Bluecoat school- liverpool

[Elg82]

Hi, does anybody have experience of the Bluecoat school 11+ exam. We are looking at this for my daughter. She is currently in year 4 at school. I would say she is above average and has a strong affinity to English and Maths. Is there any specific book we should be reading/ maths studying. I’m not sure.

Hi

My daughter got a place in the September 2024 cohort . She did a few month ( March-July ) of weekly tutoring (2 hours a week) in year 5, attended the exam in September . Over the course of these few month , she also attended a few mock exams. She is in top set in her class and always did well above average in school tests.

If your child is only in year 4, start with bond books , even if it is just a few 10mins tests each weekend . Gradually introduced full test papers ( we personally did not do any prep at this stage as I thought it was too early ).

Starting from January when she is in year 5 , get a private tutor ( we used a local tutoring school which was great ).

Starting from March when she is in year 5, sign up for mock exams . Depending on the exam results , get specific 121 tutoring on certain math or English topics . What I found is most kids would be familiar with the topics however some struggle with speed and concentration in a test environment.

I appreciate tutoring can be really expensive , so the alternative is guiding your child with bond test papers and only signing up for mock exams . Believe me mock exams really help ! If your child consistently scores above 80% in mock tests , there is a good chance she will get in.

Good luck .

Thanks for your advice. It’s really helpful.
just to clarify. Did you use the bond test paper as the mock exams?
I’ll look at that next year when we move closer to the test date. Thanks

I booked the mock tests with the tutoring school . It is organised by them , usually takes places on weekends in a secondary school hall which helps with nerves on the day of the of the exam because by September , the child would have already experienced the exam atmosphere if you like and will have an idea of their time keeping.

I did buy full bond test papers but she never went through them at home in one go as you can imagine they get distracted easily in the house with other things so for home practise we only did 10mins math tests and one piece of reading comprehension at a time. After she started the weekly tutoring , we rarely did any bond books at home , just concentrated on whatever was assigned as homework by the tutor .

I hope this helps .🙂

Oh wow, I never knew this was a thing!!!
Blinkin heck!! I just though a few private lessons would be it 😳😳
If you don’t mind, could I have the name of the tutoring school that you used. That would be great.

Its a lot to think about!

Ah I know what you mean , we didn’t know where to start either at the time , now have been through the process , I believe things will fall into place .. don’t worry too much , if your child is above average , they just need to get familiar with the concept of the exam , a few months of concentrated effort should do 😀

The one my daughter went to is called Accelerate on Allerton road .

Cheers.

Hi just looking at this - what is the name of the tutoring school offering mocks please? Didn’t know this existed either!

I hear there are a few that offers this , we were recommended Accelerate on Allerton road by friends . We ‘ve been very happy with them , but I guess you can ask around 😀

Thanks, I’ll keep your details x

All the news on this school and nothing covers the fact they have two teachers who are being sexually intimate on school ground - during school hours while kids are present within the school. It’s common knowledge around the school now. A student reported seeing them on one occasion (out of many) and was labelled a liar. The whole place worries me but with the teachers acting like victims right now when THEIR priority isn’t the children either is so hypocritical, the school just needs to close.

Oh dear- that’s not good

As a fairly recent ex student of the school, if you want your child to go to a school with a nice environment, do not send them to Blue Coat. The atmosphere is horrible - the kids are all competitive to the point of bullying anyone for getting something wrong in class. The SLT don’t care about anything or anyone. They bully the staff (just look at recent news, literally the police being called to union/SLT meetings because of violence). They see the kids as grade numbers and nothing more. The teachers are fed up and this rightly so affects their teaching. Concernedp is totally right about what they said - and there have been relationships between students and teachers before too. A caretaker killed themselves on school grounds. A teacher admitted during an assembly to killing someone when drunk driving. The school is an absolute mess. I became a shell of who I was while I was there and the best thing I did was leave and go to a different place for sixth form (and no I wasn’t one of the students who was “encouraged” to leave because I got bad GCSE grades - yes that does happen). I really urge you to consider other schools.

FYI, the format of the Blue Coat exam is changing. As of Sept this year, it will be a mixture of multiple choice and fill-in-the-blanks type questions (Maths and English only, no VR or NVR), with a higher emphasis on creative writing. The test is one that is developed by Reading Grammar School. Candidates will have to 'pass' each of Maths, English and Writing to be eligible for ranking.

thanks- how were you made aware of this.

The Familiarisation Guide on the school's website carries the branding of theFuture Stories Community Enterprise, and Google divulges that FSCE Ltd is a subsidiary of Reading School.

Chelmsford County High School in Essex also uses a Future Stories entrance exam.

I was at the open day on Friday and they mentioned the process was changing, and yesterday familiarisation materials became available on the website.

Thanks. I couldn’t get tickets for open day as had already sold out. My daughter is going in to year 5 this year x

Please can I pm you?