St Catherine's 11+ Booklet 2017

ST CATHERINE’S, BRAMLEY

An 11+ Insider’s Guide www.stcatherines.info

Hello!

If you are thinking of coming to St Catherine’s read on…

This booklet has been written by a group of U3s (that’s what Year 7 is called at St Cat’s) at the end of our first year at the School. We remember being in your shoes and understand what you may be thinking and, maybe, are even a little bit worried about.

We hope you’ll enjoy reading it and, most of all, find it useful.

Why we chose St Catherine’s?

When we met to put our ideas on paper we worked out that we came from 15 different schools before coming to St Catherine’s. Some of us looked at other schools and some of us didn’t (see the back cover for the schools we came from). There were quite a few reasons why, in the end, we chose St Catherine’s: • The academic and teaching standards • The strong House system that’s been going for years and everyone loves • The excellence of the Sport & Music • We wanted to come to an all girls’ school • The friendly atmosphere we felt it had when we visited on open mornings • It was recommended to us by other girls here already • Its reputation and the good reviews in various guides • The fantastic facilities • We had a sister already here • Boarding • Taster Day where we had four proper lessons helped some of us decide.

Your Shadow You will be given your own L4 (Y8) shadow from your House and Tutor Group, who will be there for you until you feel able to cut loose and be totally independent. Your shadow will be very important to you. Shadows are girls who, like us, have completed U3 and so understand how it feels to be new.

Your personal shadow will meet you every morning and make sure you get to your tutor room. She will try to answer any of your questions and help with problems and, in general, will be a friendly face. In addition you will have your Form Tutor to talk to and the older girls in your House will make you feel really welcome.

Should you worry about the Entrance Exam?

Everyone has to sit the 11+ Entrance Exam including the girls at St Catherine’s Prep School. You can’t avoid it but we all agreed that: •

there’s nothing wrong with being a bit nervous or worried beforehand because it shows you care about doing well and, to be honest, most of us agreed that the anticipation i.e. the lead up to the exams. was far worse than the tests themselves.

• St Catherine’s makes the whole experience as positive as it can be…under the circumstances! We remember enjoying the break-times between the tests and especially making fruit kebabs!

• we liked the fact that the tests –Verbal Reasoning, English, Science and Maths – are not sat in one big hall with all the candidates together. Instead, you are put into a group of about 20 girls who come from lots of different schools, and you are looked after by the School Housemistresses. You sit the exams in classrooms with your group. The teachers who supervised us were very friendly and encouraging.

The tests themselves were easier than we thought they’d be, too. The questions weren’t nasty and were based on what we’d done at our prep and junior schools. There is no interview involved, so you don’t need to worry about that either. You certainly shouldn’t spend all Christmas holidays revising.

On 11+ Exam day, there is a long lunchtime where you’ll eat in the school dining room and then each group does an activity.

The results come out quite quickly –St Catherine’s tries to make sure they arrive on a Saturday morning because it’s good to be with your family when the letter is opened.

OK, you have been offered a place. What other things might you naturally be concerned about…

Making friends? Not knowing anyone? Will I get lost? Will I fit in? Will I get lots of homework? Will the lessons be hard and the teachers strict? Read on…!

Making friends Most of us remember being worried about making friends. Getting along with everyone is seen as a big priority at St Catherine’s and the School does lots to make what seemed a big concern really easy.

St Catherine’s is a very friendly school and there are so many opportunities to make friends, it happens before you realise it.

First of all your House Tutor Group includes your own year and your shadow’s year (L4/Y8) so by the end of the second day you know quite a few people!

Even before lessons begin you will have met each other at the New Girl’s Welcome Afternoon and, following that, there’s a brilliant Bonding Day the first weekend of the Autumn Term where you will play lots of games and get to know each other better as well as your fantastic House Captains. If you are a new boarder there is the new Boarders’ Bonding Weekend in June before you join in September.

Secondly, House Activities are a fantastic way of becoming involved in everything. They help you quickly feel part of St Catherine’s - in fact our Houses are incredible but we’ll say more about them later.

