Super-Selective Grammar Schools: The Complete 2027 Guide for Parents

Most of England's 163 grammar schools admit any child who clears a local pass mark and lives nearby. A small group works differently. Demand is so high that passing is not enough; a child has to finish near the very top of a ranked list. This guide explains what "super-selective" really means, what scores win places, how each of the best-known schools admits, how to prepare, and how to keep a sensible Plan B.

All admissions details below are for September 2027 entry (children in Year 6 now) unless stated. Rules change every year, so always check the school's own determined admissions policy before you act.

At a glance

• "Super-selective" is an informal label, not an official category.

• Classic super-selectives rank purely by test score with no catchment, but several famous ones now give priority to local children.

• Effective cut-offs usually sit around a standardised score of 120–130, roughly the top 2–9% of the age group.

• Two-stage tests are now the norm at the most competitive London schools.

• Many reserve places for disadvantaged children, often with a lower qualifying score.

• Always pair a super-selective with realistic local options on your Common Application Form.

What is a super-selective grammar school?

A super-selective is a grammar school that fills its places strictly in order of test score, so the effective pass mark is set by the strength of the field, not by a fixed threshold.

The term has no legal definition. People use it in three overlapping ways:

1. No catchment. The traditional meaning: the school admits on score alone, wherever a child lives, with distance used only to split exact ties.

2. Extreme demand. Schools where thousands apply for under 200 places, so even children far above the qualifying score miss out.

3. Highest entry scores. Informally, any grammar whose cut-off sits well above its neighbours'.

The definition is shifting

Several schools that parents still call super-selective have moved away from pure score-only entry:

• Tiffin School gives priority to boys within 10 km and has offered every place to that area in 2024, 2025 and 2026.

• The Tiffin Girls' School has offered every place to girls in its 44-postcode Designated Area since 2014.

• The Latymer School admits only from a published list of postcode districts (its Inner Area).

• King Edward VI Camp Hill (Birmingham) introduced ward-based catchments and a 25% Pupil Premium target from 2020.

The schools that remain genuinely national in reach for 2027 include Queen Elizabeth's (Barnet), Henrietta Barnett (with a 3-mile criterion), Wilson's (Sutton) and St Olave's (Bromley). So for many families, where you live now matters as much as the test.

What score do you actually need?

There is no published pass mark that guarantees a place; the cut-off is simply wherever the last child offered a place happens to land that year.

How standardised scores work

Most 11+ tests report a Standardised Age Score (SAS). Raw marks are adjusted for age in months, so a September-born child is not favoured over an August-born one. Scores are usually scaled so the average is 100 and the spread (standard deviation) is 15. On that scale, approximately:

Two cautions. First, these percentages describe the group that sat the test, and super-selective candidates are already a strong, prepared group. Second, some schools add two or three standardised papers together (QE Barnet's combined score, Birmingham's 205/224 thresholds, Kent's aggregate), so the numbers are not comparable across schools.

Typical effective scores

Tutoring sites commonly quote these rough single-scale targets, based on past admission patterns rather than any official figure:

• Around 128+: Tiffin School, Tiffin Girls', Henrietta Barnett

• Around 120–125: QE Barnet, Latymer, Wilson's, St Olave's, Judd

• Around 118–122: Skinners', the Birmingham King Edward VI schools

Where a school publishes real data, use that instead. The clearest example is QE Barnet (below), which publishes five years of lowest-admitted scores.

Eligibility is not an offer

Many schools publish a qualifying or eligibility score. That only makes a child eligible to be ranked. At QE Barnet the 2027 eligibility floor is a combined 225, yet the lowest score to win a place was 235 in both 2024 and 2025.

The schools compared (September 2027 entry)

The biggest practical difference between these schools is not the test but the geography rule, so check that column first.

School profiles: London

London has 19 fully selective grammar schools across seven boroughs, and the most competitive super-selectives sit in Barnet, Kingston, Sutton, Bromley and Enfield.

Queen Elizabeth's School, Barnet (boys)

• Places: 180, unchanged for years.

• Test: two multiple-choice papers, English and maths, sat in one session in mid-September. There is no second round.

• Scoring: each paper is age-standardised and the two are added. The 2027 eligibility floor is 225 (raised from 210, then 220).

