Selective and scholarship families arrive in the months before the test. They want to see movement every week, they're anxious, and they're comparing you with the centre their friend uses. For most centres that turns the season into a rush: a paper test on Saturday, a stack of marking on Sunday, a spreadsheet on Monday, and a parent on Tuesday asking how it's going with nothing specific to tell them.
It doesn't have to be a rush. The practice papers you've tuned over years are already a program. What's missing is the rhythm that turns them into one: timed sets by component, accuracy tracked per component, a report to the parent every fortnight, and a plan for the family after the test. This guide is that rhythm.
- The season is short, the parents are anxious, and silence reads as nothing happening.
- Structure everything by component. Timed sets, accuracy, the report to the parent.
- Your practice papers are the centre's edge. They must not sit in a drawer and they must not leak.
- The fortnightly report to a selective parent is a number and a trend, not a reassurance.
- The test is a date. The family is a year-round enrolment if you keep reporting after it.
The shape of the season
A selective season has a beginning that's sudden and an end that's fixed. Families enrol in a cluster once the test is close enough to feel real. They want to see movement every week, because the date is coming and nothing else in their week is as clear. They're on the forums, they've heard what the other centre does, and they want numbers.
Paper can't give them that. A practice paper on Saturday, marked by Sunday night, produces one score. The parent hears the score, or doesn't, and has no way to see whether it's better than a fortnight ago or which component moved. So they fill the gap with worry.
Timed practice is the whole game in this season, and timed practice is the part that eats the tutor's week. Setting the timer, invigilating the room, marking, collating the results by question type, working out who's slipping on timing. Every hour of that is an hour not spent teaching the component the cohort is weakest on.
The selective and scholarship prep page describes the week the platform runs. The rest of this guide is the program behind it, which you can run by hand this season and on the platform next.
The tests, by state
The names, years and components differ by state. This is the general shape, with the component names as centres describe them. Dates and formats change, and the relevant education department is the source for both.
| State | Test | Sat in | Components as centres describe them |
|---|---|---|---|
| New South Wales | Opportunity Class placement test | Year 4, for Year 5 entry | Reading, mathematical reasoning, thinking skills |
| New South Wales | Selective High School Placement Test | Year 6, for Year 7 entry | Reading, mathematical reasoning, thinking skills, writing |
| Victoria | Select-entry high school exam | Year 8, for Year 9 entry | Reading, mathematics, verbal and numerical reasoning, writing |
| Victoria | SEAL programs | Year 6, for Year 7 entry | School-run selection, often with a test |
| Western Australia | GATE selective entrance | Year 6, for Year 7 entry | Reading comprehension, quantitative reasoning, abstract reasoning, writing |
| South Australia | Ignite program entry | Year 6, for Year 7 entry | School-run selective testing |
| Queensland | Queensland Academies entry | Year 6, for Year 7 entry | Testing and application |
| All states | Independent school scholarships | Years 5 to 8 typically | ACER, Edutest style and school-run papers |
Two things follow from the table. In New South Wales the OC test in Year 4 is often the first step toward Selective in Year 6, so a family can be with you for three years across two seasons. In Victoria the select-entry exam is a Year 8 event with preparation through Year 7 and 8, which is a longer runway than most states and a different kind of program. The New South Wales and Victoria pages have the calendar shape for each.
Whatever the state, the structure is the same: a small number of named components, each with its own practice material and its own accuracy.
Build the program around timed sets by component
The unit of a selective program is a timed set for one component. A reading set, on the clock. A mathematical reasoning set, on the clock. Not a whole paper every time, because a whole paper produces one number and hides which component moved.
