Sale Grammar and three others closed tomorrow as a new entrance exam is sat on same day

Sale Grammar School is closed today as thousands of 10 and 11 year-old take a new form of entrance exam to qualify for Sale and three other schools.

For the first time since the end of the borough wide 11+ testing, four Grammar schools will hold the same entrance exam on the same day. They have formed the Trafford Grammar Schools CEM Consortium with all four acting as test centres today.

In recent years the four grammars in question, Sale, Altrincham Girls Grammar School, Urmston and Stretford have held separate tests on different dates, usually on a Saturday.

Today they are sitting exactly the same papers which means the pupils sit just one entrance exam. That exam has been formulated by Durham University and parents have the right to ask for their child’s score be shared amongst other schools and that they receive results from all four schools.

In the past some children have taken up to four or five entrance exams just so they can increase their chances of a place at a Grammar school.

The Sale website says:”The University of Durham is internationally recognised for its pioneering work in the field of assessment.

“Sale Grammar School is working with several Grammar Schools across the country to commission testing from the University of Durham’s educational research unit, the largest facility of its kind in a UK university.”

The results for all four schools will be sent out on Friday October 14 by first class post. Parents are warned that a pass is not a guarantee of a place at any of  the schools. They will have to wait unto March 1 2017 to find out which school they will be allocated.