11 Plus Exams Forum

Do they have an entrance test? Are they selecting on "general ability" or "academic ability"? That's basically the definition of "partially selective".

Another possibility is that they're one of the schools that admits up to 10% on a particular "aptitude" (but that's usually music/sport/language etc so not all that likely to fit your description). Or perhaps they admit on "fair banding" or some such, where they test for ability and admit a cross section from each ability band?

Or is it just the top stream?

Mike

As far as I can gather, you apply, get in on the basis of distance and from that intake they see if you are of 'selective ability' . I've just learned it's not called a 'grammar stream', rather an 'express stream'. I had thought maybe there was a general way of doing things, but I guess I should've realised that was a naive assumption!

The partially selective comprehensive near us selects based on the Wandsworth Test results. 25% of places (63) are available to the top scorers on the test (which is taken by all in the borough plus those who apply for the school. The remaining 75% (181) are based on catchment (0.3miles at present, approx). To get one of the selective places you need a pass mark of about 98% (last year's results). The test is set byu NFER and is just NR/NVR.

The children are put into the selective stream based on their test score and are streamed for all lessons. There is movement up and down the streams but the selective streams do slightly more academic lessons than the lower streams eg less D&T.

Thanks Scoopy. 98% is one **** of a pass rate!

Thanks to everyone for replying. I think I understand the subtle differences now.