SPGS - from a state school

[RuggedUp]

Hi, anyone on hear maanged to get their DD in from a state school? Also any recommendations on tutors they've used.

Yes, and there are some other posters who also did. It’s not such a difficult thing to do as the prep schools like to make out.

I can’t recommend a tutor as we did home prep.

Yes, in recent years I know that some girls from state primary schools have received offers, and a few of them did accept in the end (while others chose not to take up the offer). However, the vast majority of the intake is still from prep or private junior schools.

As for tutoring, I know some girls attended the same large 11+ tutoring centres, as did the prep school kids, while others just prepared at home with their parents or private tutoring.

I teach Year 6 in a state school and we generally get 1 girl in each year - sometimes 2.

I'd guess about 20% of the girls are from state primaries. The current Year 7 has girls from, among others:

Bousfield Primary
Castleview Primary
Caversham Primary
Dundonald Primary
Fitzjohn's Primary
Fox Primary
Hampden Gurney
Little Ealing Primary
Park Hill Junior
St Andrew's and St Mark's CofE Junior
Strand-on-the-Green Junior
Thomas Jones Primary
West London Free School Primary
Whitchurch Primary

I would guess it’s close to 40-50pc from state primaries. That’s the case at my son’s super selective London secondary

There is hardly any private selective school in London with close to 50% of its senior year students coming from state primary schools, and SPGS is certainly not the case, at best, only around 20% come from state primaries.

Yes boy's schools can achieve this for year 7 because they have an additional intake in year 9 from the prep schools. Hampton aims for 50% from state primary schools in year 7.

Are you referring to 50% of the 11+ intake, or actually 50% of the entire Year 7 population coming from state primary schools? It would be very difficult for Hampton to achieve the latter, given that they have Hampton Prep and a 10+ intake, which together already account for 30–40% of the cohort already.

They aim for 50% of the year 7 intake excluding Hampton prep, not all 10 plus places are taken up and not all come from prep schools.

A lot of the boys getting the 10 plus places at Hampton are from State schools and lots actually don’t end up going there so it’s probably not far off 50 percent. I certainly know a lot of boys there who got in from State Primaries. Emanuel probably has close to 50% and Whitgift etc. LU has about 50% from state of its non prep intake.
OP- perfectly possible to get to SPGS from a state primary. Will need tutoring but tutoring is rife amongst Prep school pupils anyway and the Secondary schools are quite good at seeing a child’s potential.

Well, your statistics exclude Hampton Prep, which makes up the latest cohort of the students in Year 7. I know a few schools "aim" for a 50% intake at 11+ , and Hampton might be one of them. But it is a different target to 50% of the full year group from state primary school. Also, SPGS is definitely not, as it has several strong prep school feeders that account for at least 40% of its intake each year. My other point also stands: in London, it’s extremely rare to find a senior school where close to 50% of the Year 7 students come from state primary schools,including LU, Emanuel or Hampton (not sure Whitgift) all above would have less than 50% in year 7. The high-end at best is around 40-45%.

But the point is that at the 11 plus entry point it is perfectly possible for a school to have 50% of its new entrants from State schools. And once they’re there it doesn’t really matter at all. Other than a smattering of possibly French and maybe a bit of cello there’s not really anything to distinguish state v private. I know that sometimes Prep patents think their children will somehow be further ahead but it’s not just not the case.
I have a slight bugbear around this having been told by numerous people with kids at a prep that they are ‘all 2 years ahead of state schools’ when it’s simply not true- especially in London!

Secondary schools are quite good at seeing a child’s potential

I regard that as right up there with "a bright child will succeed anywhere". Comforting and impossible to falsify both because the statements are so ill defined ("bright", "succeed", "anywhere", "quite good") and because there is no way to get the data. I don't happen to agree with either statement. I've seen way too many DC get places at "super academic" secondaries whom I don't regard as "high potential" but who were tutored heavily for several years.

I know that sometimes Prep patents (sic) think their children will somehow be further ahead but it’s not just not the case.

SPGS explicitly told parents that Year 7 is a "leveling up year"; they recognize that not all girls would have covered the same material in primary. In maths, at least, DD tells me that, two terms in, they have yet to cover anything that she hadn't learned at prep. The girls do have a good idea of where others went to primary; if nothing else the school has no uniform so girls occasionally wear their leavers' hoodies. It's apparently not generally the prep school girls who are seeing some Year 7 math concepts for the first time.

The two points above are not necessarily contradictory. I've been told that at Highgate, for example, children from their junior school are way overrepresented in the lowest math sets from Year 8 onwards.

My DCs ( at academic schools) would not have a clue where most of the other pupils came from and whether prep/ state etc were over represented / under represented in top maths sets etc. I’m not sure what that says about the y7 cohort / parents at SPGS . I suspect it says more about the parents grilling their daughters.

At Highgate, it's apparently common knowledge in Year 7 which students were continuing from their junior school and which were new joiners. I find it surprising that would not be the case in an all-through such as Hampton.

@itstheeasterbunny If your DC are so clueless about which of their classmates came from state or prep, what evidence do you have to support your assertions about the (lack of) difference between these groups of students at the beginning of Year 7?

I would not be too concerned about which Maths set a child at SPGS is in. The girls in the bottom set largely get 8s and 9s at GCSE. It is not really significant or obvious who has covered things before or not by a year or two in.

My daughter comes from state and will be joining SPG this Sept. I dont expect her to have an issue with maths or English as 11+ prep prepared her well for these. Although other subjects might be different such as science, foreign language, history including sports.