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

Trafford runs one of the last fully selective secondary systems in England, with seven grammar schools serving families across the borough and beyond. Five of them, Altrincham Grammar School for Boys, Altrincham Grammar School for Girls, Sale Grammar School, Stretford Grammar School and Urmston Grammar School, sit together in the Trafford Grammar Schools Consortium and share a single entrance test, so a child registers once and the standardised score can be sent to any combination of these five. The other two, Loreto Grammar School and St Ambrose College, are Catholic voluntary-aided or academy grammars that set their own separate examinations and apply faith-based oversubscription criteria alongside academic selection.

Registration for the entrance tests, the Common Application Form to Trafford or a family's home local authority, and the eventual national offer day form a single annual cycle that starts more than a year before a child joins Year 7. Missing a registration deadline generally rules out sitting the test until after the national allocation day the following March, so timing matters as much as preparation.

This guide sets out, using the schools' own published admissions pages and Trafford Council's site, which schools exist, how the tests are run and scored, the registration and results timetable, catchment and priority rules, and how places and appeals work.

Which grammar schools are in Trafford

Trafford has seven state grammar schools, split between a shared-test consortium and two schools that test independently. Town, gender and grouping are set out below.

• Altrincham Grammar School for Boys, Altrincham, boys, Trafford Consortium
• Altrincham Grammar School for Girls, Altrincham, girls, Trafford Consortium
• Sale Grammar School, Sale, mixed, Trafford Consortium
• Stretford Grammar School, Stretford, mixed, Trafford Consortium
• Urmston Grammar School, Urmston, mixed, Trafford Consortium
• Loreto Grammar School, Altrincham, girls, Catholic voluntary-aided, sets its own test
• St Ambrose College, Hale Barns (Altrincham), boys, Catholic, sets its own test

The Trafford Consortium test: provider and format

The five Consortium schools, Altrincham Grammar School for Boys, Altrincham Grammar School for Girls, Sale Grammar, Stretford Grammar and Urmston Grammar, use a single shared entrance examination provided by GL Assessment, so a child sits it once regardless of how many of the five schools they are applying to. Registering, families state which school they wish to sit the test at and which of the five schools should receive their standardised result, since scores cannot be shared retrospectively once standardisation has taken place.

The examination consists of two papers, each around an hour long, with a break between them and both marked by multiple choice. Together they assess verbal skills, non-verbal reasoning and mathematics; there is no separate English or creative writing paper, though verbal items can include comprehension-style questions on vocabulary and sentence completion. Non-verbal questions cover shape relationships, sequences and spatial reasoning, and the mathematics content generally reflects what is taught up to the start of Year 6. Raw scores are standardised for age before a qualifying mark is applied.

Schools within the Consortium have flagged that the test model itself is changing: from the cycle for September 2028 entry, the provider moves to Future Stories Community Enterprise (FSCE) and the content shifts to Key Stage 2 English and mathematics, and from the 2029 entry cycle the test is also sat earlier, in the summer term of Year 5. Families testing for entry before those changes take effect should expect the GL Assessment verbal, non-verbal and mathematics format described above.

• Provider: GL Assessment, until the shift to FSCE for 2028 entry onwards
• Two papers, around one hour each, multiple choice, with a break between
• Content: verbal, non-verbal reasoning and mathematics, no separate English paper
• Scores standardised for age before a qualifying mark is applied

Loreto Grammar School and St Ambrose College: their own tests

Loreto Grammar School sets its own Governors' Entrance Examination instead of joining the Consortium test. Two of its three papers, English and verbal reasoning, use GL Assessment material, while the mathematics paper is written by the school itself; each paper runs to roughly 45 to 50 minutes, with a short break between papers, and all are multiple choice. The pass mark is set afresh each year.

St Ambrose College also tests independently, with three papers: a school-set English paper (35 minutes, multiple choice, including a reading comprehension task and questions on spelling, punctuation and grammar, with no creative writing element), a school-set mathematics paper (35 minutes), and a GL Assessment verbal reasoning paper (50 minutes). For the 2026 cycle the college published a qualifying score of 320.

Both schools require registration directly with them, separate from the Consortium portal, and both, being Catholic schools, ask baptised applicants to supply an original baptismal certificate and, at St Ambrose, a parish priest's reference, as part of the application, separate from the academic test itself.

• Loreto: three papers, English and verbal reasoning from GL, maths set by the school
• St Ambrose: English and maths set by the school, verbal reasoning from GL
• Both register separately from the Consortium portal
• Baptismal certificate required for baptised applicants at both schools

Registration and the annual timetable

The Consortium schools run a common timetable. For the test sat in September 2026, for September 2027 entry, online registration opened at noon on Thursday 23 April 2026 and closed at noon on Friday 19 June 2026; missing that closing date generally means a child cannot be tested until after national allocation day the following March. The shared entrance examination was set for Monday 14 September 2026, with results issued to parents before 31 October 2026, matching the deadline for the Common Application Form (CAF) to the family's home local authority. National allocation day, when secondary offers are made nationally, falls on 1 March 2027.

Loreto Grammar School and St Ambrose College sat their own examinations on Friday 18 September 2026 for the same September 2027 entry round. Loreto's registration deadline for that cycle was 1pm on 31 July 2026, later than the Consortium's, though its baptismal certificate paperwork carried an earlier submission date of 10 July 2026 due to the school's summer closure. Both schools likewise expect the home local authority's CAF, naming the school as a preference, by 31 October 2026.

