Scrap ‘harmful’ Common Entrance exam

THE Common Entrance examination used by the leading public schools to select the brightest children is harming pupils’ mental health and should be scrapped, a headmistress has warned.

Alison Fleming, head of the £19,000-a-year Newton Prep school in London, said the tests were “turgid” and failed to equip children for life in the 21st century.

She said that many private schools had started to introduce “pre-tests” for 11-year-olds, in addition to Common Entrance examinations two years later.

“We are worried about children’s mental health and well being,” Ms Fleming said. “The idea of pre-testing in year six and then the pressure to do Common Entrance, which is 13 or 14 exams over a three-day period when they are only just 13 years old – if it’s not needed, lets not do it.”

Newton Prep acts as a feeder school for institutions including Eton, Wellington College and Wycombe Abbey.

Ms Fleming said that in addition to the potential damage to children’s mental health, Common Entrance exams were “outdated, old fashioned and irrelevant” and that forcing children to learn tranches of information off by heart was no longer a relevant skill.

Last year, a group of the country’s leading girls’ schools said they were abolishing their entrance exam amid fears it was putting children’s mental health at risk. The North London Girls’ School Consortium planned to introduce an hour-long “bespoke cognitive ability” test that was far harder to prepare for.