11+ pass marks explained: Every grammar school region

Ask ten parents what the 11+ pass mark is and you'll get ten different answers, all of them correct for the region they know, because there is no national threshold. Every local authority or grammar school consortium sets its own, and even within a region 'passing' doesn't automatically mean an offer.

If you're new to this, that sounds infuriating, but it's the point. Grammar schools are oversubscribed, so councils and consortia use the 11+ as a filter rather than a fixed benchmark, and each region has quietly evolved its own way of doing it. Some combine several standardised scores into an aggregate, some use a single Standardised Age Score, and some publish nothing at all until results day.

This guide walks through how pass marks work, what a Standardised Age Score is, and then goes region by region so you can find the threshold that matters for your child. Marks quoted are historical unless noted. Kent, Buckinghamshire and most other regions publish the current year's threshold in October, alongside results.

Two very different things get called 'pass mark' in 11+ conversations, and mixing them up is where a lot of unnecessary stress comes from.

The first is the qualifying score. This is the threshold a local authority or consortium sets to decide who is 'grammar-suitable'. Clear it and your child is eligible to be considered for a grammar school place; miss it and they aren't. In Buckinghamshire, for example, the qualifying score is a Standardised Age Score of 121 or above.

The second is the offer score. This is the effective mark it took to get an actual place at your target school in the year you're applying, given how oversubscribed it was. In highly competitive areas like Sutton or Kingston, the offer score can sit well above the qualifying score, because there are more qualified children than there are places.

Councils and schools publish the qualifying score. They rarely publish the effective offer score, because it moves every year with the number of applicants and their catchment postcodes.

Most 11+ tests report results as a Standardised Age Score (SAS). This isn't the same as a raw mark out of the test's total. It's a scaled score adjusted for the child's age in months on the test date, and then re-scaled so the average is fixed.

GL Assessment, the biggest 11+ test provider in England, uses a scale where 100 is the mean and 15 is one standard deviation. Roughly, that means:

• SAS 100 = average for the test population.
• SAS 115 = about the top 16% of test takers.
• SAS 121 = about the top 10%.
• SAS 130 = about the top 2%.

Percentiles depend on who is in the standardisation sample, so a region-specific score like Bucks' STTS can't be read against national percentiles.

Age adjustment matters here because a child born in September takes the test at 11 years and 1 month; a child born in August takes it at 10 years and 1 month. Without adjustment the September child has an unfair advantage. SAS levels that playing field by scaling each child's raw mark against others of the same age in months.

Kent also uses age-standardised scores: each of its three tests is scored between 69 and 141, and the three are added together for an aggregate out of 423.

The table below summarises the main state grammar regions and their typical qualifying thresholds. 'Typical' does a lot of work: several regions have moved thresholds up or down by two or three marks in recent years, and 2026-27 marks land in October for most areas.

Kent uses age-standardised scores. Children sit English, maths and reasoning papers, each scored between 69 and 141, and the three standardised scores are added together for a total out of 423. In 2025 children needed an aggregate of 332 or more, with no single score below 108, to be assessed as suitable for grammar school. Results are sent to families in mid-October (15 October in 2026).

Kent also runs a Head Teacher Assessment (HTA), where a panel reviews evidence from the primary school for children referred by their head. See Kent County Council's Kent Test pages for current eligibility. That means Kent has effectively two routes to a grammar place, not one, and a below-threshold score isn't necessarily the end of the road.

Our best grammar schools in Kent piece walks through the individual schools and their catchment rules.

Buckinghamshire is the tidiest region in the country for pass-mark clarity. The Secondary Transfer Test is made up of two GL Assessment papers, weighted 50% verbal skills, 25% mathematical skills and 25% non-verbal skills. Results come out as a single Standardised Age Score, and the qualifying threshold is 121.

The council expects about 37% of children who take the test to score 121 or more. Above that, allocation is decided by each school's own admissions criteria (catchment, siblings, aptitude in specific areas). If your child scores below 121 you can appeal via the Selection Review process, which considers school-produced evidence that the score under-represents ability.

The best grammar schools in Buckinghamshire piece goes through the individual schools in more detail.

London is where the qualifying-score model breaks down hardest. Schools like St Olave's, Wilson's, Nonsuch, Wallington High for Girls, Queen Elizabeth's Barnet, Tiffin and Tiffin Girls' are super-selective, meaning they rank applicants by test score, but many also give priority to a designated or inner area, so check each school's oversubscription criteria.