Here's the weekly rhythm that holds up.
| When | What | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Saturday, after class | Assign a timed reasoning set and a reading set from your papers, due Wednesday | Two components, two numbers, mid-week deadline |
| Sunday to Wednesday | Students sit both sets timed, at home | The six days between sessions become practice under conditions |
| Thursday | Look at accuracy by component across the cohort, and at who's slipping on timing | This is next Saturday's lesson, decided before you walk in |
| Saturday | Teach the weakest component. Assign the next two sets | The loop closes |
| Every second Friday | Parent report: accuracy by component, trend since enrolment, what's next | The anxious parent gets a number instead of silence |
By hand, the timing is a kitchen timer and an honest child, and the accuracy by component is a column in a spreadsheet per student. It's real work for a cohort of twenty. It's still the right structure.
On the platform, a timed set from your material runs on the clock on the student's phone. You set the duration per component, lock the order if you want, and the results come back by question type as soon as they submit. Every question is marked against your key, with a worked solution drawn from your paper, and a student stuck on a question type gets a worked example from your material rather than closing the book. The instant marking page has the detail.
Accuracy by component is the number everyone wants
The tutor wants it on Thursday to plan Saturday. The parent wants it on Friday to stop worrying. The student wants it to know what to practise. It's the same number, and a selective program that tracks it per component is a program. One that tracks whole-paper scores is a rush with a spreadsheet.
| Student | Fractions | Ratios | Percentages | Area | Word problems | Set 3 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Priya S. | done | |||||
| Liam T. | done | |||||
| Mei W. | done | |||||
| Aarav K. | done | |||||
| Chloe N. | done | |||||
| Daniel P. | done | |||||
| Zoe R. | done | |||||
| Ethan L. | not started | |||||
| Hannah M. | done | |||||
| Noah B. | done | |||||
| Isla C. | done | |||||
| Arjun D. | done |
The tutor view is a grid: students down the side, components across the top, each cell coloured by how they went. One glance shows the component most of the cohort missed and the two students whose timing is falling apart. Click a cell to see the student's actual answers and how many hints they used. Click a component to see the questions the cohort got wrong most, with your paper beside them.
The owner sees every cohort and every tutor. Year 6 Selective on Tuesday and Year 6 Selective on Saturday, taught by different tutors from the same papers, side by side. If one cohort's reading accuracy is moving and the other's isn't, that's a conversation about teaching, and you can have it in week three instead of after the test. The tutor dashboard page shows both views.
Your practice papers are the edge, and they must not leak
Ask a selective centre what it sells and the honest answer is the papers. Years of practice sets tuned to the test, in a sequence that works, refined every season by what the last cohort got wrong. That's the reason a family chooses you over the centre their friend uses.
Two things are true about those papers at once. They must not sit in a drawer, because a paper in a drawer isn't working between Saturdays. And they must not leak, because a paper that leaks is a paper the centre down the road is teaching from next season.
Every platform will promise that other customers can't see your papers. For a selective centre the promise has to be specific and in writing. On this platform your centre's space is isolated from every other centre's, hosted in Australia, and your papers are never shared with or reused for anyone else, not by permission, not by accident. We claim no rights to them, never reuse them, never redistribute them, and never train on them. Nothing downloads out of the platform, by anyone. The security and ownership page has it in full.
The other side of leaking is the student. A timed set sat on a phone at home is a set a student could screenshot. That's true of a paper in a bag too, and the practical defence is the same: many sets, rotated, so that no single set is the program. A student who has seen one reading set has seen one reading set. The sequence is the edge, and the sequence stays with you.
The fortnightly report to an anxious parent
An anxious parent asks the same three questions every week. Is it working? Is she behind? What are you doing about it? The fortnightly report answers all three with numbers, and it's the thing that turns the forum comparison into a conversation about this child.
| The parent asks | The report says |
|---|---|
| Is it working? | Accuracy by component this fortnight, against the last. Reading 6 in 10 to 7 in 10. Reasoning steady at 5 in 10. |
| Is she behind? | The trend since enrolment, per component. Not a rank. Never a rank against other students. |
| What are you doing about it? | What's next before test day. "Two reasoning sets this fortnight. Saturday's lesson is on the question type she's missing." |
| Anything else? | Two sentences from the tutor about this child. Signed. |
Never compare the child with the cohort in a report, even when it would flatter. A parent who's told their child is above the cohort tells the other parents, and now every parent wants a rank, and the report stops being about progress.
