Watford Girls Grammar School

Eleven Plus (11+) in South West Hertfordshire

Moderators: Section Moderators, Forum Moderators

11 Plus Mocks - Practise the real exam experience - Book Now
Suess

Watford Girls Grammar School

Post by Suess »

Hello Everyone,
I'm new to this site. Your help on the following is much appreciated

1. Watford girls grammar sch ENTRANCE - Criteria
2. What are the Papers they'll be tested on?
3. What is the duration of each paper & Marks Alloted?
4. How many days the exams will be & how many times(like screening, shortlisting etc.,)?
5. Any tutors, tutorials in the watford area?

Any other relevant information would provide really helpful. My kid is 9yrs now and next yr she needs to take the exam. Is it too late to start prep now? Please help with your sugg/advice/info.

Many thanks in advance
Sue
HP
Posts: 438
Joined: Wed Mar 08, 2006 2:06 pm

Post by HP »

Hi Sue,

Are you aware that Watford Girls is part of a Selective Consortium of 6 schools:

Watford Grammar Boys
Watford Grammar Girls
Parmiters
Rickmansworth
Queens
Bushey Mill

These schools have a policy of selection which varies (up to 35%) of their intake based upon academic abilitity. The tests comprise Maths and Verbal reasoning.

Some of the schools also select 10% on musical ability.

Have a look on the internet at the schools web site which will tell you this year's criteria.

Sorry, rushing a bit this afternoon so I have lifted this from an earlier post which may answer some of your questions:

The schools are pretty tough to get into, both of the Watford Grammars are both oversubscribed. Whilst there are 180 places available at each of the schools, siblings and distance account for more places than selection. Distance usually means within 1/2 mile.

Re selection, there are only circa 81 places for each school (35%) offered on academic ability and (10%) offered on musical ability. Remaining placed are allocated to sibilings/community.

Parmiters, (which is part of the same consortium that administers admissions tests) is even more heavily oversubscribed, over 1200 applications. and they also take from a wider catchment area.

As there is no pass mark unlike in counties which offer a Grammar system (eg Bucks), pupils are awarded places in ascending order of their scores. The reality is that statistically all three schools are taking the top 5-7% or so of pupils who sit the tests. Yes there are some great school in SW Herts but locally these schools are considered virtually impossible to get into unless you are really bright or have a sibling who is bright and previously gained admittance under one of the selection criteria. Alternatively you need to live within spitting distance of the school gates.



Will post again later re exams duration/questions tutors etc

HP
HP
Posts: 438
Joined: Wed Mar 08, 2006 2:06 pm

Post by HP »

Hi again,

Exams for Watford Girls and other schools in consortium:

Verbal Reasoning - 2005 sitting was 100 questions in 45 minutes, (2004, I believe, was 80 questions in 50 minutes)
Maths - 2005 sitting 50 questions in 50 minutes

One sitting for both papers - usually the last Saturday in November. 1 additional sitting offered in the event of being unable to sit due to illness, but must be supported by a Doctor's note.

As I have said before there isn't a pass mark and places are awarded strictly in ascending order of scores. You say that your daughter is 9, and due to sit the exams next year, presume that she is currently in Yr 4. You certainly have plenty of time. Even if your daughter is in Year 5 it certainly isn't too late. If Yr 4 I would recommend that you visit prospective schools when they do the next round of open days ie when your daughter will be in Year 5. If/when you do go to the open evening, the HeadTeacher at Girls Grammar will claim that no prep is needed to be able to sit the exam :shock: :shock:

You will automatically receive a "Moving On" prospectus at the end of Year 5/ beginning of Year 6. Hovever, if you are Yr 4 and want a copy this year log onto the Herts CC website and you will be able to download a copy in Sept, if not before. Site details www.hertsdirect.org look for school admissions and starting school . With regard to tutoring, I tutored my daughter myself, (have put various posts on this and what we did), but basically I couldn't find a tutor and also with 2 younger ones to think about and a host of after school activities, it was easier to fit in around our schedule rather than fit in with a tutor's schedule.

