Pate's Grammar School 11+ Admissions: Entrance Test and How to Apply

A child gains a place at Pate's Grammar School at 11+ by achieving a qualifying standardised score in the Gloucestershire Grammar Schools Entrance Test, sat once in the autumn term of Year 6 and set by GL Assessment; the School, as its own admissions authority, then allocates the 150 available Year 7 places according to a set order of priority groups once Gloucestershire County Council has processed the family's Common Application Form.

The School has no fixed catchment area and welcomes applications from across the UK, though priority within its oversubscription criteria favours disadvantaged pupils in specified local postcode areas, then other Gloucestershire residents, before places open more widely. The process runs as a shared exercise across all seven Gloucestershire grammar schools, so a child registers and sits the test once, with the result usable for any of the schools named on the application.

[heading] How entry works at 11+

Entry into Year 7 at Pate's Grammar School is decided entirely by performance in the Admissions Test, with 150 places available under the School's Published Admission Number. As an academy, the School is its own admissions authority, but it operates within Gloucestershire County Council's coordinated admissions scheme, so families still apply for a place through their home local authority as well as registering directly with the School for the test itself.

No interview, school report or additional assessment forms part of the standard process; selection rests on the child's test result and, where relevant, on the oversubscription criteria described below. A child may be admitted outside their normal age group only where particular grounds apply, with each request considered individually by the School's Admissions Review Group.

[heading] What the 11+ assessment involves

The entrance test is the Gloucestershire Grammar Schools Entrance Test, shared by all seven grammar schools in the county, so a child registers and sits it once regardless of how many of the schools their parents wish to apply to. For entry into Year 7, the test provider is GL Assessment. The Test consists of two papers of multiple-choice questions, covering verbal ability, numerical reasoning and non-verbal reasoning, usually sat in the autumn term of Year 6 around the child's 11th birthday.

All children sit the same Main Test on the same date, whether their test centre is the school itself or one of the other Gloucestershire grammar schools; the School expects around 460 children to take the test at its own site. Where a child takes the same test more than once, for example through registering in a different county, only the first sitting counts towards any offer.

[heading] Registration and the admissions process, step by step

Families move through a fixed sequence: registering for the test, sitting it, receiving the result, and then applying formally through the Common Application Form before a single offer is made by the local authority.

• Register online via the School's website within the published registration window, or request a paper form from the Admissions Manager
• Sit the Main Test at the allocated test centre on the appointed date in the autumn term of Year 6
• Receive test outcome information from the School, confirming whether the qualifying standard has been met, ahead of the local authority's application deadline
• Submit the Common Application Form to your home local authority, naming Pate's among your ranked preferences
• Receive the local authority's offer of a single secondary place on national offer day, based on the School's admissions criteria
• If not offered a place, join the School's waiting list, or register an appeal with the independent appeals panel

[heading] The qualifying standard and oversubscription criteria

Pate's sets no catchment area; children from Gloucestershire and beyond may sit the test and apply. The qualifying standard depends on a child's rank position by standardised score, with no fixed pass mark applied; the standard Qualifying Group is formed of the highest-ranking 250 children. A lower qualifying standard applies to pupils defined as disadvantaged, meaning Looked After, Previously Looked After or Internationally Adopted Previously Looked After children, or those eligible for Pupil Premium.

Where the qualifying number of applicants exceeds the 150 places available, offers are made to four groups in order: Looked After and Previously Looked After children first, then a maximum of 15 Priority Places allocated by rank order to disadvantaged pupils with home postcodes in specified local areas, then Non-Priority Places (Local) for Gloucestershire residents or other listed postcodes up to a combined total of 105 places, and finally a minimum of 45 Non-Priority Places (UK wide) open to any qualifying child in the country.

Where two or more children cannot be separated within a group, priority goes first to the child living closer to the School in a straight line, and then, if still tied, by an independently supervised random draw.

[heading] Places, waiting lists and appeals

Children who meet the qualifying standard but miss out on a place because Year 7 is full are placed on a waiting list, held in the same rank order as the test, and maintained by the School only until the end of the calendar year of entry; any place that becomes vacant before then is offered to the child at the top of the list.

Parents whose child is not offered a place, in Year 7 or any other year group, may appeal to an independent appeals panel. Where a child has no test rank, for example because they registered late, they can request an Appeals Test held after the local authority's reconsideration deadline and before appeals are heard.

[heading] How to prepare for the 11+ assessment

GL Assessment, the test provider, publishes free familiarisation material through its own 11+ portal, which the School signposts to families from its admissions pages. The School is explicit that these generic materials may differ from the actual test in the length of papers, the types of questions used and the level of difficulty, so they are best treated as an introduction to the format; they do not precisely mirror what a child will face.

Because the test covers verbal ability, numerical reasoning and non-verbal reasoning across two multiple-choice papers sat back to back on a single day, children tend to benefit from becoming comfortable with all three question types and with working steadily under timed, multiple-choice conditions; concentrating heavily on just one strand in the weeks before the test is less helpful.

Related guides

• Gloucestershire grammar schools guide
• Grammar schools in England: the full directory

Preparing for the Pate's Grammar School 11+ with Taylor Tuition

Families preparing for the Pate's 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.

Families work with us online from anywhere in the UK or abroad, and in person in central London. Fees start from £50 per 50-minute session and depend on tutor level and subject, with no registration fee and a free initial consultation to talk through your child's current level and the timeline to the 11+. Families receive progress reports after sessions and have a dedicated point of contact, and we reply to enquiries within one working day with tutor recommendations.

Read more about our 11+ entrance exam tutors, or send an enquiry and we will come back with tutor recommendations.