The Seven-Second Interview: What Schools Really Notice

There's a particular quality to the silence before an eleven-year-old walks into an interview room. Parents describe it as the moment when months of preparation, practice papers, and parental anxiety compress into a single breath. What most don't realize is that the interview itself begins the instant that door opens—and the outcome often crystallizes before a single word is spoken.

Seven seconds. That's all it takes for an interviewer to form an impression that, in nine cases out of ten, will never shift. It's an uncomfortable truth that flies in the face of everything we tell children about substance over style, but Charlotte Broadbent, an award-winning body language expert, has spent years studying what actually happens in those crucial opening moments. The mathematics are stark: fifty-five percent of that first impression comes from appearance, thirty-eight percent from body language, and just seven percent from the words actually spoken. Which means that ninety-three percent of how your child is initially perceived happens before they've finished introducing themselves.

This isn't about teaching children to perform or dissemble. It's about understanding that communication operates on multiple frequencies simultaneously, and that the visual and physical channels broadcast far more powerfully than most parents suspect. The good news is that, unlike academic ability, these skills can be taught, practiced, and mastered—often in less time than it takes to memorize another set of Latin declensions.