Bishop Vesey's Grammar School is a selective state school on Lichfield Road in Sutton Coldfield, admitting boys at eleven on the shared West Midlands entrance test. This page covers Bishop Vesey's entry at eleven by the GL Assessment test, for children now in Year 3 to Year 5, and not sixth form, fees or A levels.
Is Bishop Vesey's a boys' school or a mixed one?
At eleven it takes boys, and the admissions wording leaves no room. The sixth form is the mixed part, and the school calls it a co-educational sixth form. Boys from eleven to sixteen, then a co-educational sixth form, is the honest shape.
Only boys who attain the required standard in the prescribed arrangements for selection are eligible to be considered for admission.
From "Is Bishop Vesey's a boys' school or a mixed one?"
The school's own pages muddy this. They describe an outstanding, academically challenging and well-rounded education for able boys and girls from Birmingham and across the Midlands since the sixteenth century, and the word mixed turns up. Year 7 is governed by the admissions arrangements, not by the prose, so read those.
The school stands on Lichfield Road in Sutton Coldfield, under the strapline Inspiration and Excellence, and boys are placed in houses from the start.
The registration nobody reminds you about
Bishop Vesey's sets no paper of its own. It belongs to the West Midlands Grammar Schools Partnership, so a boy sits one shared entrance test, once, in September of Year 6, and that single result reaches every partnership school the family has named. The paper itself is set by GL Assessment, the assessment publisher the partnership uses, so the format is the same at every school in the group.
What goes wrong is duller than the test and happens a year earlier. A parent has to register online during the summer term of Year 5, inside a short window. Primary schools do not do it for you and cannot be relied on to raise it. A missed registration costs the whole year, whatever preparation sits behind it.
Two acts, not one: you register for the entrance test with the partnership in Year 5. You apply for a secondary school place with your local council in the autumn of Year 6. Neither one performs the other.
What do the two papers actually ask?
Neither paper is the English paper or the maths paper. Both mix the areas inside one booklet, so a boy moves from a passage to a word puzzle to a calculation to a pattern of shapes, with no warning between them.
There are two multiple-choice papers, each running roughly fifty to sixty minutes, and that figure includes the instructions and the worked examples, so the real working time is shorter than it sounds. Between them they sample comprehension, verbal reasoning, mathematics and non-verbal reasoning, spatial questions included.
The marks are not spread evenly across those four. Reading and verbal reasoning together decide half the result, mathematics takes a quarter and non-verbal reasoning the last quarter. Answers go on a separate sheet, which deserves a practice run on its own: a boy who slips a row loses a run of marks his thinking had already earned.
Where should the preparation go first?
Where the weight sits. Half the result rests on reading and language, and neither shifts in a fortnight. Wide reading through Year 4 and Year 5, with the habit of stopping on an unfamiliar word, beats any stack of papers bought in the final term.
Non-verbal reasoning behaves differently. Most children jump once the question types stop surprising them and then level off, so early exposure does most of the available work. Maths usually wants pace and multi-step problems rather than new content.
Then rehearse what the papers do to a child, which is the switching. Sitting a timed paper that changes gear four times is a skill of its own, and easier to build in Year 5 than in the fortnight before.
Check this first: this page carries no qualifying score, no place figures, no catchment note and no dates, because each of those moves year on year and the copies circulating on forums disagree with one another. Two sources are worth your time:
Bishop Vesey's Grammar School official website and the partnership's own site. Check the school's official admissions page for this year's figures.
Pathway Eleven has no connection to Bishop Vesey's Grammar School, to the partnership or to any admissions authority. We cannot register a child, confirm eligibility, or say anything about catchment or your chances. Pathway Eleven is an independent service and is not affiliated with or endorsed by GL Assessment.
Common questions about Bishop Vesey's entry
Does Bishop Vesey's take girls at eleven?+
No. At eleven the school admits boys who attain the required standard in the prescribed arrangements for selection. The sixth form is co-educational, so girls join there. Descriptions of the school as mixed generally come from that sixth form rather than from Year 7.
Is there a separate Bishop Vesey's entrance exam?+
No. The school uses the shared West Midlands Grammar Schools entrance test, sat once in September of Year 6. The same result is passed to every partnership school a family names, so there is no extra Sutton Coldfield paper to sit.
When do we have to register?+
Online, during the summer term of Year 5, through the partnership rather than the school. The window is short and closes well before the test itself. Take the dates from the partnership's own site for your child's year, not from a page written for an earlier one.
My son qualified. Does that mean he has a place?+
Not by itself. Reaching the standard puts him among the qualified candidates. The school's published admissions arrangements then decide which of those boys is offered a place, and you also have to name the school on your council application.
Other schools in this consortium
Bishop Vesey's Grammar School sits in the Birmingham group of the partnership. One result travels to every partnership school a family names, so the neighbouring schools are worth reading about before you decide which to put down.
- King Edward VI Aston School, boys, in Aston, Birmingham.
- King Edward VI Camp Hill School for Boys, boys, in Kings Heath, Birmingham.
- King Edward VI Camp Hill School for Girls, girls, in Kings Heath, Birmingham.
- King Edward VI Five Ways School, mixed, in Bartley Green, Birmingham.
- King Edward VI Handsworth Grammar School for Boys, boys, in Handsworth, Birmingham.
Where to go next
- The West Midlands 11 plus entrance test, the shared test in full, with every partnership school listed.
- 11 plus English comprehension, the half of the result that rewards starting early.
- 11 plus preparation in Year 5, the year the registration window falls in.
- 11 plus non-verbal reasoning, the quarter that improves fastest once the types are familiar.