Churston Ferrers Grammar School 11+ Preparation | Leading Tuition

Churston Ferrers Grammar School is a state selective grammar school in Galmpton, on the outskirts of Brixham in Torbay, South Devon. Founded in 1957 to replace the closing Dartmouth Grammar School, it converted to academy status in 2011 and today educates around 1,016 pupils across Years 7 to 13, including a well-established sixth form. Entry to Year 7 is through the Torbay consortium 11+ test, sat in September of Year 6, alongside pupils applying to Torquay Boys' Grammar School and Torquay Girls' Grammar School. With a Published Admission Number of 150 — though 160 places were actually offered for September 2026 entry — and around 80% of places historically going to pupils from 15 named Torbay feeder primary schools, understanding exactly how the admissions process works is essential for families considering Churston Ferrers.

What Are the Key Facts and Dates for Churston Ferrers 11+ Entry 2027?

The table below sets out the essential facts about Churston Ferrers and the key dates for the 2026/27 admissions cycle, based on the school's own admissions pages, its published admissions policy and Torbay Council's local authority data.

Registration is completed directly with the school, who will confirm the exact test date and registration window each year on their admissions pages. Because only one sitting per Torbay selective school is permitted, families applying to more than one Torbay grammar school (Churston Ferrers, Torquay Boys' or Torquay Girls') need to check the specific rules on shared results, as guidance letters typically confirm whether a child has met the standard for all three schools from a single sitting.

What Does the Torbay Consortium 11+ Test Involve?

Unlike many grammar school entrance tests elsewhere in England, the Churston Ferrers 11+ does not include verbal reasoning or non-verbal reasoning papers. This is worth stating plainly, because several generic 11+ preparation guides describe the Torbay test as including a reasoning component — it does not. The school's own admissions pages are explicit that the assessment covers English and Maths only, both drawn from content "any child, in any primary school, would be expected to have learned by the end of Year 5."

Both papers are multiple-choice, sat on the same day, each lasting approximately 45 to 50 minutes. GL Assessment combines the raw scores and applies age-standardisation, meaning a child's date of birth within the school year is corrected for — a child born in the summer term is not disadvantaged relative to a child born in September of the same academic year. The standardised score, not the raw mark, is what determines a child's ranked position.

Because the test is English and Maths only, preparation should be weighted accordingly. Families who default to a generic "11+ pack" built around verbal and non-verbal reasoning — the format used by many grammar school consortia elsewhere in the country — risk spending valuable preparation time on question types that will not appear in the Churston Ferrers test at all. A tuition plan built specifically around comprehension, vocabulary, spelling, punctuation and Year 5 maths content is a far more efficient use of a child's time between Year 4 and the September Year 6 sitting.

How Are Places Allocated at Churston Ferrers?

Churston Ferrers does not publish a single fixed pass mark. Instead, results are ranked in score order and the qualifying threshold is set each year by where that ranked list meets the number of available places — a boundary that has sat around the 150th to 160th ranked child in recent years, but which will always vary with the strength of the cohort sitting the test.

Once the qualifying standard is established, the school's admissions policy applies a sequential set of oversubscription criteria to decide who actually receives a place:

This admissions policy has changed materially for entry from around 2025 onward. Two changes stand out. First, sibling priority has been removed — previously, having an older brother or sister already at the school gave automatic priority, but this is no longer the case. Second, the new Social Justice Priority Children band explicitly favours pupils eligible for free school meals and pupils from the 15 named feeder primary schools, a deliberate widening-participation measure designed to keep the school's Year 7 intake connected to its immediate Paignton and Brixham community rather than drawing increasingly from further afield.

Which Primary Schools Get Feeder Priority at Churston Ferrers?

Fifteen primary schools across Torbay are named as feeder schools in the admissions policy, and children attending one of them at the point of application receive priority within the Social Justice Priority Children band. Historically, around 80% of offered places — 131 of the 160 offered for September 2026 entry — went to children from these schools. The full list is:

Families outside these 15 schools are not excluded from applying, and the "highest-qualifying children" band (priority 2 above) sits ahead of the feeder-school priority in the sequence, so a very strong score can still secure a place regardless of primary school. But in practice, competition for the remaining roughly 20% of places is intense, and families outside the feeder-school catchment should treat thorough, early preparation as essential rather than optional.

How Competitive Is Entry to Churston Ferrers?

For September 2026 entry, Torbay Council's own admissions data shows 442 total preferences were submitted across first, second and third choices, with 230 families naming Churston Ferrers as their first preference. Of those first-preference applicants, 148 were offered a place — a first-preference offer rate of 64.35%. No second-preference applicant who missed out on their first choice was offered a place after third-preference allocations, and the council's data confirms zero places remained available on National Offer Day, underlining just how tightly the intake is managed against demand.

