Bishop Vesey's & Sutton Coldfield 11+ — preparation guide

Bishop Vesey's Grammar School (boys) and Sutton Coldfield Grammar School for Girls run their entry through the Sutton Coldfield 11+ test. The format is similar to other West Midlands grammars but with its own quirks worth knowing.

Test format

Papers cover English, Maths, Verbal Reasoning and Non-Verbal Reasoning, sat as a single GL Assessment in September of Year 6. Scores are age-standardised across the four papers and combined to a total used for ranking.

Catchment and oversubscription

Both Sutton grammars apply distance-based tiebreaks once children qualify. That means catchment within Sutton Coldfield matters as much as the qualifying score. Check the latest distance cut-off published in the previous year's admissions report before pinning hopes on any specific school.

How to prepare

Year 5 is the right starting point for most children. A typical plan: one structured tutoring session per week, 20–30 minutes of self-led practice on alternate days, full mock papers from January of Year 6. See our full preparation timeline for the year-by-year breakdown.

Sutton Coldfield's tests are slightly more arithmetic-heavy than King Edward's Birmingham consortium, so polishing mental maths in Year 5 pays off.