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Cheltenham Ladies’ College has been educating girls for 170 years. Its GCSE and A Level results are consistently excellent and the College is regularly named the top boarding school for IB in the country. Cheltenham Ladies’ College emphasises a well-rounded education, where co-curricular pursuits and contribution to the school community are weighed equally with academic achievement. The College admits a mixture of boarders and day pupils and there are three points of entry: 11+, 13+ and 16+.

What is a selective independent school?

A selective school chooses its students on the basis of their academic ability, with a view to maintaining its own standard or reputation as an academic establishment. 

The best selective independent schools consistently top academic performance tables, when it comes to ranking schools according to GCSE and A Level results, and choose students who will not only perform brilliantly but contribute to the academic atmosphere of the place. On paper this may seem reductive – but the best performing independent London schools are far from ‘grade factories’. These schools are extraordinarily well-resourced, employing the brightest teachers and with the most impressive facilities – classrooms, sports fields, libraries, laboratories and halls – and very much look upwards towards the university experience. They are also expensive, and competitive to get into, with a complex admission process to navigate before your son or daughter wins their place.                   

Founded in 1432, Sevenoaks is one of the leading IB schools in the UK and is also the second oldest non-denominational school in the country. Set in a 100-acre campus on the outskirts of Sevenoaks in Kent, the school boasts 30 buildings, 14 sports pitches and 12 lawns. It has a diverse international intake of more than 75 nationalities, with 21 per cent of leavers going to overseas universities. Sevenoaks has three main entry points, for boarding and day pupils at 13+ and 16+, and day pupils only at 11+.

Harrow School was founded during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, and has a global reputation as an outstanding school. Distinguished writers, politicians from around the world, and Nobel laureates have all studied at Harrow.

Securing a place at this highly selective school is a tough challenge, and you will find a number of key topics to do with the admissions process covered below. Keystone’s Founder and Director, Old Harrovian Will Orr-Ewing, also provides his insights into the process.

UK boarding schools boast a long tradition of excellence in education. There are a number of options for boarding including:

• Weekly boarding: Students will live at school Monday to Friday and spend weekends with their parents.
• Flexi boarding: Parents can choose how many nights a student spends at school or at home.
• Full boarding: Students live at school all the time apart from exeat weekends (designated weekends each term where students can leave) and school holidays. This is the most common choice for international families as it allows parents to live outside the UK.

There are many schools that will have both day and boarding options.

We have summarised below the admissions procedures to some of the UK’s most popular boarding schools and provided links to sample papers (where provided), familiarisation materials and test-specific guides written by Keystone. We have not included specific timelines as these will vary each year; as such, you will need to check each school’s website and/or contact their admissions department to ensure you are aware of key dates and deadlines. 

In the cases of the co-educational and Boys’ schools listed, we have detailed the admissions procedures for 13+ entry as this is the first and largest entry point in terms of the number of students admitted. For the Girls’ schools listed, we have detailed the admissions procedures for 11+ entry, however they do have later entry points too; if you are looking to apply for a 13+ place, for example, please do check each school’s website as the admissions procedures often vary between entry points. 

Please kindly note that each school’s admissions process may also differ for international applicants and/or students applying later than the registration deadline – in such cases, we would recommend carefully checking each school’s website and contacting their admissions department for the most up-to-date guidance.

Common Entrance Science Syllabus

The Common Entrance (CE) syllabus is determined by the Independent Schools Examination Board (ISEB) and can be found on the ISEB website. At 11+, it is expected that content in the National Curriculum for KS1 has been covered, and the majority of KS2. At 13+, both KS1 and KS2 are assumed prior knowledge.

Summarising the year 5 and 6 recommended programme of study, at 11+ pupils are expected to:

Work scientifically:

• Plan experiments involving variables
• Record and measure data
• Draw conclusions and discuss results, using them to predict related outcomes

Be familiar with living things and their habitats:

• Describe life cycles and life processes
• Classify living things into groups based on characteristics
• Identify the circulatory system
• Describe how nutrients are transported within animals and plants

Recognise the impact of evolution and inheritance:

• Understand what fossils can tell us
• Be familiar with inheritance and adaptations

Explain how we see things:

• Know that light appears to travel in straight lines
• Explain that we see things because light travels or is reflected into our eye

Identify an electric circuit and the components:

• Know that increasing voltage increases brightness of a lamp or volume of a buzzer

Understand properties of materials:

• Classify materials as soluble, transparent, conductive etc
• Know the differences between solids liquids and gases
• Explain processes such as evaporation and filtration
• Understand why certain materials are used for certain functions given their physical properties

Describe Earth and Space:

• Describe the movement of planets relative to the sun, and the moon relative to earth
• Understand the rotation of the Earth

Explain and identify forces:

• Gravity
• The effects of resistance
• How levels and pulleys allow a smaller force to have a greater effect

Please note that topics covered in previous years are also required. For detail on the 13+ curriculum, do look at the ISEB specification.

There are three types of reasoning tested within the UKiset:

• Verbal Reasoning: language questions and problem solving with words 
• Non-Verbal Reasoning: solving problems using shapes, pictures and logic 
• Mathematical Reasoning: looking at number, value, quantity and sequence concepts. 

Because the test is adaptive, the level of difficulty of each question will correspond to the accuracy of responses – the more questions a student answers correctly, the more challenging the questions are likely to become. So if a candidate finds the test particularly tough as it progresses, it is not necessarily a bad thing! 

Students taking the 13 Plus will be expected to use language effectively in all areas of the English exam, as well as in interviews. For a complete overview of the assessment, see our Guide to the 13 Plus Common Entrance Exams, which outlines formats, key subjects, and preparation strategies.

The exam will likely test candidates understanding of an unseen passage from a novel, play, poem or from another genre. At this level, students are assessed on their understanding of the text, as well as their analysis and evaluation of it. They may need to provide character analysis and give and justify their opinion; a broad vocabulary will help students’ to express their ideas clearly in their written responses. Our 13 Plus English Preparation Guide covers the comprehension, analysis, and essay-writing skills examiners look for.