Highgate School Entrance Guide

Highgate School has been a popular choice with parents and guardians for a number of years. For many, successfully gaining a place at this entry point brings security and consistency to a child's education. It is however, a very competitive entry point for this reason.

The Highgate 7 Plus Overview

For children and parents, taking an entrance exam can feel like a daunting experience... but it doesn’t have to! The best thing you can do to build confidence and to reduce anxiety is to be prepared which means lots of practise!

For the Highgate School 7 plus entrance exam children will sit a Maths, English and Non-Verbal Reasoning paper which will all last approximately 40 minutes. Children who are invited back for an interview will participate in a group interview and a taster lesson to see how the children interact with each other and work collaboratively. Read on for some advice and example questions to help you prepare for the big day!

7 Plus English at Highgate

Children will be given a short text to read, followed by a mixture of questions that will focus on vocabulary, inference, prediction, explanation, retrieval and summarising.

Below is an example of each question type.

I have based these questions on the popular book ‘Where the wild things are’ if you wanted to have a go at answering these at home. 

Vocabulary- What word on page 13 has the same meaning as ‘fall over’?

Inference- Why do you think Max felt lonely? Explain your answer.

Prediction- What might happen when Max returns home? Explain your answer.

Retrieval- What was waiting for Max when he got home?

Summarise- In your own words, summarise what happened at the end of the book in around three sentences.

Your child will then be given a creative writing task, linked to the comprehension task. This could be fiction, non-fiction or poetry! Here they will be assessing your child’s spelling, punctuation, handwriting and most importantly if they can write a coherent story that is imaginative. I always tell my students to make a quick plan including an opening, build up, problem, resolution and ending. This way they have a structure to follow when writing their story and something to help them stay on track.

Get your child used to writing a creative story in a time limit (around 30 minutes) and challenge them to use different writing features such as an adjective, powerful verb and simile. 

7 Plus Maths at Highgate

Maths questions will be a combination of all four methods used (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division) and these will mainly be reasoning questions. This means children will not only need to know which method to use, they will also need to be able to problem solve. As well as this, most tests will include a question on time, fractions and money. See below for some examples of the types of questions you might find in the test.

Subtraction:

There are 49 balls in the PE shed.

Ahmet takes 15 balls and Naima takes 21.

How many balls are left in the shed?

Addition:

Sarah has 54p and Jona has 29p.

If they put their money together, do they have enough to buy a ball that costs 82p?

Division:

There are 35 crayons shared equally between 7 children.

How many crayons does each child get?

Multiplication:

1 pot holds 4 flowers. How many flowers does 8 pots hold?

7 Plus Reasoning Tests at Highgate

Although reasoning is a test of skill rather than learned knowledge, it will really help your child if you practise some of the question types so they know what to look out for when it comes to the test.

Non-Verbal Reasoning is designed to test the child’s problem solving and logical reasoning in a variety of ways, usually based around shape, picture and diagram. 

(Please have a look at our guide on supporting children with Reasoning Tests)

Often, your child will be expected to determine a particular pattern and accurately choose the next component in the sequence. Some question types include:

Complete the pattern or finish the sequence

Correctly identifying what an object/shape will look like when it has been rotated in different ways.

Identifying which shape is the "odd one out"

Working out cube nets or what shapes will look like when folded

Working with symmetry or reflections

I would advise buying one of the ‘Bond’ Non-Verbal Reasoning books to help you practise the different types of questions. Start with ages 6-7 years old and move on to 7-8 years old if your child is becoming more confident. Just make sure you don’t put them off by giving them questions that are too hard! It might take a while to understand what to look out for if this is a new process.

Final Thoughts

Remember that everyone you meet on your assessment day will understand that there might be some nervous children (and parents!) so will endeavour to put you at ease and make it an enjoyable experience. It is a chance for your child to show them how amazing they are!

Highgate School’s Aims and Ethos discuss the importance of promoting kindness, empathy, friendship and collaboration. Therefore, this is a great opportunity for your child to demonstrate how they can work with others in a polite and friendly way.

Entry to Highgate School at 11+ is fiercely competitive. The School has become increasingly popular over recent years and boasts a beautiful site with extensive grounds, excellent music, drama and sports facilities, as well as a state of the art Design and Technology block.

Each year, approximately 80 new external Year 7 students join around 105 students from Highgate Junior School. A very small number of music scholarships and bursaries are also awarded.

Key dates:

Application Deadline: early November in Year 6

Entrance Examination: early December in Year 6

Interviews: January in Year 6

Offers: early February in Year 6

What does the examination involve?

The schools assesses potential students in Mathematics, English and Non-Verbal Reasoning.

The Maths paper is a traditional written paper and  starts off fairly easy and becomes more difficult towards the end. Highgate seems to favour multi-stage problem solving questions. All four operations - subtraction, multiplication, long division and addition - will need to be secure. The usual topics which are expected to be secure at this stage will come up, often as part of tricky word-problems. These include: fractions, percentages, area and perimeter and ratio.

The English paper includes a traditional written comprehension paper followed by, typically, a creative writing task. The extract for the comprehension will usually be from a classic text, sometimes a nineteenth century text. So, students will do best when used to this type of text and some of the associated vocabulary. Students will be expected to be mature ans thoughtful readers who are able to comment on the effects of language choices. The writing task is often a 'writing to describe' task and is shorter than on some other 11+ school entrance tests. Usually, candidates are only given 20 minutes and are asked to describe a place or person in detail, focusing on the senses and trying to create a sense of atmosphere.

The NVR (Non-Verbal Reasoning) paper covers the normal question types on shape, symmetry, odd one out and so on. There are many different practice papers which can be tried in advance and it is recommended to have lots of practice with these before the 'real' exam.

What does the interview involve?

Candidates who have performed well enough in the written tests will be invited for an interview and 'activities' day. The school likes to see how the children perform in lessons and within a group and activities will differ from year to year. Every year, though, there seems to be a group interview rather than a one-to-one interview. This involves 4-5 children being interviewed by one member of staff. They will be looking for how they respond to each other, whether or not they listen carefully to the other children as well as the teacher, take a lead role and so on. It is always tricky to strike a balance between a confident performance and an overbearing one!

Offer day

If your child receives an offer from Highgate and it is your first choice, don't delay! They have been known to close their list before the final deadline. Some children are placed on a waiting list.