11+ Entrance Interviews: How to Prepare

As students prepare to head to secondary school, many parents rightfully begin to question the types of exams, interviews, and admissions that their child will be faced with. Typically, the admissions process is broken down into four stages: 

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1. Application 
2. CAT4 or 11+ exam 
3. (sometimes) a written assessment 
4. Interview with the prospective school 

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The assessment portion of the admission process is typically done through standardized testing, such as the CAT4, which tests skills such as verbal reasoning, non-verbal reasoning, maths, and english. (We have written a dedicated post outlining how students can prepare for the CAT4 exam here). 

Additionally, some schools also require students to complete a writing task, either creative or long-answer, to demonstrate their command of written English. 

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For students who have already written the CAT4, the next step that awaits them is the interview with an administrator from their chosen school. The idea of an interview for anyone is daunting, let alone a young student! However, with proper preparation, students can enter their interview feeling confident and ready. 

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While called an interview, it can help students to think of the assessment as more of a formal ‘conversation’. Typically, interviewers will focus on several “traditional” topics, such as the student’s interests, academic achievements, hobbies etc. However, there is no standard interview question list between schools, and due to the fluid nature of conversation-based interviews, the questions asked will naturally change from interview to interview. That being said, here are some tips that parents and students can keep in mind in the weeks leading up to their interview, and advice on how students can excel. 

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Keep it authentic 

The great thing about in-person interviews is that schools are able to get to know a student beyond their test scores. Knowing how well-spoken, enthusiastic, or interested in a specific subject a student is are all factors that schools are unable to consider through test scores alone. That being said, it is important that the image students portray is authentic! 

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Interviewers will be able to quickly realise that a student’s favourite subject isn’t math, or that the only thing they do outside of class is read textbooks. Interviewers expect students to have interests matching their age – video games, going on their phones, playing with friends – and will be impressed by a genuine interest in their studies that can be expanded upon in detail. 

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Practice talking about their life

One area where some students struggle is articulating why they like a certain subject, or why a tv show, movie, or book is their favourite. Practicing with students to try to think more critically about their interests can help them to develop more thoughtful responses. That being said, don’t create a script for them to memorise. Instead, try asking questions that help them dig deeper into their interests. For example, if a student responds “I don’t know, I just like it,” to a question, encourage them to list specific things about that topic/movie/tv show etc. that they enjoyed. For questions related to school interests, if a student has a favourite subject, encourage them to think about a part of their studies that they’ve found the most interesting and why they enjoyed learning about this topic. 

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Read, read, read! 

As the interviewers are typically faculty from the school the student will be applying to, they will be well acquainted with the level, genre, and titles of books that students will have been reading in school. Encourage students to think back to the titles they have read this year, and which they enjoyed and why. This could include thinking about which genres they like, if they found the plot interesting, if they had a favourite character, or if they had the opportunity to do an interesting project surrounding the book. 

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Additionally, having a strong reading foundation at home is essential for school interviews. As well as touching on books the student will have recently read in school, interviewers also expect students to engage in reading outside of the classroom. While reading at home is beneficial in its own right, in the context of 11+ interviews, reading will help students discover more about their interests and help guide along the conversation with the interviewer. This being said, if the student hasn’t been reading at all, now is the time to start! Having even just one book under their belt is better than none – and especially better than trying to remember a brief summary that ChatGPT generated for them before going into the interview. Like we said before, being authentic is important, and lying about the books that a student has read will only result in awkward responses and damage their repertoire with the interviewer.  

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Know what is going on in the world 

While interviewers are not going to ask your child their thoughts on global conflicts or hard-hitting questions on economic issues, there generally will be some discussion on current events during the course of the interview. Sometimes this will be more direct, asking students to discuss something that they’ve found interesting in the news recently, while other times the opportunity to include current events  will be more open, such as asking them to think about something that has occurred during their lifetime that is significant.  

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Avoid giving short answers 

Lastly, no matter the type of question being asked, students should avoid giving one word answers. If asked if they have siblings, students could say “no, but I don’t mind being an only child” instead of just saying “no.” Remember, these interviews should be thought of more as a conversation, and more detail will help the interviewer get a better understanding of the student. If the student is struggling on giving longer answers, remind them to think of P.E.E structure (point, proof, explain), or introduce the STAR technique. This technique uses 4 steps in a response: 

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Situation: Describe the situation you were in, or a situation where you demonstrated a certain skill, task, etc. being asked of you 

Task: Describe the role or task that you had in this situation

Action: Describe what you did in that situation to complete the task 

Result: Describe the end result, what you learned, or what you can do the next time you are faced with a similar situation.  

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This technique can be especially helpful for students who have never had to think about their academic achievements or interests in an interview setting before. 

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By practicing and preparing students for their interviews, the 11+ entrance process becomes much less intimidating, and will give students a better chance at success. If you feel as though you or your child could benefit from more tailored advice, or one-on-one practice with experienced tutors, reach out to us for more information on how we can help.

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