I have been offering schools advice to parents as an independent educational consultant for over fifteen years now but as a teacher in schools for much longer than that. Over the last 15 years alone, I have worked with hundreds of families. Sometimes I might meet with parents just once for a schools advice meeting; however, usually I work with their children to help fine tune school choices and to prepare them for entrance exams; I then often work with siblings; and ultimately in many cases I have worked with the whole family as they follow their educational journeys through their new schools, helping them along with way with entrance exams and support for GCSEs, A levels and UCAS.
Since Covid, schools were forced to change their then, mostly unique, entry procedures to a standard online format which students could access independently from wherever they were. Thus, the ISEB pre-test, once used by just a handful of schools, has become the main mode of entry for many independent schools, particularly those who start at Year 9 and do their 13+ entry testing in Year 6 (or sometimes Year 7). For students this is generally a good thing as it means just one generic entry test which mostly tests natural ability as well as standard age-related taught knowledge. However, with my strong belief in choosing the right school for the child, I am saddened that this streamlining of entrance exams has for many parents, served as a reason to often focus less on specific school choices but to apply to a larger number of schools (as they all require the same entrance exam) and then essentially let the schools choose their child rather than vice versa. This I feel this is a great shame. It mirrors what used to be seen in London before schools there started to streamline their admissions process with families applying to up to around ten schools and then as schools went through their individual admissions processes, the music would eventually stop and children would find out which chair they had landed on. This somewhat scatter gun approach is what I am now increasingly seeing across all school applications with parents often coming to me in Year 5 or 6 saying they have applied to ‘these’ schools and wanting help to prepare their child for the entrance exam; rather than as previously, talking to me in Year 4 or 5 and making a conscious decision about what schools to apply to.
I am aware, especially since the introduction of VAT on school fees, that many schools have widened their entry net to fill their spaces in an increasingly competitive market. As such, I understand that parents might think it worth applying to schools they might not previously have considered. However, I would still say that the ethos of a school is so important for the individual child, and it is one thing a school choosing your child because they have space, and another you choosing a school from a position of knowledge, as you feel it suits your child’s needs both academically and pastorally.
What I believe is further complicating matters, is a whole lot of online platforms such as Atom, Bofa, and to a lesser extent, Century Bond (which in fact I tend to recommend as the one endorsed by the ISEB) seeming to take the onus off proper preparation for entry exams. There is generally a feeling that if a child is doing work on one of these platforms from as early as Year 4, everything will be fine. In fact, from my experience, children will tend to work on these platforms on areas they enjoy, rather than what they necessarily need. In addition, whilst these platforms ask parents to specify schools they are targeting, parents are then sometimes worried by poor results, but this might not be from a lack of their child’s knowledge, but sometimes their ability to apply their knowledge to how questions are worded. I still believe that there is no substitute to an experienced human tutor working out what a child needs to know and helping them to apply it. There is a time and place for these online platforms, but in my opinion it is usually just for familiarisation of the online exam format in the final weeks before an exam and that the main work is on filling gaps in a child’s knowledge, and helping them in the application of this knowledge. At the end of the day, in my opinion, entrance exam tuition should not just be about entrance exams but actually enhancing a child’s education which is of far greater long-term worth.
Call me an old dinosaur resisting change, but I believe that in spite of many incredible technological advancements which do assist us in broadening our knowledge, ultimately human beings still need human judgements to make the best decisions based on this knowledge; in this case about making the right school choices to suit the specific needs of individual children. If you too believe this or know of someone in need of human advice for their children, then please do get in contact or pass on my details.
Finally, for families in Singapore, just to let you know I will be passing through towards the end of June and if you would like to arrange to meet, please let me know and I will follow up with details of my open house get togethers nearer the time.
Fiona Hodgkins (June 2026)