Best grammar schools in Buckinghamshire 2026

Buckinghamshire is one of the few English counties that still operates a fully selective grammar school system. There are 13 state grammar schools across the county, and the 11+ here works differently from Kent, London or the regional consortiums. If you're a parent in or around Bucks, the most important things to know are the schools themselves, the test (it changed in 2022), and how catchment really works.

This guide covers all of it, in the order many parents need it: the schools, the test, the score, the catchment, and the appeals.

There are 13 state grammar schools in Buckinghamshire. They sit across four main areas: Aylesbury, High Wycombe, the Chalfonts and Amersham, and the smaller market towns of Buckingham, Beaconsfield, Marlow, Chesham and Burnham.

The schools are organised as a county-wide group with a shared admissions test, so a child in Aylesbury and a child in Marlow sit the same exam and get one score that all 13 schools use.

A few that tend to appear near the top of national grammar school rankings include Dr Challoner's High School (girls), Beaconsfield High, Chesham Grammar and the Royal Grammar School in High Wycombe. Rankings move year to year, and Bucks grammars typically sit well above the national average for percentage of grade 9-7 results, though exact positions vary.

Bucks grammar schools use the Secondary Transfer Test, which in recent cycles has been produced by GL Assessment. The county previously used CEM (Centre for Evaluation and Monitoring) tests; reports of the switch year have varied (commonly cited as 2019 or 2022), so confirm the current provider against bucksgrammarschools.org. The change matters because a lot of older guides, tutors and practice books still reference the CEM format, which is no longer used.

The test is two multiple-choice papers covering English, maths, verbal reasoning and non-verbal reasoning. It's sat in September of Year 6, typically the second or third week back after summer.

Children at a Buckinghamshire state primary school are automatically registered. If your child attends an independent school, a school outside the county, or you're home-educating, you need to register them manually through the Buckinghamshire Council website. In recent cycles, the registration window has opened in early May and closed in early June, so it's an early-summer window rather than late summer. Exact dates and times shift between cycles, so always confirm against bucksgrammarschools.org and the council's admissions page for the year you're applying in.

Miss the registration deadline and your child can't sit the test in September. Late registrations aren't accepted, so set a reminder if your child isn't auto-registered.

In recent cycles the published qualifying standardised score has been around 121. This is a standardised score, not a raw mark, so it adjusts for the child's age and the difficulty of the paper. Any child who reaches the published threshold is deemed qualified for a grammar school place and can name a Buckinghamshire grammar as one of their preferences on the secondary school application form. Confirm the current cycle's qualifying score against bucksgrammarschools.org.

Qualifying isn't the same as getting in. Schools are oversubscribed, so above the qualifying score you're then ranked against everyone else who qualified, using the school's own oversubscription criteria. Schools typically prioritise looked-after children, siblings, and then distance from the school.

Most Bucks grammar schools don't have a fixed catchment area. They rank qualified applicants using a mix of priority categories (siblings, looked-after children, faith for some schools) and then distance, measured as a straight line from home to school.

In practice, this means some schools have a de facto catchment that has been shrinking year on year as more out-of-county families apply. The Chalfonts grammars and Beaconsfield High in particular have very tight effective catchments because demand from north London and west Berkshire is high. Aylesbury and Buckingham schools tend to have wider effective catchments.

Results are released in mid-October, before the secondary school application deadline of 31 October. You'll get the standardised score and a yes or no on whether the child qualified.

This timing is deliberate: parents can see the result before they put their preferences on the common application form (CAF). If your child didn't qualify, you'll usually leave grammar schools off the CAF and rank comprehensives or independents instead.

There are two separate appeal routes and parents often confuse them.

A qualification appeal challenges the test result itself, usually on the basis that the score doesn't reflect the child's ability (illness on the day, special educational needs not accommodated, exceptional circumstances). These are reviewed by the Buckinghamshire Grammar Schools panel and have to be in within a tight window after results.

A place appeal is the standard school admissions appeal: Your child qualified but didn't get a place at the school you wanted. This goes to an independent panel and runs in the spring after offers day. Success rates aren't centrally published in a comparable form; ask each school directly for the number of appeals heard and upheld in recent years, since the rate varies meaningfully by school and year.

Roughly the top third of the Bucks cohort qualifies each year, broadly in line with the historical share of grammar school places available, though the exact proportion varies year to year and the county doesn't publish a single headline percentage in the same form each round. The actual offer rate at the most oversubscribed schools (Dr Challoner's High, Beaconsfield High, Royal Grammar) sits well below the qualification rate, because demand outstrips supply.

If your child qualifies but lives well outside any of the practical catchments, naming a less-oversubscribed school as a higher preference can be a better strategy than chasing the most competitive name.

Preparation usually starts in Year 5, with most families ramping up over the summer before the test. The four test areas (English, maths, verbal reasoning, non-verbal reasoning) build on the KS2 curriculum, so the maths and English are familiar from school. Verbal and non-verbal reasoning are the parts that benefit most from practice, because they're question types children don't see in normal lessons.

A realistic prep mix looks like this: regular short sessions through the spring of Year 5, two or three timed familiarisation papers across the summer, and a final round of timed practice in the two weeks before the test. Avoid the trap of starting too early in Year 4 or grinding for two hours a day in Year 5: the evidence on test prep at this age is that little and often outperforms long, exhausting sessions.