HTS and ‘Eleven Plus’

Hydesville Tower Junior School is proud of its record of Grammar School entry gained annually by its pupils. Each year about two thirds of our children are offered places at local selective schools. This is achieved through a blend of hard work and high academic standards from the pupils and careful preparation by the school.

Traditionally our pupils move on to Queen Mary’s Boys and Girls Schools in Walsall, Sutton Girls, Bishop Vesey, the King Edward Foundation Schools in Birmingham, King Edward’s School, Edgbaston, and King Edward’s High School for Girls, Edgbaston, as well as achieving places at Walsall and Sandwell Academies.

These schools all run selective entrance tests, usually comprising of papers in maths, English, verbal reasoning and non-verbal reasoning. English and maths skills are, of course, part of all schools’ timetables but at Hydesville we also add designated lessons in reasoning. Children are introduced to reasoning in Year 3 and by Year 5 about 10% of the timetable and many homeworks are reasoning based. Pupils get the chance to complete timed tests, in preparation for entrance exams, as well as being taught how to solve the differing sorts of reasoning problems.

Towards the end of Year 5 Hydesville invites parents to a meeting where all facets of secondary school entrance are discussed; details of individual schools’ Open Days and testing dates are distributed as well as advice on completing the LEA secondary options forms.

Entrance tests take place in Year 6, throughout the Autumn term and into January, pupils are allowed time off from school to attend the tests and any interviews and induction days which may follow. When the results from the tests are announced at the beginning of March, Hydesville pupils are usually very successful in gaining entrance to the school of their choice and move in to secondary education as a great advert for Hydesville Tower School.