Essex 11+ · Consortium of Selective Schools in Essex
Raw Score Calculator
Start from the score a school requires and work backwards. Enter a target standardised score and a date of birth, and this shows the raw marks needed across the two papers — including every combination that gets there, since a stronger English paper lowers what Maths has to carry.
Your target
Score to reachPick a school, or type your own target. Add a date of birth so the age allowance is taken into account. The marks needed update as you type.
303 is the CSSE minimum. School figures are the score of the last selective place offered for 2025 entry — guidance only, not pass marks.
Day zero is taken as 1 September of that academic year, so the age allowance applies whichever cohort's figures are loaded.
Every figure below comes from CSSE's published standardisation report for the selected entry year. Where that year's report applied no age adjustment to a paper, its toggle is switched off.
English paper
Maths paper
Scale
Enter a date of birth
Marks needed — evenly balanced
English
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Maths
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Enter a target to calculate
These are the marks required if the two papers are equally strong relative to the cohort. Any combination on the chart below reaches the same total.
Enter a reachable target to see the combinations.
Drag the dot along the line, or use the arrow keys, to see equivalent splits.
| If English is | Maths needs to be | % needed (Eng / Maths) |
|---|---|---|
| No combination on these papers reaches that score. | ||
Read the full explainer: How the CSSE standardised score is actually calculated
The exact formula
Sum needed = target ÷ 1.5
Earned = Sum needed − (days younger × age uplift per day, both papers)
ztotal = (Earned − 2 × 100) ÷ 15
rawpaper = mean + (ztotal ÷ 2) × SD
This is the standardisation run backwards. The even split is one solution — any pair on the trade-off line reaches the same total.
1 — Undo the multiplier
2 — Take off the age uplift
3 — Convert back to raw marks
Common questions
Because the two papers spread candidates out differently. In the year loaded here, English marks were tightly bunched and Maths marks were widely spread, so it takes fewer marks above the average in English to stand out by the same amount.
The headline pair is the evenly balanced answer: both papers equally strong relative to everyone else, which is not the same as equal raw marks. That is usually the most realistic target, since it doesn't assume a child is markedly stronger in one subject.
Yes, and the chart shows exactly how much. Every point on the line reaches the same total, so a mark gained in one paper buys a reduction in the other.
The exchange rate is set by the two standard deviations. On the loaded figures, one English mark is worth about 1.4 Maths marks — so trading is real but limited. A steep enough imbalance runs off the end of the paper, which is where the line stops.
The forward calculation is:
total = 1.5 × [(Maths + Maths uplift) + (English + English uplift)]
Running it backwards divides the target by the multiplier, subtracts the age uplift, and converts what's left into raw marks:
raw = mean + SD × ((standardised − 100) ÷ 15)
One equation with two unknowns has no single answer, which is why the result is a line of combinations rather than one pair of marks.
Treat it as a guide, not a goal line. The marks it produces depend entirely on the mean and spread loaded in the settings, and those belong to one particular year's paper. A harder paper the following year moves every number here.
School qualifying scores move too, since they depend on who applied that year. Aim comfortably above a target rather than exactly at it.
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Advanced settings
School benchmarks — 2025 entry figures
Update these after each National Offer Day in March, from the Historical Guidance Sheet published under the Freedom of Information tab at csse.org.uk. Each figure is the score of the last selective place offered that year — not a pass mark, and not a guarantee.