Bromley Grammar Schools: Newstead Wood, St Olave's and Entry

Bromley, in south-east London, retains two state grammar schools, both sited in Orpington towards the edge of the borough and both drawing applicants from well beyond it, including families across south London and into north Kent. Newstead Wood School selects girls only at Year 7, while boys join St Olave's and St Saviour's Grammar School; each school sets and marks its own entrance test, unlike the shared county-wide paper used further into Kent.

Because both schools are heavily oversubscribed, meeting the qualifying standard in the entrance test opens the possibility of a place without settling it; the final rank order, applied once every test has been marked, decides who is actually offered one. The process runs on two separate tracks each year: a school-specific registration to sit the entrance test, completed well ahead of the test itself, and the usual coordinated secondary application submitted to the family's home local authority by the national closing date.

The two grammar schools serving Bromley

Bromley's state grammar provision consists of two single-sex schools, both in Orpington. Newstead Wood's sixth form is co-educational, though its Year 7 intake remains girls-only.

• Newstead Wood School (Orpington): a girls' grammar school at Year 7.
• St Olave's and St Saviour's Grammar School (Orpington): a boys' grammar school with a Church of England foundation.

Newstead Wood's selection test

Newstead Wood sets its own Selection Test, with marking and age-standardisation carried out by an independent external company appointed for that purpose. Registration runs through the school's online Supplementary Information Form, open for a few weeks from the start of May, in the summer term of Year 5. The test itself follows at the very end of September, just after the girl has started Year 6, with results emailed to parents in the second half of October, ahead of the national closing date for the common application form.

• The test consists of two multiple-choice papers, Verbal Reasoning and Non-Verbal Reasoning, sat over two consecutive days in one testing round.
• The qualifying required standard is a score of 210 marks, lowered only if that level would leave the school's places unfilled.
• Where scores tie, the Non-Verbal Reasoning paper is used to separate candidates.
• Girls may sit the test once only, and there is no interview stage.

St Olave's two-stage Selective Eligibility Test

St Olave's runs its own two-stage process, starting with the Selective Eligibility Test, an hour-long, multiple-choice paper covering Logic (Verbal and Non-Verbal Reasoning), Mathematics and English. Registration runs through a school Supplementary Information Form, due by the end of June in the summer term of Year 5, earlier than the closing date for the local authority's own application. Only the top 450 boys by test rank are invited back to sit Stage 2 papers in English and Mathematics before the end of the autumn term. The two sets of scores are standardised and combined into a final ranking, with Stage 1 results emailed to parents in October, before half term.

• Stage 1 is marked purely by rank order; only the top 450 boys progress to Stage 2.
• Stage 2 comprises separate English and Mathematics papers, sat before the end of the autumn term.
• Where aggregate scores tie, places are decided first by the Mathematics paper, then creative writing, then the English multiple-choice section, then the Stage 1 test, and finally by an independent random-number draw.
• Boys may sit the Stage 1 test once only. Those who do not sit it are still ranked, placed behind everyone who did sit it.

Registering for the test and applying for a place

Bromley operates within the pan-London coordinated admissions scheme, so families follow two distinct steps. Each grammar school's Supplementary Information Form registers a candidate to sit its test; it is not itself an application for a place, and each school sets its own June deadline for it, well before the local authority process opens. The family's home local authority, which need not be Bromley, then issues the common application form, on which every preferred school must be listed in true order of preference; this closes on the national closing date of 31 October. Bromley confirms every family's allocated secondary place on the national offer day of 1 March.

• A missed Supplementary Information Form deadline cannot be made up; both schools state plainly that late registrations for the test are not accepted.
• Naming a higher-preference school above a Bromley grammar school on the common application form means that school's offer takes precedence, regardless of the grammar school's test result.
• Test results from both schools reach parents before the national closing date, so families can judge whether naming the school is realistic before the form is due.

Catchment, priority and Pupil Premium places

Newstead Wood defines a catchment area of its own: any permanent home address within a 9-mile straight-line radius of the school, measured by the local authority from the property's national grid reference to the school's main entrance. After places for pupils with an Education, Health and Care Plan naming the school, priority runs first to current or previously looked-after children scoring at or above the required standard, then to Pupil Premium or Service Premium girls living within that 9-mile catchment who also meet the required standard, then to the remaining catchment girls in rank order, and only then, given how oversubscribed the school is, to girls living beyond the 9-mile radius.

St Olave's admissions policy sets no catchment area or distance-based priority at all. After EHC-plan places, priority goes to looked-after and previously looked-after boys, then to up to 10 places for boys in receipt of Pupil Premium, ranked among themselves, with all remaining places allocated by rank order regardless of where a boy lives. St Olave's separately offers up to four Year 7 places, in addition to its usual intake, through a Choristership scheme tied to the King's Chapel of the Savoy, advertised each year in the winter before entry.

• Newstead Wood: catchment set at a 9-mile radius, with Pupil Premium priority only applying inside that radius.
• St Olave's: no catchment area, so boys from Kent, Bexley or further afield compete on the same rank order as Bromley residents.
• Both schools admit pupils with an Education, Health and Care Plan naming the school ahead of the general rank order.

Allocation and appeals

Once the tests are marked, each school passes the local authority a strict rank-order list, and offers follow parental preference under the coordinated scheme: naming a higher-preference school that can offer a place results in that offer regardless of a child's grammar school test score, while a grammar school named as top preference but unable to offer a place leads to an offer at the next preferred school the child qualifies for. Newstead Wood maintains a ranked waiting list from national offer day until the end of December, admitting the next-ranked girl whenever the Year 7 roll falls below the school's admission number.

Families unsuccessful at either school can appeal to an independent panel. Newstead Wood makes its appeal form available from national offer day; St Olave's asks parents to write to the Clerk to the Independent Appeal Panel, via the school, to request one.

• Waiting lists are ranked, not first-come first-served, and are reordered whenever a late or in-year application is added.
• Appeals are heard by a panel independent of the school's own governors in both cases.

Preparing for the tests

Both schools point families toward their own specimen materials, since neither test is published externally in the way some county-wide 11-plus papers are, and no shared bank of past papers exists. Newstead Wood sells a short specimen paper illustrating its Verbal and Non-Verbal Reasoning question types, and offers girls in receipt of Pupil Premium or Service Premium funding, along with looked-after and previously looked-after children, around ten hours of familiarisation material developed by the Grammar School Heads Association. St Olave's entrance test information page similarly publishes sample question papers and example answer sheets covering both the Stage 1 test and the Stage 2 English and Mathematics papers.

Familiarity with the question format tends to matter alongside subject revision, since both tests combine reasoning papers with curriculum-based English and, at St Olave's, Mathematics. Steady, low-key practice with timed, multiple-choice reasoning material across Year 5 usually builds the confidence that helps on the day itself.

• Newstead Wood's familiarisation package is aimed specifically at Pupil Premium, Service Premium and looked-after applicants and is requested via the Supplementary Information Form.
• St Olave's sample papers cover both stages of its test, so families can see the shift from the Stage 1 multiple-choice format to the Stage 2 written English and Mathematics papers.

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