King Edward VI Five Ways School is a selective state grammar school in Bartley Green, Birmingham, and the only mixed non fee paying grammar school in the West Midlands. This page covers Five Ways 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.
The only mixed state grammar school in the region
This is the fact that brings most families to Five Ways. Earlier this century the school completed its move to full co-education, making it the only mixed, non fee paying grammar school in the West Midlands. For a household with a son and a daughter, that removes a problem the other schools cannot solve.
The sixth form is co-educational too, so a child who starts here in Year 7 can finish here without the shape of the school changing around them.
Five Ways belongs to the King Edward VI Foundation and is one of the Schools of King Edward VI in Birmingham. The Foundation dates from 1552, though its origins are traced back two centuries earlier, and the school was established at Five Ways in 1883. Its old pupils are the Five Ways Edwardians.
Where is it, and what is the site like?
It is worth knowing before you plan a journey around a name on a map, because the name and the location have not matched for a long time. Pupils are placed in houses, which gives a large intake a smaller structure to belong to.
Go and look at it before you commit a preference to it, if you can. A long list of schools narrows quickly once a child has stood on the site, and the journey you are asking them to make twice a day is easier to judge in person than on a timetable.
How does entry at eleven work?
Five Ways does not run its own exam. It is a West Midlands Grammar Schools Partnership school, so every candidate sits one shared entrance test, once, in September of Year 6, and the result is sent to each partnership school the family 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.
The registration comes first and is the step that catches people. A parent does it online during the summer term of Year 5, inside a short window, and primary schools neither handle it nor reliably flag it.
One sitting produces one result. You say which partnership schools it should reach, so a family weighing two or three of them is not asking a child to sit anything extra for each.
Qualifying then decides only whether a child has reached the standard. The school's own published admissions arrangements decide which qualified children are offered places, and a separate application for a school place goes to your local council in the autumn of Year 6.
What is on the papers, and how do we prepare?
Girls and boys sit exactly the same test. Two multiple-choice papers, each about fifty to sixty minutes with the instructions and worked examples counted in, sampling comprehension, verbal reasoning, mathematics and non-verbal reasoning including spatial questions. Both papers mix those areas rather than taking one each.
The weighting should shape your plan: comprehension and verbal reasoning are half the result together, mathematics a quarter, non-verbal reasoning a quarter. Answers go on a separate sheet, and a child who loses their place in the rows loses marks they had already won.
Practise the format as well as the content. A timed paper that jumps from a passage to a word puzzle to a calculation to a rotated shape asks a child to change gear again and again, and that is a habit rather than a talent. It is best built in Year 5, while there is still room to be bad at it.
Reading is the long game: half the result rests on language, and it is the part that cannot be crammed. Non-verbal reasoning is the opposite, improving quickly once the question types are familiar, so meet it early and briefly.
Check this first: this page deliberately omits scores, place figures, catchment detail and dates, since every one of them changes with the year and the copies floating around forums contradict each other. The two sources that stay current are:
King Edward VI Five Ways 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 King Edward VI Five Ways 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 Five Ways entry
Is King Edward VI Five Ways mixed?+
Yes. It completed its move to full co-education earlier this century, and describes itself as the only mixed, non fee paying grammar school in the West Midlands. The sixth form is co-educational as well, so the school keeps the same shape throughout.
Where is the school now?+
Scotland Lane, Bartley Green, to the south-west of the city centre. It moved in 1958 to a thirty-two acre site bordering Bartley Reservoir and looking out to Frankley Beeches, so the name Five Ways describes where it began rather than where it is.
Do girls and boys sit different papers?+
No. Every candidate sits the same shared West Midlands Grammar Schools entrance test, once, in September of Year 6. The same two papers, the same weighting, and the same result passed to each partnership school the family has named.
Other schools in this consortium
King Edward VI Five Ways 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 Handsworth Grammar School for Boys, boys, in Handsworth, Birmingham.
- King Edward VI Handsworth School for Girls, girls, in Handsworth, Birmingham.
- Sutton Coldfield Grammar School for Girls, girls, in Sutton Coldfield.
- Bishop Vesey's Grammar School, boys, in Sutton Coldfield.
- King Edward VI Aston School, boys, in Aston, Birmingham.
Where to go next
- The West Midlands 11 plus entrance test, the shared test in full, with every partnership school listed.
- 11 plus maths topics, the quarter that usually needs pace, not new content.
- 11 plus non-verbal reasoning, the strand worth meeting early and briefly.
- How to prepare for the 11 plus, a plan that follows the weighting rather than ignoring it.