Some publish a first-stage qualifying standard, and some set it only after marking. The score needed for an offer is usually well above that standard, but because each school combines and weights scores differently, there's no single figure to aim for. If your child clears qualifying but ranks 400th out of 3,000 applicants for 180 places, they don't get an offer.

Sutton (SET) and Kingston run shared or school-set tests, Bexley's test is run by the council, and Barnet's grammar schools set their own. Formats change, so check the London 11+ guide and each school's admissions page for the exact test structure the year your child is applying.

The Slough Consortium (four grammar schools: Herschel, Langley, St Bernard's, Upton Court) uses GL Assessment with a qualifying SAS around 111. Scores of 111 or above put a child in roughly the top 35% of those sitting the test.

Kendrick publishes a qualifying score after testing (100, or 95 for disadvantaged applicants, for 2025 entry). Reading School sets an eligible standard in each test element that varies each year. Both give priority to designated areas. Our Slough Consortium 11+ guide has more detail on the four Slough schools and how they interact.

Trafford's five consortium grammar schools (Altrincham Grammar School for Boys, Altrincham Grammar School for Girls, Sale Grammar, Stretford Grammar and Urmston Grammar) share one GL test. Historically the minimum total standardised score has ranged from about 324 to 334, depending on the school and the applicant's priority category, though individual schools within the consortium may set their own school-level qualifying score on top of the consortium threshold. The consortium has announced a change of test provider from 2028 entry, so check the schools' current admissions pages (reported).

Wirral's four grammar schools (Calday Grange, West Kirby, Wirral Grammar for Boys and Girls) use a GL test. Scores from two papers are combined, and families should check the council's current guidance for the standard and any review arrangements.

The provider affects what a threshold means, so it's worth knowing what your region uses:

• GL Assessment: the dominant provider in state 11+. Used by Kent, Buckinghamshire, Slough, Wirral, Trafford, Warwickshire, most Lincolnshire schools. Reports SAS out of 141 max.
• CEM (Centre for Evaluation and Monitoring): announced in 2022 that it would stop producing 11+ tests, and no CEM tests have been set since 2023. Any older guides referencing CEM tests are out of date. Buckinghamshire moved from CEM to GL in 2018. The remaining CEM areas (including Bexley, Gloucestershire and Trafford) moved, mostly to GL; Bexley has since switched to Quest Assessments. Our CEM 11+ guide walks through what changed.
• ISEB Common Pre-Test: used by many private schools for entry at 11+ or 13+, not by state grammars, with different scoring and content weighting.
• Bespoke consortium tests: Sutton (SET), Kingston (Tiffin), and several London super-selectives commission their own papers.

The provider affects what a threshold means. Mixing up an SAS with a raw score, or a GL 141-max scale with a CEM standardised score from the pre-2022 era, is a genuinely common parent error.

One thing worth holding on to: clearing the qualifying threshold puts your child in the pool. In non-super-selective regions (Buckinghamshire, most of Kent, Wirral) the pool then gets sorted by the school's admissions criteria: catchment first, siblings next, faith or partnership arrangements where relevant. If you live outside a school's priority admission area, a qualifying score alone won't get an offer.

In super-selective regions (Sutton, Kingston, most of Barnet's grammars, several London consortium schools) rank order takes over, though many also give priority to a designated or inner area (Tiffin Girls', for example). Two children with the same qualifying score can get very different outcomes because one ranked higher overall.

The honest advice: before you plan around a threshold, look at each target school's actual admissions criteria and last year's oversubscription details. Councils and individual schools publish these. If the school offered 180 places against 900 first-preference applications, the effective offer score is going to be well above the published qualifying score.

State grammar 11+ and independent-school 11+ often get lumped together, but they're separate systems. Most private schools use the ISEB Common Pre-Test (a computer-adaptive test taken in Year 6) plus their own written papers and interviews. Threshold logic doesn't really apply: independent admissions are holistic, weighing the pre-test alongside written work, references and interview.

If your family is preparing for both state grammar 11+ and independent 11+, treat them as two different exams that happen to overlap in date and format. The prep for GL Assessment is not the same as the prep for ISEB.

Cognito's 11+ platform covers verbal reasoning, non-verbal reasoning, English and maths across the topics most 11+ tests draw from. If you're preparing for a specific region, our what is a good 11+ score piece pairs well with this one, and the GL Assessment 11+ guide walks through the specific format most state grammar regions use.

For tailored prep, browse the 11+ courses at /courses/11plus and match the topics to what your target region tests hardest.