If you need any pointers about what we did, happy to post more. BTW my daughter did achieve a place at her 1st ranked school which was Parmiters.

Hope this helps

HP
Footymad
Posts: 149
Joined: Sun Feb 19, 2006 1:17 pm
Location: nr yorks

Post by Footymad »

Hi HP,
How are you? Have you and your daughter been out to buy any new uniform yet for Grammar?

Has she come down from the clouds yet? My daughter is still floating! lol

We decided to leave it a few weeks until we start getting any new uniform.

Here in East Lancs we get 9 weeks holiday this summer to put our holidays in line with the rest of Lancashire.

And you know how much growing an 11 yr old girl can do in 9 weeks lol.

Also saving up for the school bus!

As we're out of area the school bus costs £400 a year(well that was the price last year! hope it hasn't gone up!)

The list of clothes on my daughter's list is far greater than the list my son got for the comp the other year! We have to buy black dance shoes for drama, and a navy science overall, which doubles up as an art overall too..........................the list is endless.

But it will all be worth it I keep telling myself!
She was obviously meant to go to the Grammar after passing with only a few weeks practice.

Anyway just a quick post to let you know how we're getting on.

Footymad :lol: :lol:
patricia
Posts: 2803
Joined: Mon Jan 30, 2006 5:07 pm

Post by patricia »

Dear Sue

The decision to either employ a tutor or tutor your child yourself is a purely personal decision.

Should you wish to tutor yourself there are many parents who frequent this site who will be able to point you in the right direction for Watford Grammar. You need to do your homework, contacting the body that supervises the 11 plus, speaking to other parents and even tutors.

Should you wish to employ a tutor, again you need to do your homework first, there are tutors [not all]who teach the wrong types of questions, or even just babysit while the child completes tests, ask lots of questions.

The following link has a course directed at Watford grammar school.

http://www.elevenplusexams.co.uk/courses.php" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Good luck

Patricia
HP
Posts: 438
Joined: Wed Mar 08, 2006 2:06 pm

Post by HP »

Hi Footymad,

Great to hear from you :D What perfect timing for your daughter to have 9 weeks holiday.

Haven't bought any school uniform yet either. Have several induction days coming up where the official outfitters will be available....and yes the list is endless, particularly for the girls. Even their hairbands have to match the school uniform colours :shock:

We drive past the school quite regularly, and all three children still getting a huge buzz out of our eldest's success at getting a place there. She is still so very excited and having a ball at primary now the SATS are over, the end of term play is looming (she has quite a big part - sorry hope this doesn't sound like bragging) and I think we will all be word perfect on her lines by the last week of term :lol:

Really looking forward to the summers hols this year, after last year's efforts, even if we only have a measly 6 weeks :lol:

Stay in touch

HP
Footymad
Posts: 149
Joined: Sun Feb 19, 2006 1:17 pm
Location: nr yorks

Post by Footymad »

Hi HP,
Course I'll keep in touch! It will be fun to see how our kids are getting on, and enjoying Grammar School !!!

We'll have to start a new thread lol!

All the best!

Footymad. :lol:
Suess

More infor on watford grammar entrance

Post by Suess »

Hello HP & Everyone,
Thanks for your detailed reply. Your reply gives me the confidence to commence this exercise. Further help on the following would be really helpful

1. Can I get past 5yrs entrance exam question papers for watford grammar school ?

Even if you have only specific year's paper model that's fine.

2. Worried if my method of training is appropriate

For example, to start with the exercise, I tried to teach my daughter division on decimals and found it extremely difficult . Also as the entrance papers are timed, i don't know if my method is the best.
Also on some reasoning questions, i myself find it difficult and the questions appears to have ambiguity.


In short , I'm getting a feeling that i'm not a professional in tutoring for such exams.

