How Many Grammar Schools in Gloucestershire? The Seven Schools and the 11+

Gloucestershire has seven grammar schools: Pate's in Cheltenham, four in Gloucester (Denmark Road, Ribston Hall, Sir Thomas Rich's and The Crypt) and two in Stroud (Marling and Stroud High), sitting alongside non-selective secondary schools and sharing one entrance test. Families researching the 11+ locally need to know where these schools are and how the joint test works, since a single result can be shared with more than one school and the council then allocates places centrally.

This guide draws on the Gloucestershire Grammar Schools' own admissions information booklet, Gloucestershire County Council's school admissions pages, and the individual schools' own websites, and sets out which schools exist, how the test is run, the usual yearly timetable, how places and appeals work, and what the schools themselves say about preparation.

The seven grammar schools in Gloucestershire

Gloucestershire's grammar schools sit in three towns and together form what the schools' own joint admissions booklet calls simply "the seven Grammar Schools in Gloucestershire". Each is its own admissions authority with its own published admissions policy, even though the entrance test itself is shared.

• Pate's Grammar School, Cheltenham: mixed, ages 11 to 18
• Denmark Road High School, Gloucester: girls, ages 11 to 16, with a mixed sixth form
• Ribston Hall High School, Gloucester: girls, ages 11 to 16, with a mixed sixth form
• Sir Thomas Rich's School, Gloucester: boys, ages 11 to 16, with a mixed sixth form
• The Crypt School, Gloucester: mixed, ages 11 to 18
• Marling School, Stroud: boys, ages 11 to 16, with a mixed sixth form
• Stroud High School, Stroud: girls, ages 11 to 16, with a mixed sixth form

Who runs the test, and what it currently covers

For entry to Year 7 in September in the current round, the Gloucestershire Grammar Schools' Entrance Test is set by GL Assessment, as confirmed on Pate's, Marling's and The Crypt's own admissions pages, and is identical for all seven schools, with all candidates sitting it on the same day instead of at separate school sittings. The test comprises two papers of around 45 to 50 minutes each, sat on the same day with a short break between them, with additional time allowed at the start of each session for instructions and worked examples.

One paper assesses verbal skills, covering comprehension, vocabulary and verbal reasoning; the other covers non-verbal reasoning together with mathematical knowledge, skills and understanding. Questions are multiple choice, answers are recorded on separate answer sheets, and marking is carried out electronically by an independent company appointed by the seven schools, which the consortium describes as accurate, with results age-standardised so that younger children in the year group are not disadvantaged.

A change is already confirmed for later cohorts: from the next round, with the test sat in the summer and first entry into Year 7 the following September, the seven schools move to a new provider, Future Stories Community Enterprise (FSCE), a not-for-profit founded by Reading School. The test also moves from September of Year 6 to the latter part of the summer term of Year 5. Denmark Road's own announcement confirms the new FSCE test draws heavily on Key Stage 2 curriculum content and removes the non-verbal reasoning element that features in the current GL Assessment papers. Families whose children sit the test in September of Year 6 for the current round are unaffected and continue to sit the existing GL Assessment-style papers.

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Registration and the yearly timetable

Registration for, and administration of, the entrance test is carried out by the seven grammar schools themselves, with no role for the council, via an online registration form linked from any of the schools' websites (paper copies are available on request). In the most recent round, registration ran from 12 noon on 18 May to 12 noon on 26 June, with the test sat on 12 September.

At registration, parents nominate an Allocated Test Centre and can choose to share their child's result with as many of the seven schools as they wish; a result is only sent to a school if it has been nominated as a "share school". Families are notified of their Allocated Test Centre and the detailed testing arrangements by 8 September. Results are issued in time for parents to complete the council's Common Application Form (CAF), which lists up to five secondary school preferences and must reach the Local Authority by the home council's closing date, normally 31 October and later when that date falls at a weekend, and a child not listed on the CAF for a grammar school will not be offered a place there even if they met the qualifying standard.

Children are expected to have a date of birth between 1 September and 31 August of the year group due to start Year 7 in that entry round; outside that range, written consent from each nominated school is required before registration. Any need for extra time or other access arrangements, on the grounds of an EHC Plan, a Statement of Special Educational Needs, or SEN Support, must be evidenced by the same 26 June deadline, and a joint panel drawn from all seven schools agrees arrangements consistently across the consortium.

