Highgate School

[2Girlsmum]

I'm going through the pre-results letter panic, and we (dh is calmer) are considering Highgate as a backup in case she doesn't get the ranking required for gs. She attended their Y4 'Voyages for Exploration' summer school, and last year was taught maths once a week in summer term by a member of their Maths Department as an outreach activity for Gifted and Talented Children. She absolutely loves the school, and I'm impressed with their teaching style.

It looks great, but any feedback from parents who have children at the school would be appreciated!

[delta]

Have sent you a pm.

[taleila03]

Did not find many threads about Highgate exams and I was wondering if you have by any chance any past exam papers you could share for English and Maths (I have the ' Conrad Vane' English paper) ? They only have one sample for each on their website which is not enough.

Any help would be welcome.

[Kingfisher]

Taleila03, it is fairly easy to create your own papers, looking at the Highgate questions.

Find a range of passages either from your bookshelf, the library or online as these are out of copyright: I suggest you try Little Women, Tom Sawyer, Secret Garden etc.

Then apply the questions that are on the Highgate paper:

1) How does the writer create an -------- opening here?

2) Explain X's thoughts and feelings at the point where -------.

3) Find quotations which show ------ and explain your choices.

4) Which part of the extract do you find frightening/exciting/tense/ (choose something depending on your passage) and why?

5) Use the following words in a sentence
A)
B)
C)

These sort of generic questions can be applied to anything. You have been looking at the Consortium papers - why not apply the Highgate style questions to those passages? That would save you a bit of work.

Best of luck!

[Daogroupie]

There is nothing special about the Highgate papers. I know students who did not even look at the papers who scored really highly in the Highgate exam. No student who has been taught properly will fail to do well in the English paper. It is all about understanding how to respond to comprehension passages. You have an advantage in that a lot of boys find comprehension difficult so the bar will be lower than the Consortium exams. DG

[fairyelephant]

I agree with DAOGroupie, DS managed having done a very broad range of schools' papers, and just the one on the website for Highgate. What I would add is that the sample paper suggests it is done in booklet form and leaves a whole page for the answer to certain questions (and possibly more high mark questions than say the consortium papers), so make sure your child is prepared for this (as opposed to the consortium which I think is answered on seperate paper) and knows to make the appropriate numbers of points in response to long questions and give enough detail, and not to be phased by a blank page. Also, although the boys may not be as good as the girls perhaps at comprehension, girls are competing against other girls that want a place at Highgate and will probably be doing the consortium and other schools like Habs. The school tries to take equal numbers of boys and girls.
The maths is also done in booklet form in seperate timed sections. You cannot go back to a section once the next one has started. Good luck! Let us know how it goes.

[Daogroupie]

This is very interesting. So are you saying that it is in fact harder for a girl who is good at English as she is competing with other girls, not the boys? The consortium comprehension is also in booklet form with blank pages left for answers. DG

[fairyelephant]

Well all I know is that they try to have even numbers of girls and boys in each year (80 ish from junior school) and a similar number added at 11. Whether it's harder for girls is difficult to say, there are less places locally for boys so they may well have it harder!