Henrietta Barnett School

[Shope23]

Hello everyone,

We've recently moved and are considering having our daughter attend Henrietta Barnett School, given that we're now within the catchment area. I understand that in the initial round, children are evaluated on English, Verbal, and NVR. I'm struggling to find any detailed information online about the English section in the second round of testing. I would greatly appreciate it if anyone here could provide some insight or advice on this matter.

Thanks a lot in advance!

There are lots of practice test papers here if you haven't already seen them.

The Henrietta Barnett School » 11 Plus (11+) Exam 2023 « Year 7 Entry (exampapersplus.co.uk)

From what I remember (and I am going back years and years) the English paper was the standard Comprehension and Essay. Of course it may have changed now.

Thank you!

I may have misunderstood but I thought it was the case that if you live within the catchment area then you don't have to pass the round 2 test - qualifying to sit round 2 by scoring high enough in round 1 is enough for a place if you live less than 3 miles from the school, and the round 2 test is the tie-breaker for the (thousands of) applicants who live further away.

@JaukiVexnoydi, I think the top 300 in round 1 take the round 2 test, the scores are then assessed by the admissions criteria with point 3 being within 3 miles, they have 104 places in total for the 300 candidates. There may be more than 104 applicants who meet points 1-3 of the criteria etc so then it's on rank order etc.

Ah so the people within 3 miles still take the round 2 test, but if there's fewer than 104 people in those 300 who live within 3 miles they will get a place whatever their score, and if there's more than 104 people in those 300 who live within 3 miles then none of the people who live more than 3 miles away will get a place, and the score is used as a tie-breaker within catgory 3. That makes sense.

The daughter of a friend applied last year and wasn't successful and I was surprised as she's a very bright kid, but with these stats you have to be in the top 5% of bright to get a place and being just in the top 6% or 7% isn't enough. Scary.

I'd say it's in the top 3 in the country in terms of how tough it is to get in. It's very very hard.

Hi! Not a mum, but I sat this year's exams for HBS and got in, so I can tell you about the english on the second round.
We were given what I remember as roughly a two-page text, and three essay-type questions which required long (page long) answers. General 11+ stuff with analysing characters and atmospheres for questions one and two, whereas question three was a creative writing task.
Hope you find this information helpful 😁

Why is an 11 year old on Mumsnet 😂

Better than twitter... 😅

Bed time now

Please go play.

I'm just trying to give my share of the little advice I have🙂

The margin of error is low and it is time pressured, you need some luck on first round. 1-2 questions distance will have more than 100 kids... (depends on birth month)

Less than 50% girls in the second round meet point 1-3 in the past 3 years could be higher coming years but it is unlikely to have more than 104.
But the council is tightening on the location check now I think.

Thank you very much for your feedback this is helpful. 😀

Thanks so much! That’s really helpful. I’m glad you did well and got in. Can you remember what the text was or what it was about? I know this won’t come up again but it might help me to tailor my daughter’s reading a bit. Also what was the creative writing task? I’m wondering if it’s descriptive or whether it’s another style of writing.

Hi! Unfortunately I don't remember details of the text but I do remember it was a short narrative/description mix (I don't think they'd put poems in the exam) and the for the creative writing task we had to write from the perspective of a person who'd had their home flooded (I remember that this was related to the text, although I can't remember the text itself). I'd say for the creative writing no matter what task given to split it into at least 75% description and 25% moving forward in the plot, dialogue, ect. From what I've been told, the examiners look mainly for a child's ability to use figurative language and description in a clever way, so fitting it in before after and in-between the plot rather than having 3 paragraphs description followed by 3 paragraphs of none. This generally means you achieve 75% description without dragging on too much.
As for recommendations on reading, I'd say reading a variety would benefit performance on multiple genres, however I did find consistencies between some of the 5 entrance exams I did in the sense that they occasionally use 'extracts', so the story doesn't end. This sometimes leads to the creative writing task being to continue the story (this isn't about HBS specifically but just what I've found generally).
I'm glad my previous comment helped, I hope this one does too :)

Anyone knows any face to face tutoring for Henrietta which has good success record?