Lincolnshire Grammar Schools: Complete Guide to the 11+ and Entry

Lincolnshire is one of the few English counties to have kept selective secondary education across most of its area, with fourteen grammar schools, one bi-lateral school and one further grammar school operating outside the county's main testing arrangement, serving families from the city of Lincoln out to the Lincolnshire coast. Thirteen of these schools, together with the bi-lateral King Edward VI Academy in Spilsby, sit within the Lincolnshire Consortium of Grammar Schools, which allows a child to sit a single 11+ test and name up to three consortium schools as preferences; Caistor Grammar School, in the north of the county, sets its own bespoke entrance test and admissions timetable outside the consortium.

Where a child lives in Lincolnshire, most families apply for a Year 7 place through Lincolnshire County Council's co-ordinated admissions scheme, registering separately for the 11+ test itself in the summer term of Year 5 ahead of testing in Year 6. Families from outside the county can also register for the Lincolnshire 11+ and, once results are known, name a Lincolnshire grammar school as a preference through their own home local authority.

Which grammar schools exist in Lincolnshire

Lincolnshire's selective schools are spread across the county's market towns; the city of Lincoln itself has no grammar school. Several towns, including Boston, Sleaford, Spalding and Grantham, have separate boys' and girls' grammar schools, each with its own single-sex intake.

• Boston Grammar School, Boston: boys (11-16), with a co-educational sixth form
• Boston High School, Boston: girls
• Carre's Grammar School, Sleaford: boys (11-16), with a co-educational sixth form
• Kesteven and Sleaford High School, Sleaford: girls
• Bourne Grammar School, Bourne: mixed
• Spalding Grammar School, Spalding: boys (11-16), with a co-educational sixth form
• Spalding High School, Spalding: girls
• Skegness Grammar School, Skegness: mixed
• The King's School, Grantham: boys
• Kesteven and Grantham Girls' School, Grantham: girls
• Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School, Alford: mixed
• Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School, Horncastle: mixed
• Queen Elizabeth's High School, Gainsborough: mixed
• King Edward VI Grammar School, Louth: mixed
• King Edward VI Academy, Spilsby: mixed, a bi-lateral school combining a grammar stream for children who pass the 11+ with a secondary modern stream on the same site
• Caistor Grammar School, Caistor: mixed, outside the consortium with its own entrance test and admissions dates

Who runs the 11+ and what it covers

Fourteen of Lincolnshire's selective schools, the thirteen full grammar schools plus King Edward VI Academy in Spilsby, test together as the Lincolnshire Consortium of Grammar Schools, using GL Assessment to provide the 11+ papers. A child sits Verbal Reasoning and Non-Verbal Reasoning, subjects that fall outside the national curriculum, over two papers taken on consecutive Saturdays (or the preceding Friday) in September of Year 6. Each paper opens with a short unmarked practice section so children know the question style before the timed test begins.

A standardised score of 220 across the two papers is set to identify roughly the most able 25% of the age group tested within Lincolnshire's selective areas, and each consortium school applies this qualifying score before its own oversubscription criteria come into play. Caistor Grammar School, outside the consortium, sets its own two Verbal Reasoning papers, a standard paper and a multiple-choice paper, also taken on consecutive Saturdays in September, and applies the same qualifying score of 220.

Registration and the typical timetable

For the consortium schools, parents register their child for the 11+ while the child is still in Year 5, with the registration window running from January to the end of March. Children attending a Lincolnshire primary school are normally sent a registration form directly; children from outside the county or from an independent school register through the consortium's own website or by returning a form by post to their preferred grammar school.

For 2027 entry, registration opened in January 2026 and closed on 31 March 2026. The Verbal Reasoning paper was set for 11 or 12 September 2026 and the Non-Verbal Reasoning paper for 18 or 19 September 2026, with results emailed to parents by 9 October 2026. Parents must then name their preferred schools, including any grammar schools, on the Common Application Form submitted to their home local authority by 31 October 2026, with Lincolnshire's National Offer Day falling on 1 March of the following year.

Caistor Grammar School runs to its own timetable: for 2027 entry, applications opened in early March 2026, registration closed on 14 August 2026, the two test papers were set for 19 and 26 September 2026, and results went out by 13 October 2026, still ahead of the 31 October Common Application Form deadline.

Catchment and priority areas

Passing the 11+ and reaching the qualifying score of 220 is the first gateway to a Lincolnshire grammar school place. Catchment or priority-area status only acts as a tie-breaker once a school is oversubscribed; it cannot substitute for the test. Most consortium schools use a Designated Transport Area, sometimes called a free transport area, within which eligible children receive free home-to-school transport and gain higher priority in oversubscription; Alford, Horncastle, Louth, Skegness and Spalding Grammar School all use this approach, with Alford's criteria also giving weight to named feeder primary schools including Alford, Huttoft, Mablethorpe, Sutton-on-Sea, Theddlethorpe, Willoughby and Withern.

A smaller number of schools instead use a straight-line catchment radius from the school gate: Caistor Grammar School and Queen Elizabeth's High School, Gainsborough, both define in-catchment status as living within 6.5 miles of the school. Where oversubscription criteria still cannot separate applicants for the final places, schools typically fall back on straight-line distance, and, if that still fails to distinguish between applicants, a lottery.

How places are allocated and how to appeal

Lincolnshire's grammar schools are their own admission authorities, so each publishes its own oversubscription criteria within the framework of the county's co-ordinated admissions scheme, but a common pattern runs across most schools: looked-after and previously looked-after children first, then children eligible for pupil premium, then those within the school's catchment or designated transport area ranked by total test score, and finally all other qualifying children ranked by score or distance.

Because grammar schools set their own admissions, appeals go directly to the school; the county council plays no part. Each appeal is heard by an independent panel, convened with support from the council's legal team, that operates independently of both the school and the council. At Bourne Grammar School, for example, appeals for September 2026 entry had to be lodged by 30 March 2026, with hearings held between 27 April and 8 May 2026. To succeed on the 11+ score itself, a parent generally needs to show that their child should have met the qualifying standard, and, where the school is full, that the child's case for a place outweighs the school's case for maintaining its admission number.

How to prepare for the 11+

The Lincolnshire Consortium of Grammar Schools does not endorse or recommend tutoring, and instead points parents toward familiarisation papers, available from GL Assessment and other retailers, which follow the same question styles as the real Verbal Reasoning and Non-Verbal Reasoning and Spatial Awareness papers. Parents buying practice packs need to check the format carefully: the multiple-choice and standard versions are scored differently, and the consortium's own papers follow the multiple-choice style.

Since neither Verbal nor Non-Verbal Reasoning is taught as part of the primary curriculum, familiarity with the question types, working through timed practice papers and building confidence with the format tend to matter more than subject content in the run-up to September testing.

Sources

• grammarschools.lincs.sch.uk/
• grammarschools.lincs.sch.uk/the-11-plus/
• grammarschools.lincs.sch.uk/the-11-plus/testing-arrangements/
• grammarschools.lincs.sch.uk/admissions/
• grammarschools.lincs.sch.uk/what-are-grammar-schools/
• grammarschools.lincs.sch.uk/the-11-plus/how-to-prepare-your-children/
• grammarschools.lincs.sch.uk/the-11-plus/11-key-dates-2026/
• grammarschools.lincs.sch.uk/schools/boston-grammar-schools-federation
• caistorgrammar.com/join-us/process/
• caistorgrammar.com/join-us/faqs/

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Families preparing for the Lincolnshire Grammar Schools 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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Read more about our 11+ entrance exam tutors, or send an enquiry and we will come back with tutor recommendations.