• What wins a place: the lowest admitted score was 232, 234, 232, 235 and 235 for 2021–2025 entry.

• Competition: 3,433 boys sat for 2025 entry, up from 2,928 in 2021.

• Geography: no catchment. Distance to the school gate only breaks exact ties.

• Results: parents learn only whether their son met the standard, not his rank.

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The Henrietta Barnett School, Hampstead Garden Suburb (girls)

• Places: 120 for 2027, up from 104.

• Competition: around 3,500 girls sit Round 1.

• Round 1 (early September): GL Assessment multiple choice in English, verbal and non-verbal reasoning.

• Round 2 (early October): the top 300 sit the school's own English and maths papers, pitched at Key Stage 2. No past papers are released .

• Geography: no catchment, but one criterion favours girls living within 3 miles who sit Round 2.

• Priority: girls eligible for Free School Meals or Pupil Premium.

Tiffin School, Kingston upon Thames (boys)

• Places: 180.

• Test: two stages, written each year for Tiffin by Quest Assessments. Stage One was held on 2 October 2026.

• Geography: boys within 10 km (straight line) form the Priority Area. All places in 2024, 2025 and 2026 went to Priority Area boys.

• Other routes: up to 9 sport and up to 9 music aptitude places; Pupil Premium boys come before other Priority Area boys .

The Tiffin Girls' School, Kingston upon Thames (girls)

• Places: 180.

• Test: Stage 1 multiple-choice English and maths (1–2 October 2026); Stage 2 written English and maths in November.

• Geography: an Inner Area and a 44-postcode Designated Area. Every place since 2014 has gone to girls inside the Designated Area.

• Priority: girls in the Inner Area, and Pupil Premium girls, who score at or above the 350th-ranked Stage 2 mark.

The Latymer School, Edmonton (mixed)

• Places: 192.

• Test: a combined GL maths and verbal reasoning paper plus a school-set English paper, sat in early September.

• Geography: strict. Only children whose main address is in the Inner Area postcode list are admitted; the address date for 2027 is 7 January 2027 .

• Results: families receive results by 31 October .

Wilson's School, Wallington, Sutton (boys)

• Places: 186, including up to 9 football and 9 music aptitude places.

• Stage 1: the Sutton Selective Eligibility Test (SET) on 15 September 2026, shared with five other Sutton schools.

• Stage 2: Wilson's own English and maths papers on 3 October 2026, for boys who reach its SET threshold.

• Geography: no catchment or postcode priority.

St Olave's Grammar School, Orpington, Bromley (boys)

• Places: 124. The school received 1,682 applications for 2026 entry.

• Stage 1: the school's own 60-minute multiple-choice SET (18 September 2026).

• Stage 2: English and maths papers (13 November 2026), reportedly for the top 450 boys.

• Scoring: the school's own test is not age-standardised, so younger boys get no adjustment.

• Geography: none at all; places go purely by rank.

School profiles: outside London

Outside London, most high-demand grammars now ring-fence the bulk of their places for local children, so a family's address often decides more than the final few marks.

The Judd School, Tonbridge, Kent (boys)

• Places: 180.

• Test: the Kent Test (English, maths, reasoning and a writing task). In Kent, a "grammar" assessment requires an aggregate of at least 332 with 108+ in each paper.

• What wins a place: Judd ranks qualifying boys by aggregate score. Its latest published lowest scores were 367 in catchment and 398 for the outer area .

• Priority: up to 5 places for Free School Meals boys, ranked by score .

• Nearby: Skinners' School in Tunbridge Wells also uses the Kent Test and is usually a little less competitive.

King Edward VI Grammar School (KEGS), Chelmsford (boys)

• Places: 150.

• Test: the CSSE English and maths papers, shared by Essex selective schools.

• Geography: the first 120 places go to the highest scorers living continuously within 12.5 miles from 10 October of Year 6. The remaining places go to the highest scorers from anywhere.

Chelmsford County High School for Girls

• Places: 192 for 2027 under its 2027–28 policy, with 154 allocated in a priority group and 38 open to all in score order.

• Test: its own FSCE entrance test since 2023, not the CSSE .

