1. ENTRANCE EXAMS Information Evening
Monday 20th January 2020

2. Background Information
The 11+ in Trafford has been replaced by Grammar Schools having their own Entrance Exams. When your child is looking to go to one of these Grammar Schools, they must apply to the school to take the test with them and also submit a CAF (Common Application Form) to Trafford.
Remember
As a Year 4 parent you will looking out for admissions for 2021.
As a Year 5 parent you will be looking out for admissions for 2020.

3. Options… There are 7 Grammar Schools in Trafford
Altrincham Grammar School for Girls
Altrincham Grammar School for Boys
Loreto Grammar School (Girls)
Sale Grammar School (Mixed)
St. Ambrose College (Boys)
Stretford Grammar School (Mixed)
Urmston Grammar School (Mixed)

4. Look out for Open Evenings.
Is it the Right School?
Look out for Open Evenings.
Altrincham Grammar School for Girls (Thursday 18th June)
Altrincham Boys Grammar (Thursday 25th June)
Parent Information Evenings Tuesday 4th & 5th March - Parents only
Sale Grammar School (TBC – although usually late June)
School Website
Specialisms
Word of Mouth
Siblings who are or have attended

5. When and How do We Apply? The CAF Form – Common Application Form
By 1 September, all parents/carers of Year 6 children will receive their on-line application reference number by post. Applications cannot be made online without this number. Deadline to submit this is the 31 October (When in Y6).
Entrance Exam applications are separate and can be obtained through the individual schools website.

6. SUMMARY Remember the following important points:
Remember the following important points:
If you apply online you do not need to submit a paper application.
Be aware of the oversubscription criteria for your chosen schools.
Submit any supplementary forms to the relevant school.
Include all the schools you wish to apply to, even if you have already sent a supplementary form to that school.
Select schools in the order you really want. You are advised to include your catchment area schools amongst your preferences.
Make sure Trafford receives your application by 31 OCTOBER (Year 6).

7. Entrance Exam Formats
CEM: CEM covers verbal reasoning, non-verbal reasoning and numerical reasoning. In practice, ‘verbal reasoning’ encompasses many of the skills tested in the GL English exam, including comprehension. Likewise, ‘numerical reasoning’ involves the core maths skills needed for the GL exam.
For both verbal and numerical reasoning, the CEM exam aligns much more closely to the content of the KS2 National Curriculum than GL Assessment does.
GL: The GL Education Assessment covers the four 11+ subjects (English, maths, verbal reasoning and non-verbal reasoning) and schools can choose any combination of these to best suit their selection policy.
For more information please visit:

8. School choice for Exam Bodies
CEM (Centre for Evaluation and Monitoring)
(share the same entrance exam)
Sale Grammar
Altrincham Girls Grammar
Stretford
Urmston
GL Assessment (Granada Learning)
Altrincham Boys Grammar (with an internally set creative writing paper)
Loreto
(with internally set Maths paper)
St Ambrose

9. When do we find out? Exam taken: Mid September =
Exam results: Mid October
School Allocation: 1st March

10. Next Steps…
Where do we go from here with our children? Preparation – consolidate the basics! Understanding their current strengths and areas for development will indicate which areas to work on to help your child. Read, Read and Read – Vocab is the key!

11. The Journey…
When do we start preparation? Should we have a tutor? Should we purchase practice papers? How many hours a week?

12. How to prepare for English
Comprehension & Grammar, Writing
Entrance exam tests may include some, or all of these topics:
Comprehension
Spelling
Punctuation
Sentence structure
Grammar
Vocabulary
Literacy

13. How to prepare for Maths
Numerical Reasoning
Numerical reasoning is the ability to reason with information provided in tables, charts and figures.
Most of the skills required are taught in KS2 mathematics. So 11+ Maths & Numerical Reasoning exams contain the same topics taught in the national curriculum for KS2, with a few topics that are usually taught at the start of KS3.
This means there are lots of resources available for students in the individual topic areas in Maths, although practice papers are highly recommended for 11+ preparation.

14. How to prepare for VR Verbal Reasoning
Entrance exam Verbal Reasoning Tests provide an assessment of a child’s ability to understand, reason and solve problems involving written information through deciphering codes*, vocabulary meaning and word recognition/ manipulation.
Some exams have separate papers for verbal reasoning and English, but some publishers such as CEM include skills (such as comprehension, spelling, punctuation & vocabulary) as part of their verbal reasoning exams.
*Codes: using the alphabet to code or decode, such as counting backwards and forwards along the alphabet; matching words to given codes; changing words to codes and vice-versa or looking for relationships between letters.
How to prepare for Maths (Numerical Reasoning)
How to prepare for NVR (Non-Verbal Reasoning)

15. How to prepare for NVR (Non-Verbal Reasoning)
Non Verbal Reasoning Tests provide an assessment of a child’s ability to understand and analyse visual information and solve problems using visual reasoning
The tests tend to contain a few different question types within one exam, requiring skills such as …
Identifying relationships between objects
Spotting similarities and differences between shapes and patterns
Recognizing visual sequences

16. Useful Websites www.bofa11plus.com www.the11pluswebsite.co.uk
Many of these websites provide information for parents, free resources, an area to purchase papers and venues & dates for mock exams.

17. Admissions Information relating to entry in September 2019
Food for thought… information taken from AGSG
Admissions Information relating to entry in September 2019
How many students sat the Entrance Examination in 2018?
1393
How many students achieved the qualifying score in the 2018 Entrance Examination?
373
How many students living in the catchment area were made an offer of a place at AGGS for September 2019?
208
How many students living out of the catchment area were made an offer of a place at AGGS for September 2018? 9
 How many appeals were held for entry in September 2018? 21
How many appeals for entry in September 2018 were successful? 2

18. Admissions Information relating to entry in September 2019
Places are not yet allocated for 2020!
How many students sat the Entrance Examination in 2018?
2623
How many students achieved the qualifying score of 334 or above?
931
How many scores fell within 13 marks of the pass mark ( ) and were reviewed?
400
Number of places available for Year 7 in 2020?
180

19. (Taken from a parent comment on the Newell Tuition Website)
It’s a fine line between encouragement and pressure – try and remember what you were like at 10 and how you would have felt as it is very easy to get caught up in the frenzy that is “my child must get into ...”.

20. The key is communication, and managing expectation!
Whichever path your family choose to take, your child’s future will be bright, with amazing opportunities!