Hi there,
I’m new around here! My DS is a year 5 and we are hoping he will sit the test this coming September. We have concerns however that whilst his English is really v strong, he struggles with maths. We’ve been suppprting him with additional home tuition but my concern is that his maths may let him down in the test. In home tuition with me, (we dont have a tutor) so far he finds the English very easy but consistently struggles with the numerical side. Just the way he is wired I think.

However I have heard on the rumour mill that the Gloucestershire test is unevenly weighted. I’d always assumed the verb reasoning/English/non verbal/maths would be evenly apportioned in terms of marks.

Does anyone know if this is actually the case, of whether this varies between schools?

Kind regards

Hi,
I understand that the test is weighted 50% English/VR, 25% maths & 25 NVR. My DS got in to Marling last year mostly on the strength of his English (I suspect). Having said that, the process is not at all transparent, & in reality schools can weight the results as they wish - we're all just going on past info & experience & guesswork.
It's also worth saying that although most of the Glos schools use the overall score only (supposedly), Pates does its own thing and has a separate pass mark for each of the three main areas of the test. To pass with them, candidates have to meet each of these 3 pass marks, then also be in the top 225-230 of overall scores.
Hope this helps.