Most WA public secondary schools with a Gifted and Talented program take a mix of students. Some enter through the Academic Selective Entrance Test, the ASET, which parents still call the GATE test. The rest enter through the local intake. Perth Modern School is the one exception. It is the only school in WA where every student is selected through the ASET, and it offers up to 225 Year 7 places each year.
That changes what a family is aiming at:
There is no local intake fallback. A child either qualifies through the test or does not attend.
Places are capped at 225 for the state, and academic offers are ranked on the Total Standard Score.
This page is about preparing for that target. For the exam section by section, read our guide to the GATE exam in WA. For both Perth venues, see GATE tutoring in Perth.
The route is the same ASET process as every other GATE academic program, across three school years.
Year 5: applications open in October and close in February of the child’s Year 6 year.
Year 6: the ASET is sat in March. Four sub-tests of equal value: Reading Comprehension, Communicating Ideas in Writing, Quantitative Reasoning and Abstract Reasoning.
Late May or early June: the Department emails a performance report with the four sub-test scores and a Total Standard Score, the TSS.
Offers are ranked on TSS and made in two rounds, then from the reserve list. Placement starts in Year 7.
Two points catch families out. The test is not curriculum-based, so a child who tops Year 5 maths has no automatic edge in Quantitative Reasoning and, in our experience, almost none in Abstract Reasoning, which primary schools rarely teach. And a child cannot sit the testing for the same intake more than once. One attempt at Perth Modern is why we take students in Year 4 and Year 5, not the term before the test.
The Department publishes a minimum entrance score for each school for each year from 2019 to 2025. The figures below come straight from that table, and they always travel with the Department’s own warning attached, because a past minimum quoted out of context does a family more harm than good.
What the table can tell you:
Perth Modern has had the highest minimum entrance score of any academic program in every year the Department has published, 2019 to 2025. In 2025 it was 244.34, against a general academic minimum of 210. It is the hardest academic offer in WA to secure. Read those numbers the way the Department asks you to: the previous minimum is not the round 1 cut-off, it is the lowest score that still received an offer by the time the reserve list closed that December, and it can differ a lot from one year to the next.
The cut-off is simply the TSS of the last applicant offered a place. The cohort sets it, not the Department in advance.
Scores are standardised against each year’s cohort, not percentages, so one year’s minimum does not translate cleanly to the next.
What it cannot tell you:
Where next year’s cut-off will land.
Whether your child is on track. A practice score is not a TSS and cannot be read against the table.
How much margin is safe. Clearing last year’s minimum is aiming at a moving target.
Do not prepare for a number. Prepare so that all four sub-tests are strong, because they are summed and one weak section drags the TSS down whatever the other three do. Then sit a free GATE mock exam in Perth to see how your child performs under timed conditions.
Our Friday GATE class is held at Perth Modern School, so students spend two hours a week preparing in the building they are aiming for. It is the only weekday class we run.
Friday 4:30pm to 6:30pm, 10 weeks, starting Friday 16 October 2026.
Year 4 and Year 5 students together in one small group.
Average ratio of 5 students to 1 tutor, with two tutors in the room.
Led personally by Sagar every week, with a support tutor alongside him.
What a term looks like:
Each question type is taught as a method first, then practised, then run under the clock, so an unfamiliar question is not a guess.
All four sub-tests are covered, including the hand-written Communicating Ideas in Writing task, marked by a person.
Weekly homework, set and marked, so the work carries through to the next Friday.
One full practice exam during the term, sat under timed conditions.
The ELG learning platform between classes, with more GATE practice questions sorted by section.
Friday after school suits a family whose weekend is already full. A younger sibling in Year 3 or 4 can attend the Year 3 and 4 NAPLAN and foundations class at the same venue, Friday 4:30pm to 6:00pm. If a weekend suits better, the same GATE class runs four times at Leeming Senior High School.
Same three prices as every ELG GATE class.
TERM 4 FEES
per term
pay by Fri 2 Oct 2026
both families pay $500
$600 is the standard price for the 10 week term.
$550 applies if you pay by Friday 2 October 2026.
$500 applies when you enrol with a friend. Both families pay $500.
Sagar Badve leads every GATE class himself. He is a former Head Boy of Perth Modern School, so he knows the school his students are working towards from the inside, and he has spent 10 years teaching this exam.
500+ students tutored.
Hundreds of students over the last ten years have gone on to selective school programs.
State champion debater and national public speaking winner.
Real reviews are on the ELG Tutoring Google listing. One parent has let us share this:
Her son secured a place at Perth Modern.
A. Chen’s son scored near the top in three of four ASET sections and secured a Perth Modern placement.
AC
A. Chen
Parent · Dalkeith
Pay by Friday 2 October 2026 for the $550 early bird price, or enrol with a friend and both families pay $500.
Not ready to enrol? Download the free sample ASET questions, sit your child down with a timer, and see which section feels foreign.
Questions before you enrol? Call or text 0480 887 564, or email support@elgtutoring.com.
ELG Tutoring, formerly ASET Expert. Helping students prepare for the ASET, GATE and NAPLAN exams with proven strategies and expert mentorship.
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