Townley Grammar 11 Plus Tutor: One-to-One, Online

Townley Grammar School is a girls' selective academy in Bexleyheath with 224 Year 7 places, offered in the first round only to girls deemed selective on the Bexley Selection Test. Quest Assessments provides that test: two papers of about 50 minutes, weighted 50% verbal ability, 25% numerical reasoning and 25% non-verbal reasoning. Leading Tuition teaches it online, one to one, and the plan we recommend splits lesson time by those weights and rehearses Quest's own answer format.

The dates, oversubscription order and catchment sit in our Townley Grammar School 11+ guide; this page covers what we teach and why.

Is Passing the Bexley Test Enough to Get Into Townley?

Bexley Council ranks every child who sits the test by total age-standardised score, and the Council, in conjunction with the four grammar schools, determines the selective score. Townley's policy says the same: Bexley decides how many children are deemed selective and selects the score accordingly. The line is set on the ranked results, which is why this programme aims at a margin above it.

In 2025, 5,866 children sat the test, 2,070 achieved the selective standard and 800 grammar school places were available across the four schools. Four ratios follow, with the working shown:

• 35.3% reached the standard: 2,070 ÷ 5,866 = 0.353.
• The top 180 are about 3 in every 100 candidates: 180 ÷ 5,866 = 0.0307, or 3.07%, so that group sits above roughly 97 of every 100 children who sat.
• The top 180 are 8.7% of the selective group: 180 ÷ 2,070 = 0.087.
• About 2.6 selective children for every grammar place: 2,070 ÷ 800 = 2.6. Bexley notes that some selective children are offered places at schools they ranked higher, so the figure overstates the competition for any one place.

The 5,866, 2,070 and 800 are 2025 counts. The top-180 group is the rule Bexley currently publishes, applied here to those counts. The ratios are not a forecast of a cut score, and this page offers none.

Townley's 2027-28 admissions policy then uses the score in several places. Girls identified by Bexley as "achieving one of the highest 180 scores in the selection tests" form criterion 4, ranked ahead of siblings, staff children and distance. Criterion 7, distance, applies "irrespective of selective score – excluding top 180 students", and when two applicants live at an equal distance the place goes to the girl with the highest aggregate score. If places remain once every deemed-selective girl has been offered one, Townley adopts Bexley's reserve-list process and offers places "in descending order of the aggregate score"; Bexley's own order for unfilled places starts with children who scored one mark below the selective score, then two marks below.

Distance still decides most places, Bexley says, and no preparation moves an address. Preparation moves the score, which is the input in each of the places above. There is also one sitting. A child who falls ill during the test and cannot complete it is not given another opportunity to retake it, though a review panel determines whether she should be deemed selective, and a child who sits it unwell or upset has no alternative date.

The programme therefore has two aims, in this order: a score comfortably clear of the selective line, so that one weak section on a single sitting does not decide a place, and then, for a girl already scoring strongly, rank, which is what Townley's top-180, tie-break and further-allocation rules read. That is our recommendation and not a prediction.

How Do the 50/25/25 Weights Change a Townley Lesson Plan?

Quest describes the test as two non-adaptive paper assessments of around 50 minutes each: paper one covers Verbal Ability and English comprehension, and paper two covers Numerical Reasoning and Non-verbal Reasoning. Bexley's page for the test adds that each paper is divided into sections with a set time for each, that the invigilator tells the children when to move on, and that a session lasts two and a half to three hours including both papers and a short break.

Bexley builds the total weighted age-standardised score from 50% of the verbal ability score and 25% each of the numerical and non-verbal scores, so verbal carries twice the weight of either (50 ÷ 25 = 2). That total is what Townley's ranking rules sort on: the policy defines being deemed selective by "the total weighted age standardised score", and its 224 places go first to girls who reach the standard.

A girl who is strong with numbers and shapes but ordinary in language is working with half the total, not the whole. In our view the verbal paper is where most of a Townley-bound girl's margin is built, because it carries the largest weight and rewards time spent on vocabulary and reading. The Year 5 ceiling helps too: Quest's guidance for parents says its papers assess what children have covered in school up to the end of Year 5, so lesson time spent pre-teaching Year 6 mathematics is time taken from verbal work. Our guide to Quest Assessments for Bexley covers the provider side.

What Do Quest's Four Sample Booklets Tell a Townley Tutor to Practise?

Quest publishes four familiarisation booklets on its Bexley Selection Test page: English, Maths, Verbal Reasoning and Non-Verbal Reasoning. Quest states that their questions will not appear in the real assessment and that each school's assessment will be slightly different, so we treat them as samples: evidence of question style and answer format, not a forecast of the real papers. We counted every question in all four.

Source: Quest Assessments familiarisation booklets (instruction pages, questions and answer keys), counted by Leading Tuition. Sample questions only.

