Tiffin Girls’ School is a top, selective state school, based in Kingston upon Thames in Southwest London, accepting girls from Year 7 to Year 12. Tiffin Girls sits within the highly competitive group of South West London grammar schools.
Tiffin Girls’ is known for its high academic standards. Most recently, 94% of A levels ranged from an A* to a B, and 81% of students who applied to university were awarded places at a Russell Group university, with 15 students gaining places at Oxbridge.
Beyond academics, Tiffin Girls’ offers a wide range of extra-curricular activities. Facilities are extensive: the campus includes a modern Sports Centre (opened in 2022), music suites (with practice spaces) and specialist science labs. There is a large number of clubs and societies, ranging from origami club to psychology club, as well as regular school productions and music ensembles, including various student-led groups.
Entry Points
Tiffin Girls’ has two main points of admission: Year 7 through the 11+ and Year 12 through the 16+. There are occasionally in-year admissions (from Year 8-11), though places are rare as they are only offered when places become available.
There are typically around 180 places at Year 7, though it is vastly oversubscribed, with over 1,000 applicants competing for these places every year. At Year 12, around 20 places are offered to external students.
Admissions Process for 11+ Entry
Tiffin Girls’ makes offers to candidates based on their performance during their 11+ test.
In the summer term of Year 5, parents must register online for the Stage One Test, which takes place at the start of October; the deadline is the beginning of September. This test looks at both English and mathematics, and largely uses a multiple-choice format, meaning students are given four or five possible answers for each question.
Parents will then be notified if their child has been invited to the Stage Two test (taking place in November), at which point they must complete a local authority application form, outlining their top choices of schools — around 30-40% of students will be invited to Stage Two. This test also examines English and mathematics, but is more based around written work.
Both Stage One and Stage Two scores are used to determine a combined mark, made up of 60% English and 40% mathematics. The English mark is taken only from the Stage Two test, whereas the mathematics mark takes into account both tests. However, this ranking is not used on its own to determine who is offered a place. Before considering test rank, Tiffin Girls’ allocates places to pupils in this order:
- Girls with an Education Health and Care Plan
- Looked-after or previously-looked-after children ranking within the top 350 applicants.
- Girls who live within a certain distance from the school and receive Pupil Premium funding, within the top 350 applicants.
- Girls who live within a certain distance from the school, within the top 350 applicants.
- Girls who live outside the ‘Designated Area’ of the school
In cases where two applicants have identical scores, distance from the school is used as a tie-breaker.
Offers will be made by March of the following calendar year. Students who have not been offered a place, either at Tiffin Girls’ or a higher preference school on their application form, will be placed on a waiting list.
Example questions in the Stage One Test
Stage One Tests examine both English and mathematics in a multiple-choice format, however Tiffin Girls’ does not publish its own past papers. Historically, the types of questions that have come up in these tests have been reasonably consistent.
English: Comprehension
These questions will ask you to read a piece of text, and to answer questions based on it.
Extract taken from Teens by Paul Bühre
“Nothing — and I mean really nothing — is as confusing as the many different social groups in my school. Most adults, when they think of their children’s school, imagine a group of happy boys and girls frolicking through the corridors or playing football out in the playground. But that’s just a tiny part of what goes on behind those walls.”
Sample Question taken from Tiffin School Illustrative Questions
Q: Which of the following statements is untrue, according to the extract?
A: Most adults think my school is a happy place.
B: My school is co-educational.
C: Most adults do not know what happens at my school.
D: I feel confused about some things at school.
E: Students don’t play football in my school.
English: Odd One Out
These questions will ask you to find the odd word out from a list of five.
Q: joyful, happy, content, ecstasy, thrilled
Q: horn, heather, hopeful, born, however
English: Punctuation Mistakes
Q: How many punctuation mistakes are in the following sentence:
“Let us try to pick up as many twig’s as we can and look for charlies missing Hat.”
A: 0
B: 1
C: 2
D: 3
E: 4
Mathematics: Word-based Qs
Many questions in both Stage One and Two will contain real-world problems in mathematics, testing students’ abilities to use the four operations to solve them.
Sample Question taken from GL Assessment free familiarisation materials
Q: A swimming pool charges £3.60 for entry. You can save 1/3 of the entry fee with a membership card. On his first visit, Ken spends £5 on a membership card, plus the reduced entry fee. How many times does Ken visit before he gets back his £5?
A: 4
B: 2
C: 5
D: 1
E: 3
Mathematics: Unit Conversion Questions
These questions will test students’ understanding of units, including kilograms, kilometres and litres.
Q: 3.2cm = ___mm
A: 0.32
B: 320
C: 32
D: 3200
E: 3.2
Example questions in the Stage Two Test
The Tiffin Girls’ Stage Two test requires written answers in English, and written working in mathematics.
Previously, the Stage Two English test has asked students to produce a piece of creative writing, sometimes using an image as a prompt, or to write a discursive piece of some kind. Students are also asked to read a text and to answer questions in full sentences, testing their ability to infer meaning from the text or to form their own opinions.
The Stage Two mathematics test is similar to the Stage One test in terms of the topics covered, though students must show their working for each question, rather than picking one of five answers, as they did in Stage One. Topics for this test have recently included algebra, graph co-ordinates and shapes.
16+ (Sixth Form) Admission Requirements
Tiffin Girls’ take around 20 external applications each year for their Sixth Form, but the vast majority is made up of students already at the school.
Offers are made based on students’ GCSE results, and applications are made on GCSE results day, which should include students’ A Level choices. At this point, applicants are ranked based on the points score of students’ GCSEs.
Students must achieve at least a grade 7 in the subjects they intend on studying at A Level. There are various other minimum requirements for specific subjects; for example, in order to study Computer Science, students must score a grade 8 or above in Mathematics GCSE if Computing was not studied at that level.
Places will be offered depending on several criteria:
- Demand for places in each of the subject areas the student has indicated they wish to study
- The school’s ability to provide staff for the subjects chosen
Regarding external applications, if there are more than 20, the school applies the following over-subscription criteria:
- Applicants who are looked-after or previously-looked-after.
- Rank order by average point score of students’ GCSE results for those receiving pupil premium
- Rank order by average point score of students’ GCSE results
In-year Admissions
Although places outside of the school’s two main entry points are rare, vacancies do occasionally appear.
Tiffin Girls’ School runs in-year selection tests at the end of most terms to determine whether prospective students are at the required academic level. Eligible applicants are then placed on a waiting list if there is not an immediate place available, but must reapply the following academic year if no place becomes available.
The selection test will also consist of an English and a mathematics test, though the test for each year group is always different.
Appeals
Parents whose child has not been awarded a place at the school have the opportunity to submit an appeal to an independent Appeals Panel, under the School Standards and Framework Act 1998. They should email the admissions office to request an appeal form.
Preparation Tips for the Entrance Test for Tiffin Girls’ School
Preparation is paramount for students hoping to gain a place at Tiffin Girls’ School. Unlike many grammar schools, there are two entrance tests, using both a written and a multiple-choice format, so students should be well-prepared in both areas.
Students should possess an in-depth understanding of the KS2 curriculum in both English and mathematics, as well as experience with both written tests and computerised tests under exam conditions. Keystone have provided specialist tutors for these exams for over a decade, who are experienced and can guide candidates through the entire process.
For more details on how Keystone can help with preparation for the Tiffin Girls’ School exam, feel free to call the office for a chat with one of our client managers, or contact us via our request a tutor form.