lower birth year) but suspect it is.

I can’t see there is anything you can do to prepare and as per PP it’s not clear if these group lessons are part of the assessment process at all. It could be as much a way to “sell” the school to the boys and hopefully show them that SAS lessons are engaging and interesting.

I suspect that as long as a boy doesn’t obviously stand out as being disruptive or a “bad fit” that he is likely to get an offer, but we don’t know.

There will be lots of boys who are nervous/shy and I can’t see that that would count against them, ie if they’re not sticking their hands up to answer every question. But obviously good to encourage your DS actively to participate.

Has everyone been asked to arrive first thing? We have to be there at 8:40 I think.

Good luck!

Thank you. I guess they may consider to offer more kids they can have as they know many of them will be offered by others schools like Habs, UCS or Highgate. Do you think it is helpful if you tell the head of admission SAS is our top choice? A friend is my son also offered call back session but he also passes into those schools mentioned which are his preference in fact. We offered to be there at 1:40pm on Thursday. Good luck to all of us!

The day when we had assessment the head of admission said they had around 280 applicants this year.

@relaxingparenting yes they will definitely over-offer - as you say a number of boys will have other indies or state schools as their first choice. They will know from previous years how many boys accepted offers and how many turned them down, though again the VAT issue may make it harder to predict this year.

From what I’ve read about other schools they might make twice the offers as they have places for but again it’s just a guess.

It is nice to have other people to have fall down this "what does the optional SAS callback mean" rabbit hole, with as my DH is being very reasonable and relaxed about the whole thing ("I don't know what it means, if it really bothers you why don't you call Admissions, can we stop talking about schools now")

So although it seems it is still a mystery whether this callback is a formality or not, I am taking from it that it is hopefully more likely that there will be an offer than not, which - although no guarantees - has meant I have felt much less anxious about the whole process than I did pre-callback invite! Which must be good thing because even if Feb 14 comes and DS has no offers from either school, worrying about that between now and Feb 14 wouldn't soften that blow.

The Habs interview was quite intense but the teachers tried to make it relaxed and fun meaning that DS now has his heart set on Habs if he gets an offer. I don't fancy the longer commute/ paying for the coach so I really hope the SAS callback is also made to be as fun (and sell-y!) to the boys...!!

Hi all

As I can see there are a few parents on this thread with boys already at the school can I ask your experience of their teaching on diversity?

I’ve seen a number of references to it on the Schools Guide review, the isi report and their website. For example the isi inspection report references a year 10 assembly which discussed ‘the transition of a staff member’s close friend’. On their extra-curricular guide the diversity club discusses issues such as ‘do all males have a penis?’ and the diversity prefects regularly run assemblies according to Good Schools Guide, the guide citing ‘overall vibe is relaxed and inclusive; gay staff members are open about their sexuality’. I wanted to ask parents how their boys have come home and talked about such matters if at all.

Please feel free to privately message me if anyone wants…

Ill let this thread get back to its original purpose now as I know this is a controversial topic.

Wished all schools where like this !

Good luck to everyone for tomorrow and Friday!

If anyone else has the early Friday slot (8:40 odd? Need to check!) and fancies saying hi during the tour, feel free to PM me. The only other person I know who has applied is the son of a mum friend who is good friends with my DS, but they persist in scheduling us at different times/days!

For anyone who’s going tomorrow would be really grateful if you could share any insights, including on whether it sounds like the lessons were scrutinised for assessment purposes or were more of a sales pitch to the boys.

hello - just reporting back from today. Head said about 280 ish applications, about 200 invited to call back, 72 places (no idea how many offers - about 120 at least I would have thought?). A couple of talks about the school, and then a tour and then refreshments waiting for the boys to come back. Assuming you've done the tour already at the open day I don't think there's anything additional for parents in attending. And no name badges so don't think any subtle parent interviewing was going on!

I'm afraid I got very little from my DS apart from the lessons were fun and interactive - the science was a Chemistry practical - the teachers were kind and it was nice to work with other boys/ candidates on some of the tasks. I can only guess they were being assessed if they're whittling down from 200 to 100 odd, but no idea how that sits with Admissions saying it was no problem not to attend?! DS knew no one and it looked a bit like they were trying to mix up schools a bit so not many boys knew lots of other boys in their group.

So now feeling a bit more anxious about it all! Three weeks to go..,

@BarqsHasBite best of luck tomorrow, let us know how your DS finds it!

I’ve read on their website they offer to roughly 150 boys but I wouldn’t be surprised if they offer to 200 this year with the VAT increase and given that roughly 50% of the kids live in St Albans and there are excellent state comprehensives in the area…

I think they have capacity to put extra classes on if they over offer, not sure how many though?

With Habs, a friend who has children there said they invited a significantly higher number back than previous years…was hoping the VAT increase would work in our favour with Habs but still out with that one 😂

Interesting - a friend going through the STAHs process told me she had heard they had no dip in applications but higher number went through to interview this year - would love to know how that translates into offers!

I didn't know that St Albans (or any school) were public about the number of offers they made but I had guessed they'd expect about a 50% acceptance rate so offer about 140 ish?? Would be great if it was 200 as would be everyone they invited back 🙏🏼