CEM (Durham University)
GL Assessment
It focuses on the four main areas below. It might include all or a combination of the four, varying between different regions of the country.
The exam period is usually towards the end of Year 5 or beginning of Year 6 of primary school. Each county has slightly different patterns, criteria and dates for the exam. We encourage parents to contact their local council for specific information.
If your child goes to a local authority primary school, they’ll take the 11+ in one of their classrooms. If they go to another type of school, they’ll be asked to take it at a central location like a local grammar school.
The 11+ is used in the following counties which have state-funded grammar schools: Berkshire, Bexley, Birmingham, Buckinghamshire, Cumbria, Devon, Dorset, Essex, Gloucestershire, Hertfordshire, Kent, Lancashire, Lincolnshire, Medway, Shropshire, Trafford, Walsall, Warwickshire, Wiltshire, Wirral, Wolverhampton and Yorkshire.
No, it is not a compulsory exam and it is entirely up to the parents to decide if you want your child to sit for the exam.
For many students, the 11+ exam is the first competitive exam they undertake and the process can be stressful and daunting.
By heritage, Grammar Schools were designed to be focused on academic studies, with the assumption that many of their pupils would go on to higher education. Students from grammar schools are nearly twice as likely to get into top universities and three times as likely to get into Oxbridge (Mansfield, I. (2019), The Impact of Selective Secondary Education on Progression to Higher Education, hepi Occasional Paper 19, p.28). It is thus important to consider:
Even if the school results until now have not been a positive indicator but the child has shown keenness in sitting for the exam, then coaching and a level of disciplined preparation can also help them achieve their goal.
To find out exactly what the 11+ exam is like in your area, it is worth directly contacting the schools you are hoping to gain entry to. Most school will host an open day for prospective students. It is a good idea to go to these to aid you in your decision. Looking at the prospectus, talking to students and teachers and looking at past achievements of the school will help you to decide whether the school is suitable for your child.
Most of us understand scoring systems
like those used in our schools, ‘7 out of 10’ or percentage scores, e.g.
70%. Such scores, known as raw scores, are easily understandable and
helpful in indicating ‘how many you got right’. However, these scores
are less useful in enabling teachers to compare pupils’ performance
meaningfully between one test and another and monitor progress over
time. This is because raw scores do not account for factors such as:
To understand how the process of score
standardisation actually happens, one needs to understand the basics of
distribution, normal distribution and transformation of any distribution
into normal.
Step 1: Standardised Scores
The
test results are broken down into three elements (Verbal, Maths and
Non-Verbal) and the raw scores from each element are separately
standardised using the formula: S = n (x - y)/ SD + 100
In this process, the distribution of actual results (which has a mean of y and standard deviation of SD) is transformed to a distribution with mean 100 and a standard deviation of n.
x: the achieved raw score
y: the mean score of all students who have taken the test
SD: the standard deviation of the sample
Step 2: Weighted Standardised Scores
The three Standardised Scores elements (Verbal, Maths and Non-Verbal) calculated above are individually weighted as follows:
The weighted Verbal score is 50% of Verbal Standardised Score
The weighted Maths score is 25% of Maths Standardised Score
The weighted Non-Verbal score is 25% of Non-Verbal Standardised Score
Step 3: Standardised Secondary Transfer Test Score (STTS)
The three weighted scores are added to give the standardised Secondary
Transfer Test Score (STTS), the score is always rounded down to a whole
number.