Key Facts
| School type | State grammar (academy), selective, boys 11 to 16 with a co-educational sixth form |
|---|---|
| Location | Boston, Lincolnshire |
| Entry points | 11+ (Year 7); in-year entry considered for Years 7 to 11 where places exist below the admission number |
| Assessment | Lincolnshire Consortium of Grammar Schools 11+ (GL Assessment): Verbal Reasoning and Non-Verbal Reasoning/Spatial Awareness, multiple-choice, OMR sheets, qualifying score 220 |
| Test provider | GL Assessment |
| Registration deadline | Registration for the Lincolnshire Consortium 11+ testing opens in early January and closes at the end of March, with registration forms returned to the individual grammar school |
| Assessment date | Verbal Reasoning is sat on a Friday or Saturday in mid-September, with Non-Verbal Reasoning and Spatial Awareness the following Friday or Saturday; results are emailed to parents at midday and to primary schools that afternoon in early October |
Figures correct at the time of writing. Confirm current fees and deadlines with the school or university directly.
Getting into Boston Grammar School at 11+ means a boy sitting the Lincolnshire Consortium of Grammar Schools 11+ test, reaching the qualifying standard, and then naming the school on the family's secondary transfer application to Lincolnshire County Council. The school is a selective academy for boys aged 11 to 16, with a co-educational sixth form, and it admits 120 boys into Year 7 each year through this route.
The test itself, set by GL Assessment, covers Verbal Reasoning and Non-Verbal Reasoning with Spatial Awareness, taken in the autumn term of Year 6. There is no fixed catchment area named on the school's own admissions page; places go to boys who reach the qualifying score, with oversubscription resolved first by looked-after child status, then siblings, then straight-line distance from the school.
How entry works at the school
The main entry point is Year 7 at age 11, with an admission number of 120 boys for each intake. A smaller number of places also open up through in-year entry to Years 7 to 11 where the school has spaces below its published admission number for that year group, including for boys who have already qualified for a place at another Lincolnshire grammar school and wish to transfer.
Selection for the 11+ route is governed by the Lincolnshire Consortium of Grammar Schools, which all the county's grammar schools use for Year 7 transfer; the school's own admissions policy states that results are rank ordered to identify the top 25% of the local cohort, in line with intake targets set across Lincolnshire's grammar schools.
- Year 7 admission number: 120 boys
- Sixth form: co-educational, separate entry requirements apply
- In-year entry: assessed against the same top 25% standard where a place is unfilled below the admission number
How the 11+ assessment works
The 11+ used for entry to Boston Grammar School is set and marked by GL Assessment on behalf of the Lincolnshire Consortium of Grammar Schools. Boys sit two papers: a Verbal Reasoning test and a Non-Verbal Reasoning and Spatial Awareness test, each taken on a Friday or Saturday roughly a week apart in September of Year 6.
Both papers are multiple choice, with answers shaded onto an Optical Mark Reading sheet for each question. Each test includes a short practice section beforehand so boys know the question format before the timed section begins; these practice answers are not marked. Boys sit the tests either at their own primary school or at a grammar school, depending on local arrangements in their area of Lincolnshire.
Raw scores are age-standardised, so a boy born in the summer is not disadvantaged against one born in the previous autumn, and the two standardised scores are combined into a single figure. The Consortium sets the qualifying level at a combined score of 220, calibrated to identify the most able 25% of the age group across Lincolnshire's selective areas. Reaching 220 does not by itself guarantee a place at any particular school if that school is oversubscribed.
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Registration for the Consortium's 11+ testing opens while a child is in Year 5, with forms returned direct to the grammar school. The school and Consortium publish familiarisation materials to feeder primary schools ahead of the test window, and results are emailed to parents at midday on the same day results go to primary schools.
After results, parents complete Lincolnshire County Council's secondary transfer common application form, naming up to three secondary school preferences; a grammar school can only be offered if a boy has reached the qualifying score and the school is named on this form. The Local Authority allocates places on National Offer Day in March, with the school sending its own follow-up letter or email shortly after.
- Register for the 11+ test (while in Year 5, direct to the school)
- Sit Verbal Reasoning, then Non-Verbal Reasoning/Spatial Awareness (Year 6, September)
- Results emailed to parents and primary schools (early October)
- Submit the Local Authority common application form naming preferences (autumn term)
- Local Authority allocates places on National Offer Day (spring term)
- School confirms the offer by letter or email
Oversubscription criteria and appeals
The school's admissions page does not name a catchment or priority area; any boy who reaches the qualifying standard may apply regardless of where he lives. Where more boys reach the standard than there are places, the school's published order of priority applies after admitting children with an Education, Health and Care Plan naming the school.
