The Buckinghamshire Secondary Transfer Test is the exam used to determine entry into grammar schools in Buckinghamshire. It is sat when students are in the last year of primary school, and is an important aspect of the secondary school application system for many families. The exam tests students in the following subjects: verbal reasoning, comprehension, non verbal reasoning and Maths. Students are not assessed in creative writing, but they are in comprehension, and the verbal reasoning test will assess vocabulary. Other criteria come into play (mainly distance from the school), but generally students with the highest scores are then offered places into grammar schools in the area.
Students who attend any state funded primary school in Buckinghamshire are automatically registered for the Secondary Transfer Test. Students do not have to sit the test. Students who live outside of Buckinghamshire, including those in Milton Keynes, need to register. This includes children attending private / Prep schools.
Parents must register directly with Buckinghamshire Council for Secondary Transfer Testing. At the time of writing, registration opened in the May of Year 5, and the deadline to register was just over a month later in the June of Year 5. The council does not normally accept late registrations, and requires what they call “exceptional reasons” for this. Parents who move into Buckinghamshire by the June of Year 5 are given a slightly later registration deadline. Students living outside of the UK will not be allowed to sit the exam.
Further information is available here: https://www.buckinghamshire.gov.uk/schools-and-learning/schools-index/school-admissions/grammar-schools-and-transfer-testing-11/register-for-the-secondary-transfer-test/.
Students from outside of Buckinghamshire can apply to sit the exam, but must register as above.
At the time of writing, there were thirteen grammar schools in and around Buckinghamshire. (You can view a full list of these schools here).
All of these schools use the Bucks Secondary Transfer Test. Do note that admission is more complicated than just being a pass / fail process, and parents should review each school’s admissions policy for detailed information. They will all likely have some kind of catchment area, and it is unlikely that places will be awarded to students from outside of the area.
Results from the Buckinghamshire Secondary Transfer Test are normally about 1 month after the exam, in the October of year 6.
The timetable is fairly predictable, and works as follows:
May of Year 5: Buckinghamshire Council opens Secondary Transfer Test registration. Parents need to register via the council’s website.
June of Year 5: registration closes for the Secondary Transfer Test. Late applications need exceptional reasons to be considered.
September of Year 6: Practice test takes place, usually a small number of days before the actual test
September of Year 6: Actual test takes place
October of Year 6: Actual test takes place
The Buckinghamshire Secondary Transfer Test is split into two papers. Each of these papers last about an hour, with about 45 minutes for the test itself and 15 minutes at the start with audio instructions. (The audio instructions are played from a soundtrack, instead of being read out).
Both papers are sat on the same day. There is a short break between the two papers, so the whole process takes a little over two hours.
The first paper is on “Verbal Skills”. This covers non verbal reasoning and Mathematics. Each subject has around 20 minutes of testing time, with around 5 minutes of subject specific instruction before each.
The second paper is on “Mathematical & Non-Verbal Skills”. This covers non verbal reasoning and Mathematics. Again, each subject has around 20 minutes of testing time, with around 5 minutes of subject specific instruction before each.
Parents whose children attend a state primary n Buckinghamshire should be sent a “familiarisation booklet”, which contains all useful information regarding the test. This can be downloaded here:
Like many grammar school assessments, children will be guided through the papers at a set pace, and so cannot really finish early. (Children are told to stop working at the end of a given page and wait until they are told to turn it.)
Children are told specifically to bring two regular HB pencils and a rubber / eraser. They are specifically told not to bring and of the following:
Perhaps obviously, children are not allowed to bring mobile phones or tablets. They are also asked to not wear watches, or any device that can connect to the internet.
The test assesses four main areas: verbal reasoning, English, non verbal reasoning and mathematical skills. In English, only comprehension is assessed.
The entire exam is conducted in a multiple choice format. This means that children will be given a question and (usually) five possible answers, and are asked to select one of these answers. They do this by marking one of five boxes in a grid.
The verbal reasoning paper assesses the following:
The mathematical skills paper assesses the following:
The Bucks Secondary Transfer Test is written by GL Assessment. A small number of practice questions are included in the familiarisation booklet. GL Assessment is a organisation which provides the questions for many school entrance exams used in the UK, both for the grammar and independent sector.
Each paper contains between 50 and 60 questions. These questions are split between the areas as mentioned before. The specific number can vary each year.
Parents wishing to appeal the results of the Secondary Transfer Test can apply for what is called a “Selection Review”. This needs to happen soon after results are published. Here, parents are invited to explain why a grammar school education is best suited to their child, despite them not hitting the pass mark. Anyone can apply for this process, but it is only likely to have any chance of success if your child has achieved between 110 and 120 on the test (the pass mark is 121). In the most recent available data set at the time of writing, 923 children had their tests submitted for a Selection Review. Of these, 295 were approved (i.e. they were then qualified for all grammar schools in Buckinghamshire), and 628 were rejected. The lowest score that was successful in the review process in this data set was 91, but after this no other appeals were successful until a score of 108. Of the 295 children who were successful in the review process, all but 3 had a score of 110 or higher.
You can view detailed data about this process here:
https://www.thebucksgrammarschools.org/test-data
Parents must apply for the Selection Review inside a short time frame of receiving their results. After the Selection Review process, parents also have access to an “Independent Admission Appeal”.
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