Your advice/suggestions much appreciated.
Suess

Watford Girls Grammar

Post by Suess »

Hello HP,
I'll be all the more happy in receiving pointers on what you did and how you trained for the grammar entrance

thanks in advance
Sue
HP
Posts: 438
Joined: Wed Mar 08, 2006 2:06 pm

Post by HP »

Hi Sue,

This from an earlier post
HP wrote:

Notice that you are still worried about how much to do, so I thought it might help if I put down our experience. We had started with VR Bond Level 3 about 6/7 months before her exam, just a paper each week. This familiarised her with VR without being too difficult and boosted her confidence. We usually marked her papers together and talked through any problem areas. My daughter was also working through technique books, one/two techniques each week, roughtly 20 minutes each time.

In addition, we did a Bond maths paper each week. (Eventually we covered books 3 and 4) Although I felt that we had started early enough, we discovered by about June that our bright daughter simply hadn't covered enough curriuclum work to stand any chance of passing her Maths exam (we had a separate maths paper as well as VR). We literally had to tackle about half of the KS2 curriculum for maths over the summer holidays :!:

We found that striking a balance between maths and VR is not as hard as you might think, thought it might help to know what we did over a period of just 3 weeks of the summer hols before her November paper to bring her up to srcatch.

We prepared a timetable from the outset, (helps to tick off what you have done), Over three weeks we did about 2-3 hours each morning broken up into 50 minute chunks, including breaks we would finish by about 1 pm latest. This left quite a big enough chunk at the end of the day for "chilling out", important as 1:1 is quite intensive. We planned fun days out for every third day to break the monotony, we didn't study for more than 2 consecutive days but didn't put a break from studying of more than a day. My daughter tells me now that this worked for her as 2 days off together would have made it harder to settle back down to work.

We alternated our days between learning curriculum Maths and VR, we used VR papers (Bond/ IPS/ AFN), and we didn't always time these, but wanted to test/build her knowledge. Speed seemed to increase naturally with familairity and increase in vocabluarly knowledge anyway.

Maths was harder, the Bond papers (again not timed) were great at identifying the missing bits. We then worked on areas that were new for a few sessions. I did lots of "Mum's Revision" sessions, just making up 10/20 questions on areas that were new eg Ratio/Proportion. My daughter loved "Mum's Revision" especially when her answer was correct and mine wasn't :lol: New areas were always tackled first thing, as were any Bond papers that we did. If this sounds intensive, or you think I was too pushy :) then to put it into context long multiplication and long division hadn't even been covered in school at this point :shock:

We didn't look at a single book for the first 3 weeks of our summer break so that our daughter could put space between school and starting 11+ prep. She was certainly much fresher and eager to work after this. As, it seems, you have much more time than we had, you could go at a much gentler pace. Don't know how much maths you need for your VR papers but just wanted to let you know that if you do feel that you have maths to do as well as VR, than you will know that it can be done. It worked for my daughter. :D.


HP
Past papers are not available unfortunately, My daughter said that the IPS Maths had been the closest to the real thing, we only used these once we had covered the curriculum.

We used a KS2 revision guide to help support our Maths learning, Schofield & Sims ISBN: 0 7217 0953 2

Had to do a lot of revision first myself, hadn't done primary maths for over 30 yrs :shock: :oops: giving away my age now
As a guide, you will need to be looking for scores of about 90 -95 % to stand a chance at the Grammar.

Standard going in to WGG is Level 5A at the end of Year6 for those passing the exams so being a level 5 isn't quite enough. On the bright side, my daughter's scores for Maths by the end of Yr 5 was 4A. At the start of Year 6 this had increased to 5C owing to the revision we did over the summer. It is a steep learning curve (for us parents), but certainly not impossible.

Any more questions feel free to ask. Still not sure how long you have, are you sitting next calendar year (Nov 2007) or next academic Year (Nov 2006)?

HP
Post Reply