Fourteen of the 80 sample questions ask for more than one answer

Each booklet tells a child to choose one answer unless the question asks for more than one. In the Verbal Reasoning sample the first twelve questions each want two, and the first nine offer six options, A to F, where the usual set is five. A girl who gives one of two correct words has not finished the question, so we suggest "how many answers does this want?" is the first thing she reads. Townley's ranking rules read one number, the aggregate, so a question she understood but marked with one box can leave marks behind just as one beyond her can.

Every booklet allows a minute a question

Each booklet gives 20 minutes for 20 questions. The real papers run to about 50 minutes in timed sections that the invigilator closes, so we recommend timed practice in sections with hard stops. Quest's booklets tell a stuck child to move on and use spare time to go back, and its guidance for children says no marks are lost for a wrong answer. The habit we suggest: mark the likeliest option, move on, return only if time remains.

English is twelve questions on one passage, then eight on technique

The English sample puts 12 of its 20 questions on one passage, "Holding onto History". Six of those twelve ask why the author included something or what its effect is (Q4, Q5, Q6, Q9, Q11, Q12), a different skill from finding a fact. The other eight are technique. That makes 60% of the booklet questions on one passage, half of them on effect or purpose, and 40% technical English, which suits short, regular practice.

Verbal Reasoning turns on word meaning

Twelve of the 20 Verbal Reasoning questions (Q1 to Q12) pick words by meaning or relationship. In our reading that favours a wide vocabulary built over time, which is why we recommend starting vocabulary work early. The last four (Q17 to Q20) give stated facts and ask what follows from them, and those respond to method.

Maths opens with ten bare calculations

The first ten Maths questions have no wording: 5 × 12, 0.4 × 100, one fifth of 410. Q14 asks for all the common factors of 48 and 36, and the key lists four (A, B, C and E: 2, 4, 6 and 12). A girl who finds two and stops has found half, so we suggest listing factor pairs in full before any speed work.

Non-Verbal Reasoning: eight of twenty are folds and nets

The last eight Non-Verbal questions (Q13 to Q20, 40% of the booklet) are folded-and-cut paper and nets of solids. They ask a child to hold a fold in her head, so we recommend working them with paper in hand before asking for speed. The first twelve are pattern families, each with a method that can be named and rehearsed.

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What Does an Online One-to-One Lesson Look Like for a Paper Test?

The test is on paper and our lessons are live online, so the structure below closes that gap. It is the plan we recommend, built from the sources above, not a promise of any score.

1. Diagnostic on Quest's own booklets. We begin with a structured diagnostic lesson. The child sits the four samples on printed copies to their 20-minute limits, and the tutor marks them against the key in each booklet. Lost marks are sorted by likely cause, for example not known, misread (including the number of answers wanted) or out of time, and that sort shapes the first block.
2. A block built on the weights. We suggest the verbal strand takes the largest share, starting from Quest's 500-word vocabulary list and its reading lists, with comprehension that asks for effect as well as fact. Numerical work stays within Year 5 and non-verbal work goes one question family at a time.
3. Paper conditions. Practice then moves onto printed booklets with answers marked as Quest specifies: a clear horizontal line through the box, rubbed out if changed, never crossed out. Working goes in the booklet, because Bexley says rough paper is not provided. Timed sets start at the 20-minute booklet length and lengthen towards the 50-minute paper.
4. Full sittings. Before the test we suggest the child sits both papers back to back with a break, the shape of a session Bexley puts at two and a half to three hours.

Progress reports can show which of those causes explains the lost marks in each strand. Steps three and four aim to make the weighted total, the number Townley's ranking rules read (top 180, Pupil Premium ranking, tie-break, further allocations), repeatable on the day.

What Do Quest and Townley Already Provide Free, and What Does a Tutor Add?

Quest, which says it is part of the education company Atom Learning, provides the four booklets, a vocabulary list headed "500 words for the 11 plus" and reading lists for Years 3 to 6. Its guidance for parents says the best preparation is steady, meaningful learning over time rather than last-minute cramming or excessive tutoring, and to think of preparation as building understanding and habits, not drilling for a test. The plan we recommend follows that: short, regular sessions.

Townley says it works in partnership with Atom Learning to give students "eligible for Pupil Premium (both girls and boys)" free online learning and 11+ exam preparation; it sets eligibility as free school meals at any point in the last six years. Townley's policy also ranks its 20 Pupil Premium places in descending standardised score order, so a score margin counts on that route too. A family that qualifies should take the offer up.

A booklet supplies questions and a key, not the reason a mark was lost. A tutor can add marking of working as well as answers, sorting of lost marks by cause, teaching of what a key cannot give (why an author included a sentence) and help with pace. A girl who already scores comfortably in the diagnostic may need little more, and the diagnostic is how to tell.

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