Catchment, priority places and how places are allocated

None of the seven schools operates a fixed catchment area in the way a comprehensive school might; a child's home address does not, on its own, determine test-centre allocation or eligibility. Each school sets its own oversubscription criteria within its own admissions policy, applied only once a child has met that school's qualifying standard, which is determined after the test is marked instead of being a fixed pass mark.

Ribston Hall High School's determined admissions policy illustrates the pattern used elsewhere in the consortium: priority for oversubscribed places goes first to children in care or previously in care, then to a fixed allocation of places (30 at Ribston Hall) for children eligible for Pupil Premium funding, split by priority between those living inside and outside Gloucester City, and only then to remaining places in strict rank order of test score; ties are broken by straight-line distance to the school. Other schools publish their own versions of this order in their determined admissions policies, so it is worth checking the specific policy for each school under consideration.

Once schools have ranked their qualifying applicants, they pass these lists to Gloucestershire County Council, which allocates places under the Local Authority Co-ordinated Admissions Scheme on National Allocation Day, 1 March. Meeting the qualifying standard is not the same as being offered a place: places still depend on rank order, preference order on the CAF, and each school's own criteria.

After the results: qualifying, waiting lists and appeals

Results come by email from each grammar school the family chose to share the score with, and each one confirms whether the child reached its own qualifying standard. There is no fixed pass mark, since each school sets its standard after the test from the rank order of standardised scores, so a child can qualify for one school and not another.

A qualifying result makes a child eligible without securing a place. The family still names the grammar schools on the home local authority's application by the home council's closing date, and a grammar school listed without a qualifying score is disregarded. Each school then offers its places in rank order within its oversubscription criteria, and the council issues offers on 1 March.

Families who miss out can ask for a waiting-list place by the date in the offer letter, and the lists are re-ranked as children join. Each school runs its own independent appeal, which can argue that the child qualified but the places went to higher-ranked candidates, or that circumstances outside the child's control affected the result. Children who missed the September test can sit the schools' Late Entrance Test, though at Pate's a late test leads only to the waiting list.

How to prepare

Each of the seven schools publishes free familiarisation material on its own website, and the consortium's admissions booklet directs families to these individual pages, without a single central resource; The Crypt School's own page notes that GL Assessment's familiarisation material is generic and may differ from the exact specification, length or difficulty of the real papers. Because the current test covers verbal reasoning, comprehension and vocabulary in one paper and non-verbal reasoning and mathematics in the other, preparation that builds familiarity with all four areas, and with sitting timed, multiple-choice papers under exam conditions, reflects what children actually face on the day.

For a child in Year 4 or Year 5, the guide towhen to start 11+ preparationworks back from the test date year by year.

The Crypt School also offers free 11+ familiarisation resources, developed with Atom Learning, to children eligible for Pupil Premium funding, and Sir Thomas Rich's School offers free access to the same platform to children who have been eligible for free school meals at any point in the last six years; both are worth checking directly by families who may qualify. Families preparing for entry in the following round onwards should watch each school's website for the new FSCE specification, expected to be published from September, since the content and format will differ from the current GL Assessment papers, in particular through the removal of non-verbal reasoning.

Grammar schools in Gloucester city

Gloucester has four of the county's seven grammar schools: Denmark Road High School and Ribston Hall High School for girls, Sir Thomas Rich's School for boys and The Crypt School, which is mixed. Each has a sixth form that admits both sexes, and each runs its own admissions policy on the shared test.

City postcode priority applies at the two girls' schools. Denmark Road reserves pupil premium places for applicants living in GL1, GL2, GL3 and GL4 before those living outside, and Ribston Hall fills its 30 pupil premium places in the same order. Sir Thomas Rich's and The Crypt give no postcode priority in their published criteria; pupil premium comes first, then rank order.

Parents comparing selective options across the south of England may also find it useful to read howReading grammar schoolsrun their own admissions tests.

Families in Cheltenham weighing a grammar place against an independent one can compare it withCheltenham Ladies' College admissions, which follow a separate process.

Do Gloucestershire grammar schools have catchment areas?

None of the seven grammar schools uses a defined catchment area. Places go to children who have met the school's qualifying standard, ordered by priority groups and then by test rank, with distance usually separating equal scores. Living near a school can help at Denmark Road, Ribston Hall and Pate's through their postcode groups, yet it does not replace a qualifying score.

Children living outside Gloucestershire can apply. Parents register for the test through a grammar school's website and list the school on the application form to their home local authority, which passes it to Gloucestershire County Council. Pate's reserves a minimum of 45 places for qualifying children with a home postcode anywhere in the UK.

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