Girls’ schools scrap entrance exams

A GROUP of leading girls’ schools are abolishing their entrance exam amid fears that it is putting children’s mental health at risk.

The North London Girls’ School Consortium, which is made up of 12 independent day schools, will replace their exam papers with an hour-long “bespoke cognitive ability” test that is harder to prepare for.

The move is designed to protect children aged 10 and 11 from the “dreadful” pressure some parents subject them to, including hours of private tuition. Lucy Elphinstone, the headmistress of Francis Holland, Sloane Square, which is a member of the consortium, said the move is in response to concerns about the well-being of children “arising from over-tutoring and the dreadful prepping towards the tests”.

She told the Tatler Schools Live conference in Knightsbridge, London, that the group of schools will instead select students on the basis of cognitive ability, verbal reasoning and interviews.

Ms Elphinstone, who has been the headmistress at the £18,000-a-year school for five years, said that the verbal reasoning section of the old exam is the only part they want to retain. “That’s something the children are perfectly used to and you can’t tutor for it,” she said.

“You can’t sit a child down at £70 an hour and endlessly do verbal reasoning tests.”

Ms Elphinstone said that the new forms of assessment would be “fairer” for children whose parents cannot afford expensive preparatory school fees or extensive private tuition.

“I think it will be much fairer to children who come from primary schools and who don’t have access, for financial reasons, to tutoring,” she said.

“We want to see what a child’s baseline potential and ability is, and cut through the ability of a parent to pay for tutoring.”

♦ Private schools are deceiving parents with “slick marketing machines”, says the headmaster of Eton College.

Speaking at the Tatler Schools Live conference, Simon Henderson, who took over as headmaster at the £38,000-a-year boarding school in 2015, said: “In my experience there is an inverse proportion between how glossy the brochure is and how good the school is. Do be aware of the very slick marketing machine.”