The very HARSH realities of the Highgate 4+ assessment (Round 1 update) 2026 entry.

Yes, it’s true that you will need to prepare your child to the highest of standards but even after that, you cannot guarantee that your child will pass their first round at Highgate.

You must still absolutely start working with an expert in the 4+ assessments 12 months before the first round at Highgate but even after that, you cannot guarantee that your child will pass their 4+ assessment at Highgate.

So I read all of these blogs (my own included up to this point) that support parents to understand the 4+ process at Highgate but then I roll my eyes. It really is not enough to simply prepare our children to the highest of standards for the Highgate 4+ assessment. That has been very clear to me this year in particular.

You see, this year for the first time ever, we prepared 10 children for Highgate and results so far have been exceptional. But there have been a few surprises. And it is important that these tutoring companies (including my own), share with you the truth about their results and not just the positive ones but also the negative ones (as I always do by publishing a detailed report of our achievements for each individual school that we prepare our students for). This builds trust for my company. When companies only share their positive results it leaves parents doubting. Obviously not everyone will be successful.

Do you know that Highgate have their own special criteria when choosing the children that they will invite back for Round 2?

Did you know that they automatically offer second round assessments to children of staff and to siblings. At this point, I really do not think this is fair at all and I believe they should remove this from their Admissions Policy. The fair point is that children need to demonstrate their ‘readiness for learning’ at Highgate. This should be applicable to all children and not just the children who do not have siblings there.

Two of our girls did not pass the first round at Highgate who absolutely would have demonstrated ‘readiness for learning’. So why did they not pass?

Because they are not siblings and because they are not children of staff.

There is no other reason.

And these siblings and these children of staff, were they as academically ‘ready to learn’ as our two students who were not offered round 2. I’m here to tell you that of the ones I know of - the answer is a hard no.

I believe that 240 children have been called back for Round 2 (they say 180). So if your child has passed round 1, they will now have a 1:4 chance of passing round 2.

Again siblings and children of staff will have the preference.

Obviously we have prepared children who are not siblings who have passed the first round.

If there are 60 places and there are so many siblings and children of staff attending this year, what will your child need to demonstrate in order to pass?

Everything I always talk about.

But ultimately, I’m sorry to say but based on what I’ve seen so far, it will not be a true and fair assessment of academic capability.

So if you are sending your child to Highgate for 2027 entry, I encourage you to prepare them to the highest of standards (they will undoubtedly be attending other schools too) but have the knowledge and understanding of everything that I have written above so that it doesn’t blind sight you or shock you when your highly academic and gifted child doesn’t make the cut because they have over offered to siblings and children of staff first.

After all it is very clear in their policy.

If you don’t agree with the policy, that’s up to you to decide what you’d like to do.