Hello,
Can anyone guide me on how to apply to the SW Herts schools? Everyone is talking about CAF...where is this form? Do we fill it on the Herts county website or do we apply on paper?

Thanking you in advance.

You must complete the Common Application Form (CAF) of your home local authority, even if some or all of your preferences are in other areas. It is usually preferable to apply online. There should be guidance notes on the LA's website alongside the actual form.

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Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.Groucho Marx

You are in Herts so you apply through Herts County Council.

The form is online and you can return to it as many times you wish until Midnight on 31st October.

So you can save it and then change your mind and go back to it and change it as many times as you like.

The form is not just for the SW Herts schools, it is for any state school that you want to apply for including those in other areas. DG

Hi,
do i have to apply SIF to individual school as well and also for Queens school, but unable to find SIF for Queens

Thank you for the information DG.

I have to take opportunity to say that you have been a guide through this 11plus journey and so, a big thank you for all the information and the constructive posts that you have posted on this website. I am delighted to share that my DS has scored 262 in the QE test and 255 in the SW Herts test. Thank you again to you and all the others members for providing guidance to parents like me.

Best regards,
Ni

Great! Thank you for the information.

Congratulations to your ds. Do you know which school you will choose?

Thank you for thanking those who have taken the time to help you.

Very few posters thank those who try and help them. Some are very demanding and seem to think they have some sort of right to be helped so it is always lovely when a member takes the trouble to thank those who have made the effort to help them.

It would be interesting to hear how you have found the journey and what you think were the key ingredients in your ds's success. DG

As of now, we are leaning towards QE being our first choice, followed by Watford Boys. The only challenge is the commute, which is approx. 10 miles for QE (whereas it is < 2 miles to Watford Boys).

To begin with, we kept it as normal as we could, without putting any additional pressure on our DS. He continued with his extra-curricular activities and we went on our holidays and short breaks as usual.

A regular pattern of studies was the key (30 minutes during the week and 60 minutes during the weekend).

The other thing that worked well for us is that, we started early (year 4) and DS showed the right attitude towards learning (he always did). We introduced him to all the topics in Maths, as well as English and VR quite early. By Dec. 2017 he was thorough with the possible topics and then, it was only practice and test papers.

He sat four mocks - one for QE and three for SW Herts and he constantly stood in the top 5 percentile.

The practice books that we used in the last 1.5 years were:

1. Bond and Schofield & Sims for maths topics.
2. First Past The Post- Vocab puzzles, Cloze Tests, Numerical Reasoning.
3. Letts- Cloze.
4. CGP for both VR and Maths (practice books).
5. AE practice papers for both VR and Maths.
6. A lot of vocab words through regular reading (fiction and non-fiction).

Hope this helps the future students and parents.
Good luck.

Thank you so much for this and for mentioning the books you used. I have been a bit confused as to where to start.