Queen Mary's High School 11+ Admissions: Entrance Test, Registration and Places

Girls gain a Year 7 place at Queen Mary's High School by registering separately with the school for its entrance test and with their home local authority's secondary transfer application, naming the school as a preference; offers then depend on reaching the qualifying score confirmed by the governors and on the school's published oversubscription criteria, since the Published Admission Number for the year group is 150 and the governors are not obliged to fill every place.

The school has no defined catchment area, so families living both within and beyond the Borough of Walsall may apply on equal terms, and the entrance test itself is shared with other grammar schools across a West Midlands wide consortium, so candidates sit identical papers within the same testing window.

How entry to Queen Mary's works at 11+

Queen Mary's High School admits girls to Year 7 by academic selection, assessed through the West Midlands Grammar Schools' entrance test, with a Published Admission Number of 150 for the year group; as a selective school, the governors are not obliged to fill every place if too few candidates reach the qualifying standard. The school also admits a small number of external students, both boys and girls, directly into the co-educational sixth form, on the basis of GCSE results.

• Year 7 (11+): the main entry point, via the entrance test
• Year 12 (16+): sixth form entry for boys and girls, based on GCSE attainment

How the Queen Mary's 11+ assessment works

The entrance test is set and administered as part of a West Midlands wide consortium of grammar schools, so every candidate sits identical papers within the same shared testing window. It comprises two papers, with answers marked on a machine-read sheet checked at least twice externally; there is no interview and no report requested from the candidate's primary school. Raw scores are weighted for age before an order of merit is drawn up, and the governors confirm a minimum qualifying score afterwards, based on that cohort's overall performance, which the school then publishes on its website.

• Verbal ability, including reading comprehension
• Non-verbal ability
• Numerical ability

Registering for the test and applying for a place

Parents must complete two separate registrations for their daughter to be considered: one directly with the school for the entrance test itself, and a second with their home local authority's secondary transfer application, naming it as a preference. Registering with the school alone is not sufficient, since a place will not be offered unless the school is also listed on the local authority form, however well a candidate performs in the test.

• Register with the school for the entrance test
• Sit the test at an assigned centre, which may not be the school itself
• Receive the test outcome, to inform which schools to list as preferences
• Submit the local authority's secondary transfer application naming the school as a preference
• Receive the offer on national offer day

Oversubscription criteria and how places are offered

Where more candidates reach the qualifying score than there are places, offers follow a set order of priority. Looked-after and previously looked-after children who meet the qualifying score are offered places first, ranked by standardised score. Children receiving Pupil Premium at the time of the test come next, limited to no more than 30 per cent of the intake, with priority given first to those attending a state-funded primary school in Walsall and then to other qualifying Pupil Premium candidates; all remaining children who reach the qualifying score are then offered places by rank order of standardised score until the admission number is reached.

Where scores are tied, the school aggregates each candidate's ranking across the three test skill areas; if a tie still remains, it applies an independently verified random allocation instead of a distance-based tie-break.

Catchment area and where applicants can live

The school has no defined catchment area, so families living both inside and outside the Borough of Walsall may apply on equal terms, provided their daughter reaches the qualifying score. Geography only becomes relevant at the margins of Year 7 admissions, and even then a tie at the qualifying-score boundary is resolved by an independently verified random allocation, with distance from the school playing no part; a straight-line proximity tie-break applies only to sixth form entry.

Late applications, appeals and the waiting list

Candidates registered after the school's deadline are treated as late applicants. Where the school accepts that the delay was caused by circumstances outside the family's control, such as moving into the area, it will still arrange a test and place the candidate in the order of merit as though on time; other late registrations are tested afterwards and placed on the waiting list only once all initial offers have gone out. A waiting list held in strict oversubscription order is maintained for candidates who sat the test but were not offered a place, and parents refused a place have the right to appeal to an Independent Appeal Panel, with the appeals timetable published on the school's website.

Preparing for the Queen Mary's 11+ format

Because the test covers verbal ability with reading comprehension, non-verbal ability and numerical ability in a single sitting, familiarity with all three question types tends to matter more than depth in any one area, and children often benefit from practising the pace of switching between them. As scores are age-standardised, younger children within the Year 6 cohort are not disadvantaged, so preparation can usually focus on accuracy and stamina, with little need to compensate for age. Since the school sits within a shared consortium test, practice aimed specifically at the West Midlands Grammar Schools' format tends to reflect the actual question types more closely than generic 11+ papers.

Related guides

• Grammar schools in England: the full directory

Preparing for the Queen Mary's High School 11+ with Taylor Tuition

Families preparing for the Queen Mary's High 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.