School interviews are not about perfect answers

For many parents, the school interview is something that feels hardest to prepare for.

You can support your child to practise exam papers, memorise complex vocabulary, work on comprehension, creative writing and reasoning.

But an interview?

That’s a different sort of pressure. A pressure that even we, as adults, struggle with.

Suddenly, your child has to walk into a room, meet an adult, or adults, they don’t know and talk about themselves, their interests, their opinions and why they want to join a particular school - something they have almost certainly never experienced before.

What if they freeze? What if they say “I don’t know”? What if they mumble, ramble or accidentally make themselves sound like they’ve never had a thought in their life, and all that hard work goes to waste?

The good news is that school interviews are not about perfect answers.

They’re about showing the person behind the exam result.

What is a school interview really for?

A school interview is not a test designed to trip up your child, or to weed out the unworthy.

Of course, some questions may be chosen to assess your child’s knowledge (or more literally, how well they communicate their knowledge). A child might be asked about a book they’ve read, a current event that interests them or a subject they enjoy.

But most interviewers are trying to find out something more straightforward.

Who is this child? Are they curious? Can they hold a conversation? Do they listen? Can they explain their thinking? Are they the right fit for this school, and is this school the right fit for them?

This means that if your child can hold down and contribute to a conversation with the interviewer, they’re going to go far.

It’s a cliché, but it really is about the journey, not the destination

We all often think interviews are about getting the “right” answer.

We’re used to tests that are all about an objection right or wrong.

What’s 7 x 8?

What’s the opposite of enormous?

What is the fronted adverbial in the sentence below?

Interview questions are very different.

“Tell me about yourself.”

“Why do you want to come to this school?”

“Who inspires you?”

“What current event have you found interesting recently?”

“If you could spend a day as an animal, which would you choose?”

These are all open questions. This means there are endless possibilities for answers, and the interviewer is more interested in the reasoning behind the answer than the answer itself.

A child who says, “I’d be a dolphin because I like dolphins” has, technically, answered the question.

A child who says, “I’d be a dolphin because they seem playful, intelligent and social, and I’d love to experience what it feels like to move through water. I also love the book Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and in that it suggests dolphins are beings of much higher intelligence than us.” has given the interviewer much more to work with.

Teach them to answer the hidden “why?”

One of the simplest things you can do at home is help your child hear the hidden question underneath almost every interview question, or more importantly treat every closed question like an open one.

What’s your favourite subject (and why)?

Are you excited about joining a new school (and why)?

What book have you enjoyed recently (and why)?

Do you like working in a team (and why)?

Children often give short answers because they think the question is closed.

“Are you excited about coming to this school?”

“Yes.”

Technically correct but painfully unhelpful.

They need to learn to treat almost every question as an invitation to say a little more.

The is only one wrong answer

There is one answer that causes problems in interviews.

“I don’t know.”

Not because this may technically be true - your child may actually not know an answer to a direct, closed question.

But answering, '“I don’t know…” in an interview actually means, “I’m not going to try and answer…” to an interviewer.

If your child answers in a way that gives off a sense of indifference, or lack of effort, then the interview may essentially finish there and then.

There are ways to deal with moments of uncertainty.

Asking for a moment to think about an answer is perfectly fine.

“Oh, I’ve never thought about that before…” gives you a second or two to think on your feet.

This shows your child hasn’t panicked. It shows they can stay with a difficult question and try to work through it.

In an interview, the ability to answer difficult questions usually depends on three things.

Having the knowledge to answer.

Being able to communicate that knowledge.

And when they don’t have the knowledge, being able to show how they would think their way towards an answer.

Don’t make them sound scripted

There’s a trap here.

Because parents want to help, children can end up over-rehearsed.

They have a perfect answer for “Tell me about yourself”.

A perfect answer for “Why this school?”

A perfect answer for “What are your strengths?”

And then, if the question comes out slightly differently, everything falls apart.

Or worse, they sound like they’re reading from an invisible script.

Interview preparation should make a child come across as authentically themselves.

It should help them become more comfortable expressing who they are.

The best answers feel prepared but not memorised.

Thought through but not robotic.

Personal but not rambling.

That balance takes practice.

The interview starts earlier than they think

Children sometimes imagine the interview begins when they sit down in the chair, but it actually starts the moment they arrive on the school grounds.

From that moment onwards, they are being assessed.

How do they speak to the person who greets them?

How do they behave on the walk from the car or down the school driveway?

How do they treat other children, or their parents?

How do they behave in the waiting area?

Selective schools and independent schools are not just looking at academic ability. They’re often trying to understand how a child behaves as part of a community.

Preparing for the person, not just the place

Of course, children should know something about the school for which they are being assessed.

They should have thought about why they want to go there, and they should know which subjects, clubs, values or opportunities genuinely interest them.

A final thought

At LinkyThinks, we’ve spent years helping children build the thinking, writing and communication skills they need for entrance exams, interviews and beyond.

We’re proud to have been named Online Tutoring Provider of the Year 2026 - UK at the Private Education Awards and Highly Commended as Online School of the Year 2026 at the National Tutoring Awards.

Awards are lovely, obviously, but the bit that matters most is seeing children grow into the kind of pupils who can walk into an interview, think under pressure and communicate the best version of themselves.

That’s exactly the kind of work we’ll be doing in our Summer 2026 Interview Prep Masterclass.

If your child has 11+, selective school or independent school interviews coming up, it’s a brilliant chance to help them practise answering difficult questions, thinking aloud and presenting themselves with confidence.