Keep the report to what improved, in the language of the components. "Thinking skills went from 5 in 10 to 7 in 10, and the questions she's still missing are the ones we'll do on Saturday." That's a sentence a parent can repeat at the school gate, and it's the sentence that stops them ringing the other centre.
By hand, this is the parent report template with the components as the topics. On the platform it's built from the sets the student actually sat: accuracy by component, trend since enrolment, what's next, with your logo, from your address, every second Friday. You can review each one before it sends or let a cohort go automatically.
The writing component
Reading and reasoning mark themselves, against your key, the moment a student submits. Writing doesn't, and it shouldn't.
On paper, writing is the component that gets marked last, because it takes longest and the reasoning results are more urgent. So the parent hears about reasoning and nothing about writing until the week before the test.
On the platform the student writes the piece on their phone or laptop, against your prompt, on the clock if you set one. The tutor marks it against your criteria with a suggested band to speed up the first read, and the tutor's mark is the one that counts. That mark flows into the parent report next to the other components, so writing gets reported every fortnight like everything else. The judgement stays with a person who knows the student. What changes is that it happens in the same week as the rest.
After the test: from a selective family to a year-round family
The test is a date. The family is an enrolment, and the question is what happens to it the week after.
For most centres, the selective family leaves. The test is done, the reason for enrolling is gone, and nothing in the relationship suggests a next thing. Whatever the result.
It doesn't have to go that way, and the fortnightly report is what changes it. A parent who has seen a term of reports showing accuracy by component moving has seen something that has nothing to do with the test: their child getting measurably better at reading, at reasoning, at writing under time. That's worth keeping whether the offer letter comes or not.
So the report keeps going after the test, and the one after the test names what's next. For the family with an offer, it's the Year 7 program and the six days between sessions in a new school. For the family without one, it's the same skills, the same sets, and a Year 7 program that isn't about a test at all. In New South Wales, the OC family in Year 4 is a Selective family in Year 6 if you keep them for the two years in between, and the report is how you do that.
The Term 4 retention playbook has the timeline for the re-enrolment conversation. For a selective cohort, the same conversation happens in the fortnight after the test, and it starts with the report you were going to send anyway.
The season by hand and on the platform
Everything above can be run by hand this season, and if the test is close, it should be. The structure is what matters: sets by component, accuracy by component, a report every second Friday. Here's what the hours look like each way, for a cohort of twenty.
| Task | By hand | On the platform |
|---|---|---|
| Timed sets, two per week | Print, time, collect. Depends on the child's honesty with a timer. | Assigned Saturday in three clicks. On the clock on their phones. |
| Marking reading and reasoning | Sunday. Forty sets. | Marked the moment they submit, against your key. |
| Accuracy by component | A spreadsheet, kept up by the tutor. | The heatmap, on Thursday, without anyone compiling it. |
| Writing | Marked when there's time, often the following week. | Tutor marks against your criteria with a suggested band. Same week. |
| Parent report | The template, five minutes per student, every second Friday. | Built from the sets sat. Review or auto-send. Your logo, your address. |
| After the test | Whoever remembers to call. | The report keeps going. What's next is named. |
The program is the same in both columns. The Sunday comes out of the second one.
This week
Pick one cohort. Write the components for their test across the top of a page and the students down the side. Fill in accuracy per component from the last set they sat, if you have it. If you don't, that's the first finding: the sets are going out and coming back and nobody is recording what they showed by component.
Then assign two timed sets, one component each, due Wednesday. On Thursday fill in the grid. On Friday send each parent one page with the numbers by component and what Saturday's lesson will target. Sign it.
Do that twice and you'll have a trend. Do it all season and you'll have a program, and a cohort of families with a reason to stay after the test.