11 Plus Exams Forum

SashaO wrote:I`m probably stressing to early but which school are you keeping as an alternative?
I will be trying Sale, AGGS and Loreto.

But if my DD fails I cant even imagine which school to choose Very confused.

Wellington? BTH? A Level results comparing to grammar is much worse.



Thank you x

It is sensible to look at options as you will need to put somewhere on the CAF that you have a reasonable chance of being eligible for and are happy to attend (OK not always easy to identify, that's why it is good to think about it)

A level results at non selective schools will rarely be as good as selective schools because of the selection that takes place earlier at year 6/7. But remember there is a lot of movement after GCSEs - many kids go onto 6th forms at colleges, some go to the Grammar School 6th form etc etc . Quite a lot of kids, one way or another , will not do A levels at the school they started at in year 7.

Worth visiting to see what you think of places and try not to use A levels as a measure

also look at the value added stats the DoE do produce these for state schools , Indies a little more cloak and dagger though

obviously you seem to be in-catchment , but look at the surrounding schools like Knutsford High( exceptional value added) , Lymm, Bridgewater High in Stockton Heath for example.Out of catchment applicants are accepted at Trafford Grammars so it is only right we should be able to access their excellent Comps , I think this reciprocal relationship can work well.

I do feel for you ,since we do not have any proper all inclusive Comps in Trafford, life would be so much easier if we did

I agree with other posts, don't let the A level results sway you as most of the higher achieving high school children will move to the Grammars /other colleges for 6th form so the results are never going to be near the selective schools.

For info Wellington stream children from the start, initially into 5 streams and later into 8 or 9 streams and have a 'set 0' for the brightest ( pupils are reviewed each year and moved to the most appropriate set), so children are generally not allowed to drift/slip, they also provide a lot of support/extra revision in the lead up to Gcse ( more than Loreto did for dd) If your dc is borderline fail for grammars I would say Wellington is a great choice as they will be placed in the higher sets and pushed to achieve, it is a fairly strict school, but so is Loreto ( in different ways!). I can't say how well Wellington's streaming system does for those in the lower sets, hopefully it works as they will have the right support/pace?
BTH also seems to be doing well academically and does have the catholic caring ethos going on with a more of a diverse social mix of children, whereas Wellington has a very tight catchment of not much past 1 mile out I think.

(We are looking to other 6th forms for our ds ( hopefully))

Go and look at the high school options to get a feel for them, this helped me enormously

Thank you All,

Very complicating Also found out yesterday that AGGS and Sale Grammar have the same exams so my DD will have to sit one for both.
As I know last year Alty and Sale were different exams.

Well will keep working and practicing.

Good luck to everyone xx