11+ test for independent schools. What is the “pass mark”?

[BorisBadunov]

DD is starting year 6 and will be sitting the 11+ in January for admission into private schools in year 7.

We have been working with past papers in English and maths, and are just starting tutoring on exam technique.

When doing past papers, she is doing mostly well, but in most papers, there are one or two questions that trip her up. I’ve looked at them myself, and some are seriously hard - e.g. proper maths challenges that have nothing to do with the curriculum, but more with genuine math talent/ gift. DD is a solid maths performer but not a wiz kid.

Is it the case that schools are only looking for perfect scores in their admission exams? if not, what is the “pass mark” to be offered a place in selective schools? I am aware that some schools also use performance to assess for scholarships, but frankly I’m not that bothered about that - if we can get her a school place that’s all that matters!

Many thanks.

I’ve never heard of any that demand 100%. If anything they are meant to be hard enough so they can distinguish between Sheldon Cooper and averagely bright. But neither do any I’ve heard of release their pass mark for the 11+ exam.

You might do better trying to look or ask on the 11+ forums about the particular schools you’re looking at to get an idea. But even then take things with a pinch of salt, nobody is really going to know that their child had a bad day, barely scraped through and got a chance at interview where they shone. Nor will anyone know, or perhaps admit, that their child had a lucky fluke on the exam, or was coached to fuck, behaved badly on the day and had their fluke/ hot housing picked up at interview and subsequently weren’t offered a place.

This is hard to answer and will vary school to school
If we are talking about independent school, they can be very different from grammar schools
Local v selective girls independent school (premier league) doesn't set a pass mark. It reviews papers twice, discusses them and makes decisions from that. Girls have got in on less than half the paper completed there I know for a fact. This is because some just breakdown halfway through the exam (stress) and a friends daughter only completed half a paper due to a migraine. They look for 'potential' in what has been written
It may be best to post asking about specific school or area?

It's usually a simple matter of how many places they have to fill, and how many applications they have from parents who are willing and able to pay full fees. So if, for example, they want to recruit 100 full fee paying children, they will offer places to the top 100 scorers in the test. (After the children who are being given bursaries and scholarships etc). If some of these children turn down the place in favour of another school, they will then offer the place to the next highest scoring child on the list.

Thanks all. I understand that this is a bit of a ‘how long is a piece of string’ question, and answers will vary from school to school. I also understand that many other factors (interview, prep school reference etc) also need to be considered.

I guess what I’m looking for is some reassurance (for DD, who is a perfectionist and struggles to forgive herself any mistake - we are working on that 🙂) that it’s okay to score, say, 85%, and doesn’t take her out of the running, all things being equal.

I know that DS2 scored something like 90% in Maths and 45% in
English in his entrance test and got a place. Generally speaking, you don't know their actual results though. DD would not have been a "100% performer on her exam either and she got a place (different school).

DSs school used the exam to whittle the numbers down and then places were offered after interview. Not all top performers got offered a place.

Which schools are you applying to? I know one of those we applied to had a maths paper that was designed to be unfinishable, to avoid having a ceiling on the test. Others were just the standard getting harder as it goes on type.

If so depends on the school. I know our Indie have sections A, B and C on the English and Maths papers. A&B are designed to be doable and achievable and section C is mainly there to highlight the potential scholars.

85% is excellent.

Tests differ between schools. Passmarks and results are rarely shared. It is therefore tricky for parents who don"t know the schools to assess how easy or difficult it is to get an offer.

The important thing is to apply to several schools with a range of degree of selectivity. A rough gauge of the entry standard needed is their GCSE results; very high = very selective. So if you apply to a school with say 45% 7-9 then expect it to be much more likely to give an offer than a school with 90%. Don't apply to 5 schools all getting 90%! London can be tougher than other areas.

Schools give out more offers than they have places because many offers will be turned down - each child can only go to one school, but will often receive several offers. Some schools might e.g. 400 applicants for 100 places, which sounds tough (4x or 25%) - but in reality, and especially for typical "back-up" schools, they might give out not just 150 but perhaps 200 or 250 offers! Quite a bit less daunting. And some will also go to waiting lists.

Some schools will actually take almost anyone who can pay - "private" does not always mean "popular' or "academic". And a school can still appear selective - because everybody takes a test - but have average or below average average ability level.

Naming the schools on MN can help you learn a lot. Good luck!

