HOW TO GET INTO FORT STREET HIGH SCHOOL
Updated April 2020
As the oldest selective school in NSW, Fort Street high school holds a strong history of academic excellence. The school became co-educational in 1975, previously operating separately as Petersham Girls High school and Fort Street Boys high school. It is a popular school for application due to its convenient location in Sydney’s inner-west, 20 minutes from the CBD, and for its very diverse cohort – students come from backgrounds of over 40 different languages and 100 suburbs in Sydney. It is worth noting that all fully selective high schools are unzoned so parents are able to apply regardless of where they live
What is a selective school
In NSW, there are 17 fully Selective schools, 25 partially selective schools (schools with selective classes) and 4 agricultural schools. These are government funded schools in which entry is based on academic merit and is assessed through a selective schools placement exam that takes place in March the year before entry. These schools group together students with high academic potential to focus resources that may otherwise not be available to them at regular public schools.
Fort Street High school has a minimum entry score of 222 out of 300 when applying for this school. The way this is calculated is that 200 marks are allocated to the selective schools placement exam (which takes place in March the year prior to entry), and 100 marks are assessed from your child’s academic performance internally at their primary school. The actual placement test is broken down into the following components:
- 20 minutes allocated to writing
- 40 minutes each to multiple choice tests of:
– Reading (45 questions)
– Maths (40 questions)
– General Ability (60 questions)
The importance of finding a good tutor
Since entry into selective schools is so heavily reliant on this single test, it is important to find a good tutor who is able to guide your child through not only their academic obstacles, but examination skills and productive practise for this test. All our tutors at alchemy are equipped with the right resources and experience to help your child perform to the best of their ability on this day. Our unique private teaching service ensures that your child’s individual needs will be met, and we can more productively target specific weaknesses that a classroom setting may not be able to provide.
Our broad network of tutors also ensures that you will be able to find a tutor that is exactly right for your child, eventually forming a relationship that can contribute to your child’s academic confidence, and long-lasting academic success beyond preparation for the selective test itself. Since there are only a few selective schools to cover thousands of applicants, it may not be enough that your child is the smartest student within their cohort – often success in this exam requires work and practise outside the curriculum, and familiarisation with this specific style of exam. At alchemy, we acknowledge that there are many difficulties of sitting such an exam that are unrelated to the understanding of the content. That’s the power of working with a younger tutor closer to your child’s age in who they are able to better relate to, and hence can help keep your child motivated and build positive study habits that lead to sustainable success.