Thirdly, you will meet virtually everyone in U3 during lessons because we don’t stay in Houses for most lessons – we’re allocated LUGO groups. LUGO stands for Let Us Go On which is the School motto.

So six Houses become four major teaching groups – U3L, U3U, U3G, U3O. These are not streamed in any way.

We are in LUGO groups for subjects like English, History and Science. There are different groups again for Creative Arts and Sport. The only subject where we’re put into ability groups in U3 is Maths because we’re at different levels when we arrive. The teachers review the groups each term to make sure we’re in the right class.

So, in just one week you will sit with many different groups of girls. The teachers also move us around in lessons every half term so we don’t end up sitting with the same people all the time.

The Houses •

Ashcombe, Merriman, Midleton, Musgrave, Russell-Baker, Stoner. Six Houses – one Community. Our Houses are brilliant! Ask any girl from U3 to U6 what’s THE BEST THING about St Cat’s, the answer will almost certainly be their House. Why we love the House System:

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“House spirit” – It’s hard to explain, you just feel it everywhere and in everything we do.

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“House activities” – Art, Drama, Sport and Music – there is always something going on and everyone gets involved. You will be swept along in all the fun.

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“Friendly” – Your House is there for you, and the rest of your House is automatically your friend. It’s also a great way to meet girls in the years above you.

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“Competitive” –You want your House to win, so you strive to do your best. But it’s all in good fun and we’re happy for our friends in other Houses if they do well at Gym, because we might beat them later in the Singing competition!

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“Kind and thoughtful” – Every girl wants to look after each other. We also raise money every year for our House’s chosen charity through events like cake sales and the Merriman Christmas Fair.

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“Role Models” – Every House is led by a Housemistress, the FormTutors and Assistant Tutors. They also rely a lot on the Sixth Form who work hard to make their House the best.

Lots of us would love to be House Captains or House Prefects when we’re older because they do really interesting jobs like writing the House play for the competition at Christmas or choosing and arranging the House song or choreographing the Dance Competitions at Easter. Every House also has Art, Sports, Music, Drama, Website, Debating and Charity Reps too. There are lots of opportunities to lead.

Lessons and Prep Another common concern we all had was if we’d be able to keep up lessons and if the teachers were scary!

At the start of the year we realised we weren’t always good about managing our time very well. For example, we’d let subjects pile up rather than doing them on the evening they were set. When you’ve done your 20 or 30 minutes, depending on the subject, we know to STOP! and write a short email to our teachers telling them this is what we did in the time allowed. They understand. In any case, prep is built up gradually during the first term.

At St Catherine’s you can start your prep before you go home ... because it’s a boarding school it’s always staffed, and teachers stay on to supervise prep in the library. School buses (or parents) arrive later in the evening to pick you up.

We also have four House Study periods per week which are really helpful. We can do homework quietly with our House, supervised by teachers or we can go to subject ‘clinics’ if we need extra help with a topic.

There are quite a few new subjects we’d not studied before including Spanish, German and Latin, Food and Nutrition, DT and Textiles. The Sciences are taught separately. We have Biology, Chemistry and Physics taught by specialist teachers.

St Catherine’s is an iPad School. Lots of help is available to help you learn how to use your iPad and this even extends to your mums and dads if they would like some advice.

Art, Drama and Music We all do Art, Textiles, Food and Nutrition, DT, Drama and Music and we each have our own favourites but one thing we absolutely agree on is how lucky we are to have the use of the Anniversary Halls Auditorium. We remember being so excited the first time we sat in there for assembly. We have a huge stage, professional lighting, backstage wardrobes and dressing rooms, brilliant acoustics and an orchestra pit. We also have a separate Music School and the Creative Arts Centre.

There are major drama productions every year; the Middle School production happens during the Autumn Term and we all have the chance to audition. If you sing or play any sort of musical instrument (or even just want to learn) you will be in good company as well over half the girls at St Catherine’s take music lessons. Every other year there is a whole school musical. At the start of U3 you can go to a Music Taster session and try an instrument with the help of the music teachers and find out more about it.