Kendrick School, Reading (girls)

• Places: 128.

• Test: two one-hour GL Assessment papers on 18 September 2026.

• Geography: a postcode Designated Area. The school says no girl living outside it has been offered a place since 2013, and advises outside families not to register.

• Access: a free familiarisation programme for Year 5 Pupil Premium girls in the area. Kendrick holds the Sutton Trust Fair School Admissions Award at Gold level.

• Nearby: Reading School (boys) sets its own test, sat as early as July of Year 5.

Pate's Grammar School, Cheltenham (mixed)

• Places: 150.

• Test: the shared Gloucestershire 11+ (GL Assessment), sat at one of the county's seven grammar schools.

• Geography: no catchment. After priority groups, qualified children are ranked by score until all 150 places are filled.

King Edward VI Camp Hill Boys and Girls, Birmingham

• Places: 120 (boys) and 150 (girls).

• Test: the King Edward VI Foundation test of verbal, numerical and non-verbal reasoning, age-standardised.

• Priority: Pupil Premium children with the qualifying score, first in catchment then outside it, up to 25% of places; then catchment children above a higher priority score (2027 policy).

• Scores: the girls' school published a 2025 qualifying score of 205 and priority score of 224.

• Caution: since the 2020 changes, Camp Hill draws mainly from nearby wards, so it is no longer a super-selective in the classic sense.

How super-selectives differ from standard grammar schools

The core difference is the target: a standard grammar asks a child to clear a bar, while a super-selective asks them to outscore almost everyone else in the room.

Four practical consequences follow:

• Harder questions. Bespoke papers (Tiffin's Quest test, QE, St Olave's, Wilson's Stage 2) reward multi-step reasoning, not just practised procedures.

• A self-selecting field. Most candidates have prepared for one to two years, which raises the effective floor.

• Tiny margins. At QE Barnet, the lowest winning score moved by only three marks across five years, so a single question can decide the outcome.

• No past papers. Most bespoke tests release only sample questions, so preparation must be skills-based rather than paper-specific.

How to prepare

The most effective super-selective preparation starts lightly in Year 3, builds real reasoning in Year 4 and 5, and only turns to intensive timed practice in the exam year (after 1st term in year 5).

A year-by-year timeline

1. Year 4: enrichment, not drilling. Wide reading, number puzzles, logic games and conversation about books. The aim is curiosity and vocabulary, not past papers. Use the topic and subject specific learning areas on the Iskool Platform.

2. Year 5 (autumn–spring): build skills. Cover the Key Stage 2 maths curriculum ahead of school, start structured verbal and non-verbal reasoning, and begin regular timed writing.

3. Year 5 (spring–summer): mocks and stamina. Full-length papers under timed conditions, with error analysis.

4. Year 5 (spring–summer): shortlist and register. Visit open days, check each school's geography rules, and register. Many deadlines fall between May and early July of Year 5; Reading School closed in mid-May and St Olave's at the end of June for 2027 entry.

5. Year 6 September–November: the tests. Most first rounds run in September; second stages run from October to mid-November.

6. 31 October of Year 6: the Common Application Form. List schools in your true order of preference. Placing a school first never harms your chances at the others.

7. 1 March before entry: National Offer Day. Waiting lists then move, often into the summer.

What to work on

• Maths reasoning. Multi-step problems, working backwards, patterns, ratio and proportion. The Junior Mathematical Challenge is good extension material.

• Vocabulary through reading. Fiction, non-fiction and quality journalism; discuss inference and the author's intent.

• Non-verbal and spatial reasoning. Especially for GL-based first rounds (Henrietta Barnett, Kendrick, Kent).

• Extended writing. Timed comprehension and creative writing for schools with written stages (Tiffin Girls', HBS Round 2, Latymer, St Olave's Stage 2).

• Speed and accuracy. Answer-sheet technique for multiple-choice papers marked by machine.

Using mocks well

• Benchmark against a selective cohort, not a general one: a top-20% mock score is not a super-selective score.

• Log every error by type (misread, timing, a skill gap) rather than only tracking totals.

• Treat Year 5 mocks as diagnostics; mocks after the year 5 final-term are the better predictor. Book Iskool 11plus Mock tests early and reserve the place for your child.

