Highgate 4 Plus Assessment

The Highgate 4 plus is one of the main entry points into Highgate. It is one of the most competitive set of 4 plus assessments in London which reflects that Highgate is one of the top academically achieving schools in the country. In common with other schools in Hampstead and North London the there is a two stage assessment process. Timings are similar to other schools such as NLCS or Habs so parents can make a comparative decision.

We are experts in the Highgate 4 plus

We have worked with former year one and year two teachers from Highgate and other similar North London schools to understand the process. We have a forty year success rate of getting children into Highgate and three years ago started our 4 plus programme. We developed it with the help of teachers who had previously taught at Highgate, Channing and UCS and so had an in depth knowledge of how to pass.

Our success rate in the Highgate 4+ Assessment

We typically get in around 60% of our applicants for Highgate. Last year we had six children apply and four got offers. Highgate generally accept around 10% of applicants – making it harder to get into than comparator schools such as Channing or Habs. There are some important differences between the Highgate assessment and that of other schools in the area. Our mock assessments are a good predictor of whether Highgate is suitable for you.

What is on the Highgate 4 Plus?

Highgate want children who have the maturity to handle the high academic pace. Parents report the process to be less nurturing that a school such as Channing as the school creates a more stressful atmosphere in the 4 plus assessment. Children need to have the resilience to be able to handle this. Whereas other schools will give tricky critical thinking or spatial reasoning tests, some of the Highgate tests are deliberately designed to test perseverance in the face of adversity – does the child give up when the problem seems impossible. However, this is not purely an academic hothouse. There are tasks which seem on the surface to be testing something academic, but on closer inspection, are actually designed to test collaboration and sharing skills. In short, Highgate in our view is the hardest of the North London 4 Plus assessments to pass.

Our Highgate 4 Plus Preparation and Assessment

We start with an assessment of where your child is, based on our knowledge of what Highgate are looking for in successful applicants. We do this through a review of the nursery report; a personality questionnaire; a test conducted in conjunction with Cambridge University by our teachers; and full mock assessment with a 4+ specialist teacher which replicates the Highgate approach. The nursery report is particularly important for assessing how ready your child is for Highgate.

We will then give you detailed feedback on your child’s performance. We tell you what exercises you should expect and what they are looking for with each exercise. In short, we will give you the inside track on the day. We tell you how your child did and give you some exercises you can do with each exercise to assist her to give of her best on the day. We will be open and honest with you and tell you if we believe your child is on track for a positive assessment.

We then work with you over four different sessions to help prepare your child. Two of these sessions are with just the child and two are with the parents in the room. We see ourselves as helping coach and support parents to help their child pass the 4+. We use a range of experts for this, including teachers, teaching assistants, registrars and play specialists – all the people involved in the assessment. Play specialist involvement is particularly important for Highgate.

After this we do another mock assessment. This can be either an individual assessment or a group based assessment as appropriate. For Highgate we would strongly recommend the group assessment given the collaborative approach they have in their 4 plus.

Our full Preparation and Assessment Programme is £1500. You can book here.

Mentor Education 4+ Group Assessment Dates

While we do the individual assessment dates on an ad hoc basis around you, we need to create cohorts of children for the group assessment dates. We do these later in the year to give children the time to develop more of these skills. By this stage families have usually been working with us for six to nine months and so their children are well prepared. Given the strong collaboration focus for Highgate these assessments are vital and we typically recommend that all Highgate candidates attend more than one and preferably three. The Mentor Group Mock Assessment dates for 2023 are:

• 22nd June
• 28th September
• 5th October
• 9th November
• 7th December
• 4th January

Contact us for more details about our 4+ Assessments

Firstly, we have a strict rule that we only help ten girls for Highgate 4+ entry. If we helped more then there would be no benefit for those we have helped. So please do not delay in booking. If you would like to find out more please call us on 020 8883 2519 or make a booking below.

Booking Form For 4 Plus Preparation and Assessment

Book here for either our full coaching and mock assessment package (£1,500), or just for our double mock assessment with feedback package (£750). If you are unsure yet but want to reserve a slot with us you can just register (£100) and we will make sure you are in our cohort (once we have 10 girls targeting Highgate we take no more girls for that school). After you have booked, our courses manager, Hannah, will be in touch to arrange from you the pre-work that we need from you and to book in your first Assessment dates.