So if you love Sports and subjects like Music, Theatre and Art you will be in your element at St Cat’s because it’s all here for you to take advantage of.

Extra-curricular activities There are so many! In September when you join, go to the ‘Freshers Fair’ to find out what’s available. Here are some of the activities we’ve enjoyed.

• Netball • Athletics • Orchestra • Chess • Concert Band • Photography Club • Recorder Consort • Debating • Rounders • Harp Ensemble • String Orchestra • Jazz Band • String Quartet • L.A.M.D.A • Lacrosse • Swimming • Tennis • Mandarin • Middle Chamber Choir We do these activities at different times of the day e.g. before school, at lunchtimes and after lessons have finished. All U3s also join the U3 Choir in their first six months at St Cat’s.

Activities Week and Trips We’ve been on various trips this year such as St Albans for Latin. Throughout the year you can also take part in trips to museums, the theatre and various exhibitions, usually in London, mostly taking place on Friday evenings. At the end of the year the whole school takes part in Activities Week. The U3s split the week between Art and Drama Workshops based at school and camping where we make our own shelters and even build our own showers.

Sport Everyone does P.E. and our sports facilities in the Anniversary Halls are amazing. In the winter we do Lacrosse, Netball, Gymnastics and Cross-Country as well as Swimming. In the summer we do Athletics, Swimming, Tennis and Rounders.

Lots of us play netball and lacrosse.

You don’t have to be absolutely brilliant at any sport to get a chance to play competitively. There are lots of sports teams for all abilities.

We all love the Anniversary Halls the huge space, how light and bright it feels, the Dance Studio and the fact that we can now do more sports indoors like trampolining, squash and gymnastics. The showers and the changing rooms are really cool and even have hair-dryers!

Boarding

St Catherine’s has a mix of day girls and boarders. Boarding is great fun. Even if you don’t board from the start, girls opt in later on and by the time you reach the Sixth Form lots of the girls board.

There are different reasons to board; it saves a lot of time travelling, some of us have parents working abroad or we simply just wanted to try it.

Boarders do lots of activities on site and above all, it is fun. During the day, boarders and day girls are completely together. In the evening, we can support each other with prep and there are always staff around to help. Our boarding house mistresses are all teachers. We get a longer lie-in when there are no early morning sport or music practices.

Some girls board and go home at the weekend on Friday night or Saturday morning, some are full boarders and get to do

all sorts of weekend activities - such as going to Harry Potter World, Guildford AirHop. London sight-seeing, theatre and cinema trips, crafts and baking days etc. Weekly boarders are always welcome to join in any of the weekend activities. Another advantage of boarding, even for the day girls, is that you can book an occasional night or even a week in boarding if, for example, you have a late night theatre trip or your parents have to be away for a week. It might be that you just want to try it out. But everyone who boards really enjoys the experience and they have the advantage of a whole new community to get involved with in addition to all their day-girl friends.

St Catherine’s has a collection and drop-off service for girls who live in London.

Meet the Authors: And finally… we are all real pupils! These are our words. Everything in this book is meant to help you decide whether you would enjoy being at St Catherine’s by giving you a little flavour of what it’s like to be a pupil here.

We love our School and hope you will love yours too whether it’s here or elsewhere. Good luck… we hope to meet you!

Blair - Rydes Hill Prep Carmen - Ottershaw C of E Junior School Connie - St Catherine’s Prep Emilia - Repton Dubai Emily - St Christopher’s Montessori, Miami Emily - St Catherine’s Prep Faribee - Halstead Prep Georgie - City of London Freemen’s School Grace - St Catherine’s Prep

Get involved; the more you put in, the more you’ll get out.

Illustrations by Kathryn David (2011).

Keen amateur cartoonist.

Masters in Modern Foreign Languages (German and Mandarin).

Isabella - South Farnham School Katya - Cranleigh Prep Lucy - St Ives School Maddy - Jebel Ali Primary School Phoebe - St Ives School Sanna - Halstead Prep Saskia - St Hilary’s School Tabitha - British School of Bucharest