Clitheroe Royal Grammar School 11+ Admissions: Assessment, Registration and Catchment

Entry to Clitheroe Royal Grammar School at 11+ turns on sitting the school's own entrance examination in the autumn term of Year 6, reaching the required standard it sets, and then being ranked high enough under its published oversubscription criteria if demand exceeds the 180 places available. The test is run and marked independently of the other Lancashire grammar schools, even though all of them sit their exams on the same Saturday each autumn.

Families register directly with the school for the exam, separately from the wider Lancashire secondary transfer process run by the local authority. Once results are known, parents still need to name the school as one of their preferences on the council's Common Application Form for it to be considered at all, since Lancashire operates a single, coordinated offer of one school place per child.

How entry to the school works

The school admits pupils mainly at 11+ into Year 7, with a planned admission number of 180 places each year. It also takes a number of external applicants directly into the Sixth Form at 16+, alongside its own Year 11 pupils who meet the published entry requirements; Sixth Form entry is assessed through GCSE grades, with a general requirement of at least four GCSEs at grade 6 or above, including grade 4 in English language and mathematics.

For Year 7, children normally sit the entrance examination in the academic year during which their eleventh birthday occurs. A small number of exceptionally able Year 5 children may also be considered, but only with the strong recommendation of their primary school headteacher. Outside these normal admission rounds, the school also manages in-year applications for families moving into the area or transferring from another school.

How the 11+ assessment is structured

The entrance examination is set and marked by Future Stories Community Enterprise Ltd (FSCE) and is held on a single Saturday morning in the autumn term at the school's Chatburn Road site. It consists of two age-weighted papers covering English and mathematics up to and including the Year 5 programme of study in the primary national curriculum; there is no separate verbal or non-verbal reasoning paper and no interview.

Paper 1 uses multiple-choice questions in English and mathematics; Paper 2 asks for short written answers across the same two subjects. Each candidate may sit the examination once, and sample questions are published on the school's website to show the type and standard used. Parents are asked to tell the school in writing, before the closing date, of any special educational needs or circumstances that might affect performance.

Registering for the exam and what happens next

Registration is managed directly by Clitheroe Royal Grammar School, independent of the local authority process. Parents complete the school's own online application form by its published closing date to secure a place on the entrance examination; a separate confirmation from the school, sent before the exam, states which catchment category the family falls into and gives exam-day details.

After marking, the school writes to parents to say whether their child has reached the required standard, in good time before the local authority's own deadline. Parents then complete the council's Common Application Form online, naming preferred secondary schools in order, with the school as one of up to three preferences if they want it considered; Lancashire operates a single, coordinated offer, so only one school place is offered even to a child who qualifies for more than one.

Allocation results are issued in the spring term through the local authority's national offer day, with the school also emailing offers directly to successful families at the same time. Parents normally have fourteen days to confirm acceptance of a place, or to tell the local authority they do not wish to accept it.

Catchment areas and who qualifies

The school divides its intake area into an immediate catchment and a wider catchment. The immediate catchment covers forty-two civil parishes across the Borough of Ribble Valley, including Clitheroe, Whalley, Chatburn, Sabden and Waddington; children whose family home falls in one of these parishes are given priority ahead of those in the wider catchment.

The wider catchment covers the borough council areas of Burnley, Chorley, Fylde, Hyndburn, Lancaster, Pendle, Preston, Ribble Valley, Rossendale, South Ribble, West Lancashire and Wyre, together with the Blackburn with Darwen unitary authority. Families outside both catchment areas may still apply and can be offered a place if they reach the required standard, though they are ranked behind catchment applicants under the oversubscription criteria.

Permanent residence must be established before the application closing date, generally shown through owner-occupancy or a long-term tenancy where council tax is paid by the family; the school may ask for evidence such as a driving licence, council tax bill or tenancy agreement. Living temporarily with relatives, or holding a short-term let, does not count as living in the catchment area.

How places are allocated when the school is oversubscribed

If the number of children reaching the required standard exceeds the 180 available places, the school ranks eligible applicants using seven oversubscription categories in order. Children with a current Education, Health and Care Plan naming the school are offered a place first, ahead of these ranked categories; looked-after and previously looked-after children come next, then the remaining places are ranked by catchment status and Pupil Premium eligibility.

Within each ranked category, children are placed in order of their score in the entrance examination. Where scores tie, the deciding factor is straight-line distance between the child's home and the school's Chatburn Road entrance; a confidential waiting list, ranked on the same basis, is kept open until the end of December of the school year of entry.

• Looked after or previously looked after children (including those adopted, or under a child arrangement or special guardianship order)
• Immediate catchment area, qualifying for Pupil Premium funding
• Immediate catchment area
• Wider catchment area, qualifying for Pupil Premium funding
• Wider catchment area
• Outside the catchment area, qualifying for Pupil Premium funding
• Outside the catchment area

In-year admissions and the right to appeal

Families who move into the area, or want to transfer their child into the school outside the normal Year 7 round, can apply for an in-year place by contacting the school directly and completing its in-year application form. Where a place becomes available, the child sits an age-appropriate version of the entrance examination and is added to the relevant waiting list if none is free straight away.

Parents whose child is not offered a place have a legal right of appeal, using the appeal form published on the school's website. Appeals must be submitted in writing within twenty school days of notification and are heard by an independent panel in two stages, first checking whether the admission arrangements were applied correctly, then weighing the case for admission against the effect of extra numbers on the school.

How to prepare for the 11+ assessment

Because both examination papers are pitched at the English and mathematics content of the primary national curriculum up to Year 5, preparation should focus on securing that curriculum thoroughly, with little value in practising unfamiliar reasoning puzzles, since the school sets no separate verbal or non-verbal reasoning paper. Children benefit from practising both question styles set by FSCE: multiple-choice questions marked on an optical answer sheet, and short written answers that ask them to show working or explain a response.

Sample questions published on the school's own website give a reliable guide to the standard and style used, and are a more useful reference than generic practice material written for other exam boards. Since the multiple-choice paper is marked by machine from a separate answer sheet, children also find it reassuring to practise transferring answers accurately under time pressure before the exam itself.

Related guides

• Grammar schools in England: the full directory

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Families preparing for the Clitheroe Royal 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.

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