Wimbledon High School admissions

[CarshaltonMum]

DD is in year 6 and we are considering secondary options. Our plan A is the grammar schools (Wallington or Nonsuch). She sat stage 2 but we don't know yet if she has passed and, even if she passes, will have to wait until offer day to see if she gets a place.

We have come very late to the world of private schools as an alternative route. Where we live, Sutton High is an obvious option and I'm pretty sure DD would get a place there. I recently visited Wimbledon High and absolutely loved it. For me, I liked that it was more highly selective than Sutton, as I feel that would suit DD.

I am know wondering about admissions. I know WHS has high competition for places. We have prepped DD in Maths and English, but not Verbal and NV reasoning. The school suggests doing 6-8 practice papers, which I'll happily do, but I suspect others targeting the independents will have worked on this for months. So far we have tried 2 NV free papers (NV likely to be harder than V for DD). She was quite good at them but pretty slow. I am trying to decide how much we push it. She worked hard for the SET and it feels mean to hugely slog again when she thought she was finished, but on the other hand it could be well worth it.

I know the 2nd round is a creative/problem solving group task. DD would likely thrive at this, if she gets there!

Also any general views in the school welcome!

Yes, there are 3 non-selectives on my state school application. DD has visited those and we have talked positively about them to her. 2 of these will be where most of her classmates go. She would be fine at these, and they are still an option.

20/30 kids in her class sat the SET. 6 passed and sat stage 2. She knows she has done brilliantly already.

She will sit the Sutton High test. They take girls who score 'above average'. I have no doubt DD will pass this, considering she is consistently 10% at school.

She will sit WHS. We have told her that she probably won't get a place as we didn't prep much for this, but give it a go and enjoy the process.

This is my issue with Greenshaw and Car Girls. DD has often said since year 1 that the work is too easy and she gets bored. I know they can differentiate, but I'd love her to be really challenged in class. Do St Phils set them more?

Yes DD is happy enough to sit the tests and have a nose at the schools in the process! I actually think 'failing' something would be no bad thing and help her build resilience. She breezes through at school.

I'm not particularly committed to the private route. It's a heck of a lot of money when our state schools are good. But we can afford it, and decided late in the game to investigate a few other options and then see what works best. The state 11+ is still option A, hence our decision not to take DD to an open day 36 hours before the test.

You sound like very sensible and level headed parents. I am sure your daughter will do very well and I really wouldn't worry about the Wimbledon high tests. She is clearly bright, if they are a challenge - great, it is good for bright kids to be stretched and as you say failure is also a good learning experience. If she copes well (which I suspect she will) you will have one more option to choose from. Different children react differently to testing, I have one who enjoyed sitting the exams, looking round the schools etc and wouldn't have minded doing another one at all and another child who needs as little pressure as possible. Good luck to your dd, I hope she is very happy wherever she ends up.

I really like how you have summed things up here, thank you. DD is definitely happy to give the tests a go. In fact she is mildly annoyed with me I didn't let her come to the Sutton High open day (because it was just before the state stage 2) so I promised her she would get a tour of the school on the test day! To her it's basically some time off school and a bit of a day out. (I promise we do have actual fun days out too!)

Yes, I think 11 plus preparation can actually be quite fun in its own way. Having my DD at an all-through school, I do wonder how those girls whose parents decide to keep away from the 11+ feel when they see some of their classmates busy preparing and skip classes for exams while they just carry on as normal like nothing is happening. Does it feel a bit boring or left out for them?

Someone previously told m they do set them, but a friend with a daughter in year 7 at St Phils said they are in tutor groups for all subjects at the moment, so maybe they set them later?

My DD was similar in that she was targeting grammars and hadn't had much exposure to VR/NVR. She also came from a state primary. It didn't seem to make much difference though and she happily got into WHS, we chose it over her Tiffin offer. The school were great with her neurodiversities and she has just started university. If your daughter is happy to do so, I would just sign her up for Atom and get her practicing the reasoning for the next few weeks. She'll be fine.

Thank you, this is really reassuring! She has passed stage 2 for Sutton grammars, but I'd still like her to have a good shot at WHS. She has done some workbook prep and then was planning a month of Atom.

I panicked and registered DD for WHS, SHS, Croydon High and a couple of co-ed private schools :)

I also started her on Atom subscription for a month to prepare :)

it will be a tough choice on the 1 March if she gets Nonsuch or Wally Girls and some of the private ones too - I do very much prefer the private schools, as I think DD would thrive there more due to her being way more interested in art, sport and music than in maths, but the money side worries me a lot...

I'll probably be in the same boat soon! Did your DD manage to get an academic or any other scholarship at WHS? I've heard they're super competitive, and the fee reduction isn't particularly generous.

I don’t know about the schools but factor in the travel as she won’t want to sit in heavy traffic twice a day. If using the train/tram than might be doable.

My DD did the exam last year, she prepared for grammars that did not test on VR/NVR so only did minimal prep for a couple weeks using Atom for VR/NVR. She also did a handful of EPP papers to practice. Her first NVR paper she only got 35% but passed WHS and went on to be offered an academic scholarship.

Wow well done to your DD! We signed DD up for Atom for a month. She has been consistently getting just over 50% which I assumed was too low. Today she got 35/60. The pace on Atom is super quick, 30 seconds per question. At this point, we are just going to give it a go and see what happens.

I have seen you post on another thread and think we are in a similar position. In our case DD has her heart set on Wallington, so we would probably choose that if offered it. I really liked WHS, but the fees and the increased travel time for us are downsides. I'm not sure we will get an offer anyway. I think I might find it hard to turn down if I did though!

It would be train for us, so whilst not ideal, it is at least straight forward (10 mins walk, 20 mins on train then short walk).

My eldest sat WH along with a range of academic private schools. My observation from that experience was that the WH assessment is much more time pressured than the Atom assessments used by Godolphin/Putney/Francis Holland etc. It’s paper based and non adaptive, so part of the test is just “can you get through the volume in time” whereas high performance on Atom adaptive assessments needs care and is more forgiving on time. Just a thought that might help. I failed to explain this to my brilliant DD and she didn’t get a shake on and failed the first assessment at WH because she didn’t complete enough of it - she got fantastic results all round from other schools with different assessment styles so there is definitely a technique needed!

This is useful thank you. The Atom practise tests DD has done for WHS seem practically impossible to me! 30 seconds a question and mostly pretty complicated, so this tallies with their test format you are describing. I don't know if DD will be quick enough to get through enough of the test. She did do the state 11+ which was also fairly time pressured, so is at least familiar with skipping questions that are taking too long, or just going with a best guess and moving on.