The Blue Coat School Liverpool

[WitchyBee]

My DD is in Year 5 currently. I have only just realising that I should have been looking at high schools sooner. The plan had been she would just got to her primary schools feeder school De La Salle (St Helens) except I've only heard how much it's gone down hill since I left in 2015. I was greatly let down by them too. Now I have been non stop looking online.
The Blue Coat School Liverpool really took my interest as a parent who is on benefits money doesn't seem to play a role its all about the childrens pure talents.
I am lost though on where to even start...
Her school currently doesn't give her homework so we can work on some learning at home but what books to get?
When is the test she will have to take and when an where does she take it?
Is there more chances of her being bullied from being a child of a parent on benefits if she does get a place?

I'm wanting to give her a fighting chance. I've read I can get help with FSM (Free School Meals) and also uniform I can find secondhand if i can't afford it all new. Also help with some school trips if it's part of the curriculum and during school time I won't have to pay for her. I know I can't give her a lot but I can try my best to give her a good education and help set her up for her future.

Liverpool blue coat is a grammar school. All you need to do is to practice with her the 11+ test with exercise book. It doesn't cost too much.

Thank you for responding. Yes, I do understand it is a grammar school. There's the thing with the exercise books though. I have seen many different ones and it is overwhelming me on which I am meant to be getting

There are two exams, one at the end of year 5 and the other at the beginning of year 6 for the 600 children who get the highest marks on the first exam. You take them both at the Blue Coat school on computers. You need to resister your child for them by the middle of the summer term, I think - do check the dates.
They're both CEM - the first is CEM Primary Insight and the second is CEM Select, so you want the CEM books. Non verbal reasoning and verbal reasoning are only tested on the second exam, the first is the basic primary curriculum, so English, maths, spelling, reading etc. There's also something called developed reasoning (I think?) which you can Google.
When my son did it, we used the CEM books, we revised the year 5 and year 6 spelling list, which you can also Google, and we found some practice tests online (pretest plus for the first one and Atom learning for the second). These were the most expensive thing we did. We also went through the Year 6 maths curriculum on the BBC Bitesize website. He knew a lot of it already from reading Murderous Maths books.
I'd also encourage her to read as much as you can, ideally older books, both fiction and non fiction. My son was tested on an extract from The Pickwick Papers on the first exam. Read aloud to her every night and get some classic children's books for her to read. The exam favours children who can do maths quickly and who read for pleasure.
Also talk to her about exam technique and not taking too long to answer a question, but making an educated guess and moving on.
There are 26 places reserved for pupil premium kids every year so there'll be at least four or five kids on benefits in each class. All the extra curriculars are free except instrument lessons, and they're free for pupil premium kids. Trips and residentials do cost, but that's true in every school.
It's a lovely school for a particular sort of child. Be aware that it is offering a different model to De La Salle. Kids do eleven GCSEs instead of the normal eight or nine, so they need to be the sort of kid who thrives with a faster pace. They do three languages from Year 7, and all kids have to do triple science, a language and a humanity for GCSE.
Lots of people pay for tutors, but it's a myth that you have to - plenty of kids get in every year with parents doing prep on their own. My son did.
Good luck.

Kids do eleven GCSEs instead of the normal eight or nine.

It's been reduced to 10, now, which I think is a good thing!

I agree about prioritising lots of reading. Fiction and non-fiction! Read interesting articles online - that will help with general knowledge (which can come in very handy in the Comprehension sections, as we found out last year!) and more sophisticated vocabulary.

Spelling is important for the Phase 1 test, vocab knowledge, more so, for Phase 2. Synoyms and Antonyms are a good thing to practice. Ask AI, or simply google, a recommended list of words to know, and know how to spell. I had vocab flashcards up on our kitchen cupboards, and we'd do little tests every night and then rotate the cards when she was getting them consistently right. This can all be done for free, without expensive subscriptions / resources. We did go to a group tutor, but after a couple of sessions I realised I could do more - and do it better - myself.

Make the most of Chat GPT / Gemini! Get it to create maths tests for you - tell it exactly what the exam is (CEM, as the previous poster mentioned) and go from there. We used it a lot!

Both mine go there, and got in without a tutor, but we did a lot of extra work at home. The standard is very high - lots of very bright kids who've had tutors don't even get through to the second phase.

Probably the most important thing is familiarisation with question types - if you've never seen the type of question before, lots of time will be lost figuring out what you need to do. And CEM is as much about speed as anything else.

The way I understand it, the pupil premium places (15% of total) are essentially competing against each other. And everyone else is competing for the other 85% of places, meaning you're not really up against the prep school kids who will almost certainly succeed.

Pretty sure registration opens around April of Year 5, and the first phase will be in July. Phase 1 is adaptive, i.e. the questions get harder if you're doing well. (My daughter also got the Pickwick Papers, which I took to mean she'd done very well in the spelling bit.) Phase 2 everyone gets the same questions, and it's designed so that it's virtually impossible to finish every section, so even getting, say, 60-70% right is probably a good score.

Good luck!

Oh, and as for being on benefits, no-one will know or care. Of course you've got a wide range of demographics, and just like anywhere there'll be mean kids, but in general it's a very inclusive place, and kids mix well regardless of race, religion, skin colour, gender, sexuality, income etc.