The order runs: Looked After Children and previously looked after children, then siblings of pupils already at the school, then straight-line distance from home to school calculated to three decimal places. Where this distance measure cannot separate two applicants for the final place, the tie is settled by an independently drawn lottery.
Parents whose son does not reach the qualifying score, or who miss out through oversubscription, can appeal to an independent panel. Appeals for non-qualification focus on evidence that a boy has the ability to benefit from a grammar school education despite the test score, drawing on teacher assessment, school reports and any mitigating circumstances such as illness or an EHCP.
- 1. Children with an EHC Plan naming the school
- 2. Looked After and previously Looked After Children
- 3. Siblings already attending the school
- 4. Straight-line distance from home to school
- 5. Lottery, drawn independently, as a final tie-break
How to prepare for the school's 11+
The school describes the papers as testing cognitive skills, covering lateral thinking, codes and patterns, symmetry, rotation, word construction and vocabulary, and states that this is distinct from curriculum content; its own guidance is that there is nothing a boy can directly revise in the way he would for a school subject.
Useful preparation is familiarity with the format: GL Assessment publishes free familiarisation materials, and commercial multiple-choice practice packs are available for both Verbal Reasoning and Non-Verbal Reasoning, sold separately from the standard-format versions used by some other test boards. The Consortium's own guidance to parents is that extensive additional preparation beyond this familiarisation is unnecessary and may not be helpful.
Families eligible for Pupil Premium can access free online 11+ preparation through the school's partnership with Atom Learning; other families can use a trial period on the same platform or GL Assessment's own free practice materials. Because both papers are timed and multiple choice, practising against the clock and getting comfortable with an OMR answer sheet is more useful than trying to cover extra content.
Fees, bursaries and additional costs
The school is a state-funded academy, so there is no tuition fee for a Year 7 place gained through the 11+. The school's published financial support for pupils, including its Pupil Premium provision, is aimed at existing pupils and prospective Pupil Premium-eligible 11+ candidates; general fee remission does not apply, since no fees are charged.
Separate scholarship and bursary arrangements exist for sixth form entry, but these sit outside the 11+ admissions route covered here and apply to a different age group and application process.
Related guides
Preparing for the Boston Grammar School 11+ with Taylor Tuition
Families preparing for the Boston Grammar School 11+ usually come to us a year or so before the assessment, though shorter runs work where the foundations are already sound. Having prepared pupils for entry to leading independent and grammar schools, with placements including Westminster, St Paul's, Wycombe Abbey and Eton, our tutors build each programme around the format the school actually uses, whether a written paper, an online pre-test, an interview or a combination of them.
More than half of our tutors hold Qualified Teacher Status and around three in five hold a master's degree or doctorate, and the pool includes former heads of department, exam-board examiners and teachers from independent and boarding schools, so the preparation is led by people who know how selective schools assess. Every tutor who works with children holds an enhanced DBS check.
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Frequently asked questions
- Is there a catchment area for Boston Grammar School?
- No catchment or priority area is named on the school's admissions page. Any boy who reaches the Lincolnshire Consortium's qualifying score of 220 may apply for a place regardless of where the family lives; if the school is oversubscribed, places are allocated after looked-after children and siblings using straight-line distance from home to school as a tie-breaker.
- What is the pass mark for the Boston Grammar School 11+?
- The qualifying level set by the Lincolnshire Consortium of Grammar Schools is a combined standardised score of at least 220 across the Verbal Reasoning and Non-Verbal Reasoning/Spatial Awareness papers. This threshold is calibrated to identify roughly the most able 25% of the age group in Lincolnshire's selective areas, though reaching it does not guarantee a place if the school is oversubscribed.
- Can a girl apply to Boston Grammar School at 11+?
- The Year 7 intake at Boston Grammar School is for boys; the school's own admissions and appeals pages refer throughout to 'your son'. Its sixth form, entered separately at 16+, is co-educational.
- What happens if my son doesn't reach the qualifying score?
- He has the right to appeal to an independent panel. Non-qualification appeals rely on evidence that he has the ability to benefit from a grammar school education despite the score, such as teacher assessment, school reports, reading age data or mitigating circumstances like illness, anxiety or an EHCP; the school's clerk handles appeal forms and enquiries.
- Can my son sit the test at more than one Lincolnshire grammar school?
- No. The Consortium's selection tests can only be taken once in the academic year, but the testing process is separate from the admissions procedure, so a qualifying score can be used to apply to a different grammar school from the one where the test was sat.
- What if we move into the area after the test window has closed?
- The Consortium's guidance is that a child can still be considered; parents should contact the relevant grammar school directly to arrange late testing, and must make sure the Local Authority admissions team is aware of the family's circumstances.
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