FAQs: School Advice
School interviews. How important are they? How do we prepare?
The school interview is one which tends to send the applicant’s parents rather than the applicant himself into a spin. Parents feel considerably more responsible for their child’s social presentation than for his or her ability to do long division. And, while a school may breezily describe the interview as ‘just a chance to get to know the child better’, this hardly overcomes concerns about sending young Daniel or Daniella into the lion’s den.
The London day-school interview is perhaps the most straightforward. Over-subscribed at every point, the selective urban independent tends to concentrate on the academic. The majority usually only meet the child after a written exam (generally used as a first edit), and the interview itself will contain a significant component of maths, comprehension or reasoning. The aim here is to probe intellectual strengths and weaknesses in order to select from the central bulk of candidates or to pick scholarship material. Finding out a little about a child’s character is only of secondary importance.
Even the most academic schools, however, are not necessarily just looking for those guaranteed to deliver a stream of A*s. Jane Sullivan, for many years the headmistress of one of the country’s top selective prep schools, used her 7+ interview as an opportunity to create as balanced a community as possible.
‘I didn’t want 50 extroverts or 50 eggheads. Most children who sat our exam scored between 40 and 65 per cent in the written paper, so I was looking for an individual spark. At seven, too, the interview is a crucial counter-balance to the exam. Those born between September and December always scored higher marks in the written paper. At interview we would go back to the list and bring in some younger children.’
Concerned parents often do their best to control the outcome of the interview, but professional preparation is universally descried, both by those who interview and by teachers who send children to be interviewed. ‘I always tell parents if they’re paying to coach three year olds, they might as well burn £20 notes,’ says the headmistress of North London Collegiate Junior School, who has the daunting task of selecting 40 four year olds from 200 applicants in a two-tier interview. ‘The only useful preparation is to talk to them, play with them and read them stories.’
Further up the system, the advice is equally non-prescriptive. The head of one of west London’s most successful pre preps does her best to relax the seven-year-olds she sends to prep-school interviews by providing them with as much factual information as she can beforehand. ‘I try to prepare them for what they’ll find. I usually describe the head and I’ll tell them what the school looks like. Beyond that I just say, "Look them in the eye, answer carefully and be honest." Children sell themselves.’
Some pre-preps and prep schools provide mock interviews, some will carefully guide children on what books or hobbies that might show to best advantage, but most interviewers say they always know when a child has been coached, and honesty. at least in theory, is the quality they’re looking for. ‘I tell children ,’says one private tutor who prepares children for 11+, ‘to say what’s in their heart, not what their teacher told them to say.’
Those moving from state to private will undoubtedly have to take any preparation into their own hands. Some particularly pro-active parents have used job manuals and professional coaching techniques to ready their child. One parent videoed his daughter to give her positive feedback on her strengths and weaknesses; another asked a friend unknown to the child to conduct a mock interview.
Personality, of course, will always be the most variable aspect of any interview and all interviewers have a personal bias. They may hate boastful children, or those who say their favourite leisure activity is computer games, they may prefer Arsenal fans to Tottenham supporters, but some schools do make a strenuous attempt to counteract the sense of one adult sitting in judgement on one child. City of London School, for example, sees candidates individually before sending them off to a lesson where they can be observed by another teacher as they work in a group. At Rugby, every child is interviewed by at least two people.
The best interviewers can and do overcome the limitations both of the written examination and of the child. ‘Children, even very shy ones, like to talk about themselves, their friends, their families and their pets. I’d get them to describe what they did on Sunday, or I’d turn my back and ask them to describe something in the room,’ says Jane Sullivan. ’Sometimes I’d even get a child to sing or dance. I was looking for sparkly eyes and interest. If a child just sat there like a pudding, you usually you didn’t take them.’
Some schools get over the ‘what to talk about’ dilemma by asking children to bring along a favourite object or interviewing in pairs. Rugby sensibly provides a questionnaire about hobbies and interests to fill in in advance, which not only provides a talking point, but also allows parents to feel they’ve done what they can. If, however, the child pitches up with a copy of Proust or boasts a collection of Roman ceramics, parents shouldn’t be surprised if the interviewer is somewhat sceptical.
Children themselves tend to be annoyingly honest. The headmaster of one highly selective north London school dealing with entrants at seven always used to ask what the Roman numerals on his clock stood for. One carefully prepared child answered correctly, and then added, ‘My parents told me you were going to ask that.’
The editor of this guide certainly regrets that he didn’t bother overly with his son’s interview when he discovered that the boy had answered the Harrow housemaster's: 'What is your worst subject?', with: 'I don't really have one'.
Though a number of leading boarding schools still rely solely on the prep-school report and Common Entrance papers, most now feel that the interview can identify serious pastoral concerns. ‘We sometimes discover that a child really doesn’t want to come to boarding-school,’ says the registrar of Rugby school. ‘The interview is also very helpful in establishing the academic level the prep-school is working at. We ask children to bring in their exercise books. Some London prep schools are so geared up at that point that all the child is doing is practice papers. Country prep schools tend to be more relaxed.’
Though most heads are honest in their report about a child, after all, their reputation depends on it, the interview can also benefit them. ‘Occasionally, a prep-school head knows perfectly well that a child is not suited to our school, but the parents just won’t listen,’ say Rugby‘s registrar. ‘Coming from us, it doesn’t sour the relationship with the school.’
Boarding schools, of course, tend to have another layer to their selection process and interview when they match boys and girls to an appropriate house. Here, the parent, even more than the child, can be in the spotlight.
Dr Andrew Gailey, housemaster of Manor House, Prince William’s house at Eton, always used to try to strike a balance of the sporty and industrious, the musical and the generally decent in his annual selection of 10 boys, but, for him, the parental part of the equation played an even greater role. ‘The boy is going to change, but you have shared management of the child’s adolescence with the parents and you have to have some common bond for that to work.’
However, anxiety-making interviews are, I would be wary of a school that didn’t at least wish to meet your child. An interview can fire a prospective candidate’s enthusiasm for a school, make teachers more committed to teaching the child and give parents a clearer notion of the school’s pastoral style. Though arranged marriages may have a successful history elsewhere, a meeting of true minds is a far more desirable approach in education.