Admissions Process

Readiness to learn at Lovell House (Infant School - Reception, Years 1 & 2)

To join our Infant School, Lovell House in Reception your child should be aged 4 or over on the 1st of September of their year of entry. We will invite your child to a range of activities such as 'Show and Tell' and 'Stay and Play'. These sessions help you and your child familiarise yourselves with our setting and enable us to get to know your child.

If you are applying for a place in Year 1 and 2 we evaluate your child's readiness to learn in class. They will take part in our normal lessons where they will complete age and stage appropriate tasks in numeracy and literacy as well as having time to play and familiarise themselves with the School.

Entry to Junior School Assessment

Your child should be 7, 8, 9, or 10 years old on the 1st of September of the relevant year of entry.

We will invite your child to spend time with us in school. As part of this admissions assessment, we will ask your child to complete some age and stage-appropriate online mathematics activities, reasoning activities and some literacy-based activities such as reading comprehension and creative writing.

Typically, we confirm the offer of a place within 14 days of your child's visit.

Entry to Senior School Assessment

English Paper (60 Minutes):

The examination paper is in two sections, Reading and Writing. In the 'Reading' section, your child is given a short extract or extracts, followed by several questions. These questions will test their comprehension of passage, and their ability to comment on the author's language or other techniques. In the 'Writing' section your child is given a choice of tasks: having chosen one, they should produce approximately one page of writing. The purpose of this assessment is to demonstrate your child's writing skills - their ability to generate and organise ideas, their ability to write interesting and engaging pieces, and their spelling, punctuation and grammar skills.

Mathematics Paper (50 Minutes):

This contains approximately 25 questions. The first 15 concentrate on arithmetic and the final 10 involve solving problems and questions towards the end of the exam that are harder than the rest. The mathematical knowledge required for most of the questions on the paper is at what would be appropriate for a good school mathematician in year 5 or 6.

Reasoning (60 Minutes):

This test includes Verbal Reasoning and some Non-Verbal Reasoning questions. The Non-Verbal Reasoning questions use shape, images, and mathematical questions. We regret that we are unable, because of the copyright restrictions imposed by the suppliers of these tests, to provide sample tests. However, it is possible to buy copies of similar test questions online. The Reasoning test is carried out using a computer. Before children start answering the test questions, they will have the opportunity to do practice exercises.

Learning Support

If your child has a recognised condition (for which an Educational Psychologist report includes scores below 85 and an evidenced standard method of working which supports the award of extra time or rest breaks), they may be awarded these in the Maths and English entrance assessments. This will always be assessed on an individual basis at the time of the Entrance assessment.

After the Exam

The examination papers are marked very quickly after the event and it is our normal practice to call approximately 100 candidates for interview. Whilst this process is time-consuming, we feel that it is vital because we know that your child is far more than just an examination mark. In addition to general questions, the interview includes a review of some of the Mathematics and English questions from the examination and some general problem-solving questions. We have approximately 80 places available for external candidates with approximately 50/60 pupils moving up from our Junior School. Although we always have many candidates, we do not feel we can offer a meaningful interview to more than 100. After the interviews have been held, we make our final selection for bursaries and fee-paying places.

Entry to Sixth Form Assessment

Entry into Year 12 (Sixth Form) is by interview, considering current academic achievement at GCSE/iGCSE.

As a guide, we expect you to gain a minimum of five Grade 7's in your GCSE subjects with Grade 7 (or higher) in the subjects you wish to take at A level. We will request an academic reference from your current School which must be received prior to an interview.

We encourage you to apply by the end of the Autumn Term and we process applications as they arrive. We do consider applications made later, but may not always be able to accommodate all subject choices (we will always do our best).

Application forms are available from our Admissions Department. Once we have received your application and registration fee, we will send you an acknowledgement which will include details of the selection procedures.

If you are successful, we will offer you a place within two weeks of the interview.