Sutton Selective Eligibility tests

[Seeline]

I note that Wallington Girls is proposing to join in with this process for 2015 entry.
Can anyone who went through the process last year for the boys schools give a bit of insight into the format?
Was it just one test incorporating elements of maths/English or were there separate papers?
Was it just maths/English or any VR/NVR involved?
Was it multiple choice, and if so were answers given in the question booklet or on a separate sheet?
Was it taken on a computer or hand written?
Any other information that might be useful to the Mum of a Y5 DD who is already getting stressed

[Seeline]

Bumping for lunchtime crowd

[Ladymuck]

2 x 45 minute multiple choice papers, one in English, one in maths. No formal VR/NVR as such, but the English paper did ask one or two questions such as put the following in order: pond, ocean, lake, puddle. But no codes or anagrams or fake compound words (eg mode + rate = moderate) or what I would describe as technical VR questions. We certainly went over synonyms and antonyms but can't remember whether these appeared or not. Speed was an issue particularly in English - I think there were 72 qs in 45 minutes, including 2 comprehensions. Answers were on a separate sheet where you had to cross out A, B, C or D, but we were given a copy of the answer sheet beforehand so they knew what to expect.

[Seeline]

Thanks for that LM - very helpful!
Were you told in advance what the pass mark would be?

[Ladymuck]

No, and we still don't know what it was or how he fared (other than he passed). Essentially all that was said was that a pass mark would be set to allow around 700 to be eligible to sit the individual school's own tests, so essentially the SET was mainly a screening tool to limit the number of essays which then needed to be marked. Looking at the results, for the boys at least, the main difference between passing the SET and getting a place was down to the creative writing papers.

The passmark is only set after the papers are marked.

[Ladymuck]

Sorry, should say that the conclusion on creative writing was across the pool of boys that I know.

[Seeline]

Was the creative writing in addition to the other two papers you mentioned? How long did they have for that?
Interesting that they indicated 700 would progress - wonder how that will work for the girls. I don't know if they will be trying for a range of schools like the boys do.

[Ladymuck]

The creative writing was part of the individual school exams, so you only sat it if you passed the SET. It is quite possible that there will very different pass marks for boys and girls. The SET will be required for both Wallington and Nonsuch so I would expect over 2,000 girls to sit the SET. Given that those 2 schools have over 200 places each I would again expect the passmark to be set so that around 800-1,000 girls passed.

For the second stage each school sets their own English and maths papers which are standard form and not multiple choice. Each school weights the results of the tests in their own way, so for Wilsons the final mark will be based on the SET score, their own maths paper and their own English paper in a 20:40:40 weighting.

[Ladymuck]

The creative writing varied in length for each school (25-60 minutes I think) and only one school told you the amount of time in advance.

[Ladymuck]

We were told in advance that around 700 would pass the SET. In the end 799 passed. For Wilson's of those 799, 708 sat their exam and 404 passed that, with 180 places available. (Those numbers are from memory, but give you an idea of how it worked). Obviously some children were mainly aiming to get Tiffin say, and sat Sutton Grammar as a back up, and others sat St Olaves with Wilsons as a back up.

[Seeline]

I see - thanks so much for explaining. I hadn't realised Nonsuch was involved too - it's too far out of way to consider!
Just another hoop for poor DD to have to jump through. I'm exhausted with it all already....

[Ladymuck]

Just looked at Wallington's draft admission policy - looks as if the SET is literally just an eligibility test or a hurdle to be passed in order to sit the school's own entrance exams. The SET score will not contribute to the final ranking score at all.

[Seeline]

That's how I read it LM - but it all seemed a big vague! It's useful to have some prior knowledge before I start wading in at Open Days asking completely idiotic questions!