Brandon Learning Centre: British Education - process, preparation and practicalities

 As we all know, there is more to a school than rankings! They don't show the rich cultural or sporting lives of a school or indeed differentiate between schools with selective and unselective intakes.   Every year, the Sunday Times produces a ranking of all the schools in the UK based on GCSE and A level performance. This year, the 29th Sunday Times Parent Power rankings have taken an average of results from 2017 - 2019 for their 2021 results (formal exams were disrupted due to the pandemic so schools used centre assessed grades in 2021) and the top ten schools are:   1: St Paul's Girls 2: King's College School, Wimbledon 3: Wycombe Abbey School  4: Magdalen College School 5: Guildford High School  6: St Paul's School  7: Westminster School  8 (joint) Brighton College - City of London School for Girls 10: Sevenoaks We've had Brandon students going on to all schools! Also enormously popular this year for our students are Eton College (11th), Radley (58th) Downe Hou

Times are changing and boarding schools are alive to the need to offer options. The traditional single-sex or co-ed division has changed. The diamond structure of schooling (mixed until 11 - single sex until 16 - mixed sixth form)  is possible when single-sex schools are in close proximity. Students benefit from having time to develop at their own pace but can take advantage of a greater range of facilities. Examples include: Berkhamsted School with more to follow (for more information, look at this article from the Spectator:   Insight into diamond schools) Mixed Sixth forms allow schools to offer a breadth of subjects and to introduce a new cohort at 16+. Successful examples include: Westminster and Charterhouse (who recently announced that they will be going fully co-ed!) Schools which remain single-sex but take advantage of geographical proximity to offer joint activities  throughout the school include: Sherborne Girls partnering with Sherborne Boys and St Mary's Ascot wi

Here are my top five rules for interviews, none of which are earth-shattering news to most parents but all of which are worth bearing in mind! 5: Understand the format of the interview: will your child be tested (Eton, Westminster) if so, what style is the test? Is there a group interview?  4: Do you have to bring anything to the interview ? A school exercise book? An item to discuss? If so, spend some time discussing the items with your child. Flick through the work book and ask your child to select the piece of work they are proudest of. Ask them why they chose their special item. Choose your own item and compare. Have fun finding out about your child!  3: Is there a dress code? Some schools (e.g. Downe House) ask girls to bring sports kit as part of the day includes a group exercise activity. If you are unsure, call the school. Wearing school uniform is always a safe bet and may help your son or daughter to put themselves into school-mode. If you opt to buy a suit or new

School entry used to be relatively straightforward: apply, interview, take a couple of exams and join. No longer... welcome to the world of the pre-test. Why have pre-tests become so prevalent? A couple of reasons: firstly, the increase in applications to UK schools has put already over-worked admissions departments under incredible strain and pre-tests represent a way of filtering students and reducing the number to a manageable size. More importantly though, schools say that they do not want candidates who have no chance of gaining a place going through the stress of an application. Sounds fair enough... There are a number of pre-tests but I am going to focus on the ISEB pre-test as has been adopted by a number of big schools (Eton, Radley, Wellington, Westminster amongst others) and is therefore a hot topic amongst our parents. What is the ISEB Pre-test? The test consists of four sections: English (25 minutes) Maths (50 minutes) Verbal (36 minutes) Non-Verbal reasoning