St Michael's Catholic Grammar School 11+ Admissions Guide for Parents

Getting a Year 7 place at St Michael's Catholic Grammar School means sitting the school's own entrance test in Verbal Reasoning, Non-Verbal Reasoning, English and Maths, then meeting the Catholic faith-priority criteria the school uses to rank applicants, since it is a voluntary aided Catholic grammar school with 128 places at age eleven. Girls apply through two parallel routes at once: the school's own online Supplementary Information Form, alongside the Common Application Form sent to the family's home local authority, with a Certificate of Baptism and, for most applicants, an original Certificate of Catholic Practice from the family's parish priest needed to be ranked among the practising-Catholic majority of places.

Entry beyond Year 7 stays selective too, with the school's own criteria applying to occasional in-year vacancies and to sixth-form applications, when boys join the school for the first time; the rest of this guide sets out what the 11+ process actually involves, in the order a family works through it.

How Year 7 entry works

The school's Published Admission Number for Year 7 is 128, all girls, with the great majority of places going to baptised Catholic girls from practising Catholic families. Applicants are ranked by entrance-test score within each priority group, starting with looked-after and previously looked-after girls who meet the Catholic criteria, then girls receiving Pupil Premium funding who also meet them (up to 32 places, a quarter of the intake), then all remaining practising Catholic girls in strict rank order; the school's policy states it has historically been oversubscribed with candidates meeting these Catholic criteria alone.

Beyond Year 7, the school also has a sixth-form entry point at 16+, when it opens to boys as well as girls for the first time. The planned admission number for Year 12, including St Michael's own Year 11 leavers, is 140, and external applicants need at least six GCSEs or equivalent at grade 7 or above, including English Language and Mathematics.

How the 11+ assessment works

The entrance test is a single day of four written papers set by the school: Verbal Reasoning, Non-Verbal Reasoning, English and Mathematics. All applicants invited to sit it do so on the same day, at the school, and are then ranked from the highest combined score downward.

Verbal Reasoning, Non-Verbal Reasoning and Mathematics follow a multiple-choice format, for which the school publishes free familiarisation booklets and parent guides on its website. English is assessed through a written paper, and the school publishes no familiarisation sample for it, stating it is unable to give further detail on the style or timing of any of the papers. Extra time is available only where an Education, Health and Care Plan or a statement from the child's primary school SENDCO documents the need, confirmed with the school's admissions administrator ahead of the test date.

Registering and applying, in order

The application runs as two parallel paperwork tracks, both needing to be completed correctly, since the school's own forms and the local authority's Common Application Form are assessed independently of each other.

• Complete the school's own online Supplementary Information Form and, if applying as a baptised Catholic, upload a Certificate of Baptism (translated into English if issued overseas)
• If applying as a practising Catholic family, arrange an original Certificate of Catholic Practice from the family's parish priest, dated within three months of applying, and deliver it in person or by post to the school office; electronic copies aren't accepted
• Separately, submit the Common Application Form to the family's home local authority through its online e-admissions system, naming the school among the family's preferences
• Sit the entrance test, by invitation, on the single date the school sets
• Once results are known, confirm the school as a preference on the local authority application before its own deadline
• Receive the local authority's offer on national offer day, having notified the school of any Pupil Premium eligibility no later than the point of applying.

Catchment and oversubscription criteria

St Michael's does not use a catchment area, and geographical priority areas play no part in deciding who is offered a place. Distance from home to school, measured as the crow flies using Barnet's own mapping system, is used only as the final tie-break, after every other criterion, when two or more applicants can't otherwise be separated.

Places are offered first to baptised, practising Catholic girls who are looked after or previously looked after and rank in the top 200 test scores, then to practising Catholic girls receiving Pupil Premium funding who also rank in the top 200, then to remaining practising Catholic girls in strict rank order of test score. Because the school states it has always received enough applicants meeting these Catholic criteria to fill its 128 places, non-Catholic, Catechumen and other Christian-denomination applicants are considered only if fewer than 200 practising Catholic girls sit the test in a given year. Where scores tie, Verbal Reasoning marks are compared first, then Non-Verbal Reasoning, then English, then Maths, before distance from the school decides it.

How to prepare for the entrance test

Because three of the four papers, Verbal Reasoning, Non-Verbal Reasoning and Maths, are multiple choice, working through the school's own free familiarisation booklets and parent guides gives the clearest sense of question style, without over-relying on generic 11+ material built for a different test format. The school states plainly that it will not confirm paper timings or structure beyond what those booklets show, so building general fluency across all four subject areas tends to matter more than predicting the exact layout of any paper.

For the written English paper, where no familiarisation sample exists, practising comprehension and short written responses under time pressure is the more useful preparation, since the school gives no further guidance on its content. Families should also gather the Certificate of Baptism and, where relevant, the Certificate of Catholic Practice well ahead of the application deadline, given that the school will not accept the latter once its deadline has passed or in electronic form.

What happens after the test: waiting lists and appeals

Girls who sit the test, are ranked under the oversubscription criteria and name the school on their local authority application, but aren't offered a place, are automatically added to a waiting list that runs until the end of the calendar year of entry; vacancies are filled from that list in strict rank order. A further, separate waiting list then opens from the following January for Year 7 and other year groups, open to any parent who asks for their daughter's name to be added.

Families not offered a place have a legal right of appeal to an Independent Appeal Panel, which sits apart from both the school and the local authority; appeals must be lodged within 20 school days of the decision letter.

Related guides

• London grammar schools guide
• Tutors for families in London
• Grammar schools in England: the full directory

Preparing for the St Michael's Catholic Grammar School 11+ with Taylor Tuition

Preparation for the St Michael's Catholic Grammar School 11+ tends to go best when it starts early and stays steady, and most families who work with us begin between twelve and eighteen months out. Our tutors, who have prepared pupils for entry to leading independent and grammar schools including Westminster, St Paul's, Wycombe Abbey and Eton, plan the work backwards from the school's own assessment format and registration deadline.

The tutors we match to 11+ preparation are drawn from a pool in which more than half hold Qualified Teacher Status, around three in five hold a master's degree or doctorate, and which includes former heads of department, exam-board examiners and teachers from independent and boarding schools. 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.

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