SW London Grammar and private senior school entry 2026

[firsttrax]

Setting up this thread for those of us with DC joining year 7 SW London schools in 2026.

We’re planning to apply to KCS, Hampton, Epsom and Reed’s.

Have been living in Dubai for three years, returning in August for year 6 at DS’ old prep school.

DS has an online tutor focussing on exam technique and any gaps in the curriculum, plus Atom. Current school is great but definitely not preparing him for 11+!

Those guesses sound very good to me, having studied the offers/acceptance ratios of my local 5 sw London prep schools. Which group would you put Alleyns in?

The Emanuel 10+ is on Wednesday.

Using those figures I think Kings is also 1.3x, latymer 1.5x and Alleyns and Hampton 2x

The offers to places ratios are never published or communicated by admissions staff so I think all of these are guesstimates.

If you are invited for interview its because you are someone they would like to offer a place to, so you will have a good chance of getting an offer with a decent interview performance / by avoiding any red flags in the interview

I think focussing on that is more useful than trying to estimate such ratios

@MunchkinJ 10+ interviews at Emanuel are on Wednesday 21st

Does anyone know how many children are in a group interview at Emanuel?

It looked like about 8-10

The 11+ on Saturday was teams of 4

We have the SPGS interview this weekend.

My daughter missed a lot of her schools interview prep sessions and practice mock due to test clashes..

Does anyone have a tips or recommendations for a tutor I can book a mock / practice session with?

The places-to-offers ratio is a school's expected yield. Yields tell you more about local competition than about a school's quality; some very good schools are seen as backups to even more sought after schools so have low yields.

The offers-to-interviews ratio, for schools that don't interview all applicants, has been around 70%-75% for the (few) schools I have credible numbers for.

Just got an invite to interview for Alleyns on Saturday. Was expecting to hear tomorrow so a nice surprise. Does anyone know what the group & interview are like?

I spoke to Miss Rollino who is the head of admissions while waiting for my child to return from the interview and that’s what she said.

We’re mostly done now; an interview on Monday and another on Wednesday- and then just the long wait! Hope everyone else is almost through also.

Any idea how many offers Emaile would make on 10+ please ?

We are done too - last one was yesterday. Glad it's over for DD but the nerves will start jangling for us through offer day!

Last one today for us too although unfortunately the teacher interviewing my daughter was very dry and kept interrupting her mid answer to move on to the next question - she barely got any words out, not that she was rambling at all - maybe just made it to the first point that she would have discussed about hobbies or favourite sports. It put my daughter completely on the back foot and left her feeling quite disheartened. Sadly she will need to carry this with her till offer day . A very big difference from the other interviews she had but unfortunately this was one of her favourite schools. Anyone been through something similar? I have tried telling her that it does not necessarily mean that she would not do well (although I’m not quite sure I believe this myself!) and she is a very practical minded girl, but this experience seems to have really dented her confidence, especially having gotten through two rounds of tests to get to this stage.

Yes, we had one interview that my ds felt did not go well. He is normally the type all teachers love and always gets great feedback. The previous interviews he felt went really well and this interview he felt the teacher did not like him, she was very serious with a stern face. Gave no reactions to his responses (the other teachers would smile or be warm and encouraging). Anyway, he ended up getting an offer to the school he thought he would not. So don't worry about it! It could be the teacher had to interview a lot and maybe short on time.

Thank you for replying - I needed to read this! :) so glad this is over now - my nerves need to recuperate in time for Offer day!! ;)

Not something to worry about for a couple of weeks but in the past have admission decisions been sent prior to the friday before half-term or will they all been sent out on the 13th?

My son felt this on the first interview he had; it really threw him off balance as he felt the teacher wasn’t interested in him so he must not have done well in the exam. He then got invited for an academic scholarship interview at the school! I wonder if some teachers are like this when someone has done very well in the exam and they know an offer will be forthcoming (so they’re frustrated because it feels like a waste of their time?). Fingers crossed that’s the case for your DS!

I think some schools say they will post results on the 12th, but emails will also be sent on the 13th. It basically sounds like everything comes out on the 13th aside from a few specific schools who tend to say on their webpage/next steps email if it’s a different date.

We got our first offer to Surbiton today which we are delighted with (to put it in perspective my DD didn't get through to the second round of Alleyn's so swings and roundabouts). I feel so relieved to at least have one offer in the bag it almost makes the next 2 weeks bearable. Good luck everyone, at least the weekend is here!

Congratulations to your DD @lg1040. We also got an offer today which was such a lovely surprise as we definitely weren’t expecting to hear today! Good luck for the next few weeks!

Thank you @Hereweg0again and congrats to your dd too. Which other schools are you still waiting on ?

@lg1040 quite a few! We panicked a bit but the main ones we're waiting on are LEH, KGS, Putney, Harrodian and Ibstock. What about you?

@Hereweg0again ha same! In fact Surbiton was one of my 2 panic applications in the very last day which annoyingly meant that we weren't able to apply for any scholarships. We're just waiting for Putney, SCHS and Jags now. Putney is my top choice and my dd's (they do gymnastics in addition to being academic and she loves that) but we'll see... Fingers crossed to us all!

SCHS off for us in this morning (via email) so that is good news. Just waiting on JAGS now.