Parent guide

GATE Preparation Classes in Perth: What Parents Should Know Before Enrolling

An honest guide to in-person GATE classes in Perth, what makes our Rossmoyne SHS program different, and how to choose the right approach for your Year 4 or Year 5 child.

Who these GATE classes are for

Our in-person classes are designed for Year 4 and Year 5 students in Perth who are preparing to sit the WA GATE entrance exam, also known as the Academic Selective Entrance Test (ASET). The test runs every March and decides admission to all selective high school programs in Western Australia. Parents enrol with us when they want structured weekend preparation that goes beyond standard primary school work, taught in a small group setting at a real Perth high school.

Year 5 is the most common entry point because the GATE exam sits in March of Year 6, meaning a Year 5 student is roughly 9 to 14 months away when they enrol with us. Year 4 students are also welcome and tend to make the most progress because they have twice the runway. The curriculum is the same across both years; we adjust pace and difficulty to match where each student is.

Selective schools we prepare students for

Our class material is calibrated for the cut-off scores at every WA selective program, not just the most competitive. Students who sit with us have gone on to receive offers at:

  • Perth Modern School: the only fully academically selective public school in WA, located in Subiaco. Highest GATE cut-off in the state.
  • Rossmoyne Senior High School: GATE Languages program (Japanese immersion), one of the top non-fully-selective destinations in Perth.
  • Willetton Senior High School: GATE Academic program, very strong in maths and science.
  • Shenton College: GATE Music and GATE Academic programs in inner-west Perth.
  • Mount Lawley Senior High School: GATE Visual and Performing Arts plus Academic.
  • Como Secondary College: GATE Academic, strong destination for south-of-river families.
  • Belridge Secondary College, Kelmscott SHS, Applecross SHS, Cyril Jackson Senior Campus: other GATE program destinations.

In 2025, 106 of our students passed the GATE exam and 49 of those received Perth Modern offers, meaning roughly 1 in 4 Perth Modern offers in WA came through AsetPrep. We were Western Australia's highest-volume GATE pass-through provider that year.

Why we teach at Rossmoyne SHS

We hold every in-person class at Rossmoyne Senior High School in the southern Perth suburb of Rossmoyne. The venue choice is deliberate. Rossmoyne SHS is one of the GATE program schools, so the building itself is a quiet reminder of what students are working towards. It also sits at a geographic sweet spot for our catchment: within 15 minutes by car from Bull Creek, Willetton, Canning Vale, Riverton, Applecross, Mount Pleasant, Booragoon and South Perth, and roughly 25 minutes from Perth CBD and the inner-west. We have suburb-specific guides for parents driving from:

Parking is straightforward on weekends with ample free street parking around Keith Road and Central Road. The classroom entrance and parent pickup points are shared in the enrolment confirmation email and the parent group chat.

What's actually covered each weekend

Each weekend session is a 3-hour block: Maths (Quantitative Reasoning + Abstract Reasoning) for the first 90 minutes, then English (Reading Comprehension + Written Expression) for the next 90 minutes. Parents can enrol in just one subject ($320 for the term) or both ($640 for the term). We keep them back-to-back so families don't have to make two trips.

The 10-week Term 3 curriculum was built collaboratively with two senior Perth Modern School teachers who have marked GATE papers professionally. Every week introduces a question pattern, drills it with hand-crafted examples, and ends with a timed Core Practice set that mirrors real GATE difficulty. Students leave with a printed take-home workbook each week; currently 9 weeks of materials are already in print, with Week 10 sealing the term.

Between classes, every enrolled student gets a free AsetPrep Premium online subscription (normally $299 per term) covering 3,500+ practice questions, 10+ mock exams, and on-demand video lessons. So Saturday/Sunday is small-group in-person teaching, and Monday-Friday is independent at-home practice on the platform.

How we compare to other GATE tutoring options in Perth

Most families in Perth have three real options for GATE preparation:

  • Private one-on-one tutoring: typically $80 to $120 per hour. Personalised but expensive (often $300 to $480 a month), and you're relying on one tutor's question bank.
  • Group coaching centres: typically $40 to $80 per weekly class, sometimes in classes of 20 to 30. Affordable but the one-size-fits-all pacing struggles with mixed-ability rooms.
  • AsetPrep: $32 per class for one subject (or $32 per subject per class for both), capped at a small group, with a full online platform thrown in. The hybrid is the point: you get a teacher who knows your child by name on weekends, and 3,500+ questions to drill any gap during the week.

We've written a longer comparison in our GATE Tutoring in Perth guide if you want to weigh the trade-offs in detail.

Before you enrol, sit our Free GATE Mock Exam

If you're still deciding whether structured classes are the right fit, the cleanest test is a properly run mock. We're hosting a Free GATE Mock Exam at Rossmoyne SHS across four weekends in July: full-length, properly timed, marked the same way we mark the in-class mocks. Detailed section-by-section results are emailed back within 3 days. Year 4 and Year 5 students. No payment, no catch.

Further reading

Ready to enrol your child?

Term 3 spots are filling. Lock in a Saturday or Sunday class at Rossmoyne SHS now.

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