Introduction
School Name: Queen’s Gate School
Description: Independent Day School for Girls
Acceptance Ages: 11+
Overview
Queen’s Gate School is located in South Kensington and founded in 1891 as an independent day school for girls aged 4-18 years. With a strong academic reputation, the school is relatively small in size with over 500 girls attending at any one time.
The school promotes a love of learning that also actively encourages its girls to push themselves when outside of the classroom, with a variety of extracurricular activities. Most of the girls participate in charitable work, both in their local community and further afield, while maintaining their academic curriculum.
Queen’s Gate School Admissions Criteria
Queen’s Gate is one of the 12-member schools in the London 11 Plus Consortium. With that, Queen’s Gate must follow the Consortium’s formal Code of Practice.
Queen’s Gate School main entry is in Year 7, admission is determined by student performance in the school’s entrance test in January of the year of entry. Applicants are also required to attend an interview after the exam date, with the opportunity to showcase their intelligence and creativity in a conversation with school staff. A reference is also requested from the girl’s current school.
The London Consortium’s policy who will offer places based on a student’s overall performance in the cognitive test, interview and reference. Therefore, admission to Year 7 is not determined by performance in the exam alone but to consider all three elements before deciding on place allocation.
If you have any further questions about Queen’s Gate School’s Year 7 admissions process, simply contact the Registrar on 020 7594 4982, or email registrar@queensgate.org.uk.
How to Apply for 11 plus Entry to Queen’s Gate School
The London Consortium made it easy in applying to Queen’s Gate relatively Year 7 place. Prior to the submission of a registration form, the school recommends parents to book a place on one of the Open Events, which take place in September to November. Registration for these events are available online via the school’s website.
After attending one of these events, and parent’s feel that this school is right for their daughter, they should download and complete the registration form for the Cognitive Abilities Test.
For all outstanding application questions, please refer to Queen’s Gate FAQs section online.
Queen’s Gate School Year 7 entry, 11 plus Assessment
The London Consortium replaced its traditional eleven plus exam with a bespoke Cognitive Abilities Test. The test evaluates Mathematics, Verbal Reasoning and Non-Verbal Reasoning. This test has been created for the London Consortium by the Centre for Evaluation and Monitoring (CEM). It’s worth noting that the CEM definition of Verbal Reasoning includes question types, such as comprehension, that you would usually find in an English test.
Some of the questions will be in a multiple-choice format and applicants are required to mark their answers on a separate answer sheet. The test lasts for approximately 75 minutes, with a 30-minute break midway. CEM tests tend to consist of shorter timed sections, each focusing on a specific question type. These sections are then taken in a mixed order rather than one subject after another. For example, a 5-minute Verbal Reasoning comprehension section could be followed by a 10-minute Mathematics LNR section, followed by a 6-minute Verbal Reasoning cloze section.
There will be no other written assessments. The Consortium implemented this new cognitive test to identify pupils’ overall academic potential, rather than their ability to retain knowledge for a particular exam.
Students can take the test at any school in the Consortium and parents will receive test results in February.
