Queen Mary's for boys

[Tracy Grice]

Hi everyone

I want my son to sit the entrance exam for Queen Mary's grammar but have no idea how many sit the test. He's only in yr 4 so we have time to prepare but I've no idea how much competition there is. Can anyone advise?

Thanks

[highschool]

Last year there were approx 1,000 boys chasing 96 places !!

[Tracy Grice]

Thanks for that! It sounds like a pretty impossible task then. Do you know what sort of tests they were?

[Sassie'sDad]

Tracy just draw breath. Your son has just as much of a chance as as any other candidate. He is too young yet to be given any direction. My best advice is to make him your best friend. Enrich his daliy homelife by reading to him, being with him. Make his homelife fulfilling. Use the contributers on this site for help. We dont F and blind, we don't police your ethics or morals. We only want our children to have the best start in life. Our children are our future: there is no other. Little and often. Ars longer vita brevis est!
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[mike1880]

And besides, that 1,000 for 96 places is misleading.

Many of the people that apply will have put other schools as higher preferences (KE Aston, Bishop Vesey, etc.). That's backed up by the huge rate of over offering that QM seems to have done this year. The "queen marys grammar thread" here http://www.elevenplusexams.co.uk/forum/ ... hp?t=14012 gives some numbers - more than 200 offers for 96 places!

So basically you need to be in about the top 200 of those taking the exam (and the numbers, by the way are more consistent with about 800 taking the exam than 1000 but statistics isn't an exact science so that's just a guess).

[edit] Type of test: the QM test is now a University of Durham CEM test, this type of test is supposed to be pretty reliable at selecting naturally clever children rather than "merely" above average children who've been heavily tutored. CEM don't publish practice papers so all that's known is what can be prised out of stressed 10-11 year olds who've just come out of an exam, but you can find a certain amount of info on the Birmingham and Warwickshire fora. Basically English, Maths, Non-Verbal Reasoning, big emphasis on speed (lots of questions and not much time).

Mike

[Tracy Grice]

Thanks everyone for the advice.

[Dawn]

Hi Tracy,

As you are in Wolverhampton have you considered Adams' Grammar in Newport? There are lots of boys there from Wolverhampton. You will find some more info on the Wolverhampton and Wrekin thread.

[um]

According to the letter I received with my son's result this year:

There are 96 places available.

822 boys sat the exam.

Places at the school have been offered to all applicants ranked in the top 217 of those who sat the exam.

So clearly there were 121 boys of the top 217 who went to a higher preference choice school - my son was one of them.

So the chances this year were approx. 1 in 4.

[lindah162]

um,
What would have happened if those 121 had taken up the places?Sorry am i being a bit thick here. Or do you mean that they have also offered to those who put it as 2nd choice? I find this over offering confusing!

[mike1880]

My fault, the way I phrased things was misleading. What it means is that so many people had other schools as higher preferences, and had received offers from those, that QM had to go down to number 217 on their ranking to make the number of offers they wanted (probably a few more than 96 to allow for people going to independent schools and for people who were not offered higher preferences getting places from the waiting list in the next few weeks).

So no, those 121 didn't actually get offers from QM - they got offers from other schools that they put as higher preference.

Mike