• Keep the conversation calm. A child's motivation over a two-year run matters more than any single mark.

Fairness, tutoring and disadvantage

Grammar schools, and super-selectives most of all, admit far fewer disadvantaged children than their surrounding areas, which is why so many now reserve places for Pupil Premium pupils.

• Free School Meals. About 6.7% of grammar school pupils take free school meals, against 28.4% in non-selective schools in selective areas.

• Equal attainment, unequal odds. Research for the Sutton Trust found that, in selective areas, 66% of high-attaining children not on free meals went to a grammar, versus 40% of equally high-attaining children on free meals (Sutton Trust; IFS).

• Prep-school entry. The same study found almost 13% of grammar entrants came from outside the state sector, largely fee-paying prep schools.

• Local gaps. FFT Education Datalab measured a gap of up to 42 percentage points between a grammar's disadvantaged intake and its local area, at Camp Hill Boys, before Birmingham's 2020 reforms.

Schools have responded. Camp Hill aims for 25% Pupil Premium places, Judd reserves up to 5 Free School Meals places, Tiffin and Tiffin Girls' prioritise Pupil Premium children within their areas, and Kendrick runs free familiarisation sessions. If your child is eligible for Pupil Premium, register it on the test form by the deadline: it can lower the score your child needs.

On tutoring: it is possible to win a place without a tutor, and children do it every year. But the field includes many children with long structured preparation, so families without a tutor should plan a consistent, self-directed programme.

Is a super-selective right for your child?

A super-selective suits a child who enjoys being stretched and copes well with being one of many very able peers; it is the wrong goal if it costs the child their confidence or a sensible fallback.

Questions to ask honestly

• Peer group. Will your child thrive among peers who are all highly able, or feel constantly compared?

• Commute. A 45–60 minute journey each way is common at schools with no catchment. Is that sustainable at 11?

• The whole school. Pastoral care, sport, music, clubs and teaching style matter as much as league tables. Visit, talk to current families and read the Ofsted report.

• Pace after entry. These schools move quickly and expect independent work; a child who only just scraped in may need extra support in Year 7.

• Sixth form. QE Barnet takes no external sixth-formers, while Henrietta Barnett admits a substantial external Year 12 intake, so there can be a second chance at 16.

Build a balanced list

• One or two stretch schools: the super-selectives your child can realistically reach and travel to.

• Realistic options: standard grammars in your area (Kent, Bexley, Sutton, Buckinghamshire and so on) and strong local comprehensives.

• A safe option: a school you are confident of being offered and happy to accept.

• Independent schools: a super-selective-level candidate is often competitive for scholarships or bursaries.

If you do not get the place

Most applicants are unsuccessful, including many very able children, because there are simply too few places. A miss is a ranking on one day, not a verdict on ability. Waiting lists move between March and September, so stay on them and confirm your interest. You can also appeal, though the panel will weigh the school's capacity heavily.

Frequently asked questions

Which is the hardest grammar school to get into? By test-sitters per place, Henrietta Barnett (about 3,500 for 120) and QE Barnet (3,433 for 180 in 2025) are among the most competitive in England. Tiffin and Tiffin Girls' are as hard on score but now only realistic from within their areas.

Can we apply from anywhere? At QE Barnet, Henrietta Barnett, Wilson's, St Olave's and Pate's, yes. At Tiffin, Tiffin Girls', Latymer and Kendrick, places in practice go only to local children. KEGS and Chelmsford County High hold back a minority of places for anyone.

Does putting a school first on the CAF matter? You will be offered the highest-ranked school on your list that can offer you a place. Schools do not see your order, so list them in your true preference.

Can my child resit? No. Most schools, including Tiffin, HBS and QE, allow the Year 7 test once only.

Are scores age-standardised? Usually, yes. St Olave's is a notable exception because its test is set and marked by the school.

What if we move house? Each school sets a date by which your address counts (Latymer: 7 January 2027; KEGS: from 10 October of Year 6). Councils check addresses, and false information to win a place can lead to the offer being withdrawn.

What happens if my child is on the waiting list? Lists move as families decline offers. QE Barnet's list for 2026 entry had reached position 20 by August 2026. Confirm your interest with the school or council.