Registering for a test and naming a school on the CAF are separate steps: passing an entrance exam does not itself secure a place, and a school can only be considered if it is also named, in rank order, on the family's Common Application Form.

• Consortium registration: opened 23 April 2026, closed 19 June 2026
• Consortium test: Monday 14 September 2026, results before 31 October 2026
• Loreto and St Ambrose test: Friday 18 September 2026
• CAF deadline to home local authority: 31 October 2026
• National allocation day: 1 March 2027

Catchment, priority areas and qualifying scores

Each Consortium school applies its own catchment or priority area on top of the shared test, so a qualifying score does not guarantee a place at every school a family lists. Sale Grammar's priority admission area covers the M33, WA14 and WA15 postcodes, plus Trafford residents in the M23 postcode; for 2026 entry it published a qualifying score of 334. Stretford Grammar's catchment covers the M32, M33, M41, M17, M15, M16 and M21 postcodes, with a published qualifying score of 334 for its main cohort. Altrincham Grammar School for Girls defines its catchment as an eight-mile radius from the school's main entrance and gives priority within that radius before considering applicants further away, ranked by distance.

Loreto Grammar School and St Ambrose College use Nominated Local Pastoral Areas instead of postcodes, tied to named Catholic parishes across Trafford and neighbouring areas; both also give first priority to baptised Roman Catholic looked-after or previously looked-after children, then to baptised Catholic pupil-premium applicants or those with a sibling at the school, before wider Catholic and other applicants, in each case conditional on having met the qualifying standard in the entrance exam.

Because qualifying marks and catchment definitions are set independently by each school and can change between admission years, families should treat the qualifying score for a given entry year as specific to that school and that cycle.

• Sale Grammar catchment: M33, WA14, WA15, plus Trafford's M23
• Stretford Grammar catchment: M32, M33, M41, M17, M15, M16, M21
• Altrincham Grammar School for Girls: eight-mile radius catchment
• Loreto and St Ambrose: Nominated Local Pastoral Areas tied to named parishes

How places are allocated and how appeals work

Meeting the qualifying score makes a child eligible for a place; it does not guarantee one. Consortium schools rank eligible applicants using a published order of oversubscription criteria, typically starting with looked-after and previously looked-after children, then pupil-premium applicants within the catchment area, siblings, and other catchment applicants ranked by distance, before considering applicants from outside the catchment area on the same basis. Where scores or distances tie, some schools use random allocation under independent supervision to decide the final places.

Offers are made through each family's home local authority in line with the statutory national timetable, with Loreto Grammar School confirming, for example, that offers for its 2027 entry round go out on 1 March 2027. A family whose application is turned down by a school's governing body has the right to appeal to an independent appeal panel; Loreto's process requires the appeal to be lodged in writing with the clerk to the governors within 20 school working days of the refusal, with seven paper copies of supporting evidence, and the panel's decision is binding on both sides. Other Trafford grammar schools publish similar independent appeal timetables and procedures on their own admissions pages, generally on a similar working-day window after results are issued.

• Qualifying score gives eligibility, not an automatic place
• Typical priority order: looked-after children, pupil premium in catchment, siblings, distance
• Offers made through the home local authority on national allocation day
• Appeals go to an independent panel, generally within 20 school working days of refusal

Preparing for the tests

Because the Consortium examination covers verbal reasoning, non-verbal reasoning and mathematics, without testing a broad curriculum, preparation tends to focus on familiarising a child with the specific question types used, timed multiple-choice practice, and consolidating mathematics content up to the start of Year 6, alongside vocabulary and comprehension work for the verbal element. Loreto Grammar School and St Ambrose College additionally test English directly, so preparation for those two schools usually also covers spelling, punctuation, grammar and reading comprehension in more depth, since their English papers are set by the schools themselves, unlike an off-the-shelf reasoning test.

Because the format is due to change for the 2028 and 2029 entry cycles, moving toward Key Stage 2 English and mathematics content and, from 2029, an earlier test date in Year 5, families with younger children should check the relevant school's current admissions page nearer the time, since the verbal and non-verbal reasoning format described here may not still apply.

• Consortium preparation: verbal and non-verbal reasoning practice, maths to Year 6 level
• Loreto and St Ambrose preparation: added focus on spelling, punctuation, grammar and comprehension
• Format changes from 2028 entry onward, so younger families should recheck nearer the time

Sources

• trafford.gov.uk/schools-and-learning/starting-school-and-admissions/starting-sec
• agsb.co.uk/page/?title=Entrance+Examination&pid=52
• salegrammar.co.uk/6731/september-2027-entry
• urmstongrammar.org.uk/page/?title=Admission+of+children+to+Year+7+for+September+
• urmstongrammar.org.uk/page/?title=Admission+Policies&pid=23
• stretfordgrammar.com/page/?title=Admissions&pid=151
• stretfordgrammar.com/page/?title=Admission+Timetable&pid=156
• aggs.bright-futures.co.uk/admissions/
• aggs.trafford.sch.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Admission-Policy-2022.pdf
• loretogrammar.co.uk/Admissions/Entry-into-Year-7-in-September-2026/

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