Tests that may be used to offer scholarships will be set to differentiate the top end of applicants - so they would be aiming to have at least some questions that they would expect few children to be able to answer. The same need to distinguish amongst the top end is likely to apply with more selective schools. You may be able to use this argument to help your daughter understand that finding an entrance test particularly hard may be a good sign if it enables her "best" to stand out amongst others. Exam technique sounds sensible, but I'd want to work on her understanding that what is wanted is for her to "do her best" but not "be perfect at all costs". Good luck getting her into the school that will be right for her!

[my eldest has just done GCSEs and was aware that finding a paper difficult was likely to be a good sign if it meant that the higher grade boundaries became more spread out! Her good results are consistent with this.]

Thank you all for the great advice, I really appreciate it and will incorporate it into our prep work and mental wellbeing preparation. I was also very interested in the stats on over-offering, it’s really helpful to get that perspective.

@Which6thform, we are looking at a range of schools, in terms of selectivity, including Surbiton, WHS, PHS, LEH and SPGS. We’re not in the UK at the moment (expats) but I’m going to fly back and visit all the schools in October to find out which one(s) are likely to be a good fit for DD.

So far her only preference is for Surbiton, because they have daily jacket potatoes 😁 and they have a comedy club ECA. The most convenient for us are PHS and WHS. SPGS is an aspirational target. LEH is a bit of an unknown quantity to me.

DD is at an international school that follows the British curriculum and they have very strong GCSE and A level results - not as high as SPGS, but certainly competing with the rest of the bunch - so I’m hopeful she’s broadly at the level these schools are looking for. But we left it very late to start preparing for the January exams, and it’s a bit stressful for both of us!

Any other advice welcome...
💐

Boris With those schools, it’s worth taking a look at this (monster) thread, and the follow on one:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/secondary/3347389-As-the-Tiffin-deadline-looms-is-there-a-girls-SW-London-grammars-indies-thread-yet

Lots of info on the 18/19 process for those schools on there!

WHS, PHS & LEH are all of pretty much equal difficulty to get into. Surbiton easier due to numbers.
I would also try and get another around the Surbiton level - it is not a dead cert any more. Maybe co-ed KGS especially if her maths is stronger than her English that may give you another good option.

But no you definitely don't need to be scoring 100%. They're looking for a good grounding and potential, not perfection.

Thanks @FlumePlume, I’d read that thread already, it’s very informative.

And thanks @montenuit. I don’t think KGS is right for us, and I don’t want to overload DD with too many exams, so we’ll probably stick to the 5 we have. Her English is actually quite strong.

She’s a well rounded girl (also does music and plays rugby) - naturally I think any school would be lucky to have her 😊.

I think you might need a banker in there - Surbiton may be it, but if you look at the results of the other schools they are all around 70% 8-9 scores (Apart from PHS which is 62%)

Surbiton doesn't publish the 8-9 scores but says they are 70% 7-9

I wouldn't bother with KGS, they are nearly 70% 8-9s so not a lot of difference there and you don't seem to be going for co-ed anyway.

How about Notre Dame or St Catherine's? To me your dd sounds like she will get into one of the ones you have mentioned, but it's always sensible to have a backup.

We only did three (plus Tiffin) as I didn’t want to overload dd. But I’d suggest at least looking at Sutton High - more of a banker, very different to Surbiton so you could compare and contrast, plus its only one day (so easier than a long drawn out process) and it offers early so it would allow you some certainty over Christmas.

School places will be limited, so there can't be a "pass mark" as there wouldn't be enough places if more people than usual "passed" it.

In reality, if they have, say 50 places, they'll select the best 50 applicants. That may be the top 50 scorers, or they may also have other criteria to consider.

Some schools place more weight on each aspect of the tests, i.e. my son's school will accept someone with a relatively low score on the English paper if they've very high scores on Maths and Verbal Reasoning, but not vice versa - a relatively low score in Maths or Verbal Reasoning means they don't get a place however high their English score was. (No idea why, but that's how they do it - as a result, their English GCSE and A level results are noticeably lower than Maths and Science - i.e. 50% getting A/B in English as opposed to 75% getting A/B in Maths/Sciences).

It's inevitable that the "pass mark" will change from year to year as each year's cohort won't be identical.

Generally speaking, we've just had a couple of low birth rate years, so fewer entrants will have taken the exams, meaning the "pass marks" were probably lower as the school still has to fill it's places. When we are back in high birth rate years, the competition for places will be more, so pass marks will be higher.