I n this article I’ll explain exactly how to prepare your child for the Dulwich College 11+ entrance exams and interview, if they are hoping to enter the school in Year 7. I’ll offer advice about the admissions process, and explain where it is different from the system at other 11-plus schools.

Because a large number of boys enter Year 7 from the Junior School, there are usually only 70 11+ places available to external candidates. This means that many very able students will miss out: there is a great deal of luck involved. It’s important that your child sees the Dulwich College entrance exam as a worthwhile challenge, to be approached with enthusiasm; but that they don’t set their heart on it. There are many other excellent schools in London offering 11-plus entry.

Slightly confusingly, the first few years of the Dulwich secondary school (or senior school) are called the “Lower School”. (But then, where I went to school the years were called Second Form, Third Form, Lower Erasmus, Upper Fourth, Great Erasmus, Deputy Grecians and Grecians. So it can’t be said that Dulwich have the most confusing system out there.)

The admissions process, in outline, runs as follows:

Applications need to be submitted by mid November. This is not a school which accepts new candidates in the week before the exams!

Entrance exams are held in early January. Papers are set for Maths, English, Verbal Reasoning and Non-Verbal Reasoning.

Interviews for the best-performing examination candidates follow in mid to late January.

If you’re interested in a bursary for your child, or an art, music or sports scholarship, there is more information here.

There is no separate academic scholarship exam: all candidates are automatically considered for academic scholarships based on their main exam peformance.

Now I’ll talk you through each part of the entrance exam in turn – after which, I’ll discuss the interview.

Please bear in mind that exam styles can change from year to year. Everything I write here is based on my knowledge of previous years’ processes and on past papers. I can’t predict the future! Therefore, a broad 11+ preparation is always wisest: this way, your son will feel confident dealing with whatever he encounters in the exam hall.

The English Paper

Dulwich College sets a slightly unusual but very well written 11-plus English paper. It’s worth bearing in mind that it tests the sort of high-level skills which prep schools tend to cover better than primaries.

I don’t wish to generalise unfairly about primary schools, many of which are superb. Simply put, prep schools tend to be more focused on independent senior school entrance exam requirements. If your child comes from a primary school background, it might be worth putting in some extra time to prepare for the Dulwich College English paper, so that they don’t feel out of their depth when confronted with unfamiliar question types.

Like most independent school 11-plus English exams, the Dulwich paper tests both comprehension and creative writing. Because the writing section is the more unusual part, I’ll talk about it separately, even though it forms part of the main English paper.

Creative Writing

A distinctive feature of the Dulwich College English paper is that the creative writing section is usually in the middle, with comprehension questions before it and afterwards. Have a look at the past papers on the school’s site, and you’ll see what I mean.

I imagine this is a way of making sure that candidates allow enough exam time for the writing piece, and don’t try to complete it in ten minutes at the end of the test! It’s also a way of making sure that they are still focused on the comprehension text: the writing task tends to be based on it.

What’s more, although the writing task is worth a third to a quarter of the marks for the paper, very little space is allowed for it: around three quarters of a page of the school’s answer paper, which is equivalent to about two thirds of a page of standard A4. Compared to the independent school norm (and my standard advice for 11+), which is to expect answers of a page to a page and a half, this is not very much room!

For this reason, boys need to have a clear idea of what the school is looking for.

Phrases used in recent instructions for this part of the exam have included: ”inventiveness and sophistication”; “convincing description” and “inventive vocabulary”; and “appropriate use of similes and metaphors”. There is always some added advice to keep punctuation, spelling and grammar accurate.

In other words, the question is designed to see how powerfully and imaginatively children can express themselves, and how well they can condense their descriptive writing into limited space on the exam paper (see my City Boys’ article for more thoughts on this). As you’ll see when you look at the past papers, there is no room to waste words on uninteresting sentences which state facts without any colour.

My main advice for this section of the exam is to focus on those descriptive techniques which can be used concisely. A lengthy extended metaphor, spread across three or four lines, will restrict your ability to demonstrate other skills.

Strong, interesting verbs, on the other hand, can be enormously effective (and not just at 11+). For instance, instead of just writing “smiled”, you should consider words such as “leered”, “beamed”, “grimaced” or phrases such as “curled her lips” – whatever word most precisely catches your meaning.

Similarly, my advice is to focus on the senses (taste, touch, smell, sight, hearing); but do so in an interesting way, which forces the reader to imagine the scene vividly. For example, instead of writing “the cake smelt beautiful”, consider options such as “the steam filled her mouth with a sweet taste of ginger”. You could add details using other senses, for example by writing that “the spongey crust pushed back against her palm, shrugging itself back into shape as soon as she took her hand away.” (Notice the way personification is also brought in by the word “shrugged”, but without occupying extra room.)

When writing similes and metaphors, make sure that you create clarity rather than confusion: “She cooked like a cheetah” may seem like a good way to say that she worked quickly, but from the reader’s point of view it is a baffling image (which won’t score well in an exam). How does a cheetah cook?

Create images which make the scene more vivid for the reader, not less. The first part of this is to imagine the thing you are describing very clearly; then think about a suitable comparison which you can develop into an image.

A couple of warnings for this sort of task:

Don’t try to seem descriptive by drowning your work in adjectives (a common 11-plus exam mistake)! It is much better to use a small number of very effective adjectives than to stack them up in front of each noun like Fiat 500s queuing impatiently behind a lorry.*

Be very careful with your punctuation. Keep sentences short and simple most of the time, and be accurate in your use of commas. Clumsy sentences will distract the marker from the good ideas within them – as well as losing marks in their own right.

The following video shows how I mark students’ creative writing. It might give you some useful ideas.

You can turn on subtitles by clicking the three dots or the subtitles symbol in the bottom-right corner of the video. You can also choose to watch in fullscreen mode.

If you’re interested in sending me your child’s work for marking and detailed advice, have a look at the 11 Plus Lifeline page on this website, or send me an email.