This competition sits within a broader context. Churston Ferrers is one of three selective schools in the Torbay consortium, alongside Torquay Boys' Grammar School and Torquay Girls' Grammar School, and families across Torbay frequently apply to more than one as insurance. Because Churston Ferrers is co-educational — unlike the single-sex Torquay grammars — it draws applications from boys and girls across the whole borough, which adds to the pressure on its 150 to 160 available places each year.

What Results and Reputation Does Churston Ferrers Have?

Ofsted rated Churston Ferrers "Good" following an inspection on 18 October 2022, with the report published on 5 December 2022, covering quality of education, behaviour and attitudes, personal development, leadership and management, and sixth form provision. This followed an "Outstanding" rating in 2009, and the change is worth noting for families weighing the school against others that have retained their top grade.

On academic outcomes, the school's own published 2025 results show an Attainment 8 score of 71.2, with 20% of all GCSE grades awarded at the top Level 9 and 60% at Level 7 or above. Ninety percent of pupils achieved a Grade 5 or above — a "strong pass" — in both English and Maths. At A Level, 45% of all grades were A* or A, and 25% of Sixth Form students achieved AAA or better across three subjects. The school describes these as its best results in Torbay for 2025, and it was Highly Commended in the Sunday Times Parent Power Guide 2026 in the State Secondary School of the Year category.

Beyond the classroom, Churston Ferrers has a strong extracurricular record. The school organises pupils into five academic houses — Brunel, Christie, Gilbert, Singer and Thompson — named after notable local and historical figures, and around 200 pupils take part in the Duke of Edinburgh's Award scheme. Its sports teams have won national championships on two occasions, and notable alumni include Olympic field hockey gold medalist Giselle Ansley and historian E. H. H. Green. See also our overview of 11+ Tuition for how we support families across all selective and grammar school entrance routes, and our 11+ School Guides hub for other schools you may be considering alongside Churston Ferrers.

How Should You Prepare for the Churston Ferrers 11+?

Because the Churston Ferrers test is English and Maths only, preparation looks noticeably different from a typical GL Assessment reasoning test used elsewhere. The following timeline reflects the approach Leading Tuition recommends for families targeting Churston Ferrers.

Year 4 (Optional Early Start): Focus on building genuine enjoyment of reading across a wide range of fiction and non-fiction, since vocabulary depth and comprehension speed are the strongest long-term predictors of performance in the English paper. Strengthen core arithmetic and number fluency through games and puzzles rather than formal practice. No timed tests at this stage.

Year 5, September (Structured Preparation): Begin systematic work on comprehension technique — skimming for structure, answering inference questions, and identifying vocabulary in context. Introduce spelling, grammar and punctuation practice explicitly, since these are marked components of the English paper rather than incidental skills. In Maths, work through the Year 5 curriculum in full, with particular attention to multi-step word problems, which are where children typically lose the most marks.

Year 5, January onward: Increase the volume and difficulty of both English and Maths practice. Begin introducing timed sections so your child becomes comfortable working at pace under mild pressure. Track performance by question type to identify whether comprehension, technical English (spelling/grammar/punctuation) or a specific area of maths is the priority for the coming months.

Year 6, September–June: Run full timed mock papers under exam conditions at least monthly, replicating the 45 to 50 minute format used in the real test. Ensure your child is comfortable with multiple-choice answer formats and time management across two papers sat back-to-back. Confirm registration by the expected mid-July 2026 deadline — do not leave this to the final days of the window, and confirm the exact date directly with the school once published.

Summer before the exam: Maintain a light, consistent schedule of two to three sessions per week through the summer holidays. Avoid over-intensive cramming in the final weeks — the test measures developed comprehension and mathematical fluency, not last-minute memorisation, and children generally perform best when they arrive for the 19 September 2026 sitting well-rested rather than exhausted from an intensive final push.

Understanding Age Standardisation and Score Ranking

A frequent source of confusion for families is the difference between a child's raw mark and their standardised score. GL Assessment adjusts every child's result for their exact date of birth relative to the rest of the Year 6 cohort, correcting for the fact that a child born in early September has had almost a full year's more development than a child born the following August. This standardised figure — not the raw number of correct answers — is what appears on the guidance letter and what determines a child's ranked position against the qualifying threshold.

Because Churston Ferrers ranks every child rather than applying a fixed score, families should be wary of any website that quotes a single "pass mark" for the school with confidence. The genuinely useful preparation goal is to maximise your child's standardised score relative to their peers, not to hit an arbitrary published number that changes from one September to the next.

Frequently Asked Questions About Churston Ferrers 11+ Entry

For families weighing Churston Ferrers against other selective options in the South West or considering wider preparation support, visit our guide to what the 11+ exam involves or explore our full range of 11+ tuition services. You can also read Churston Ferrers Grammar School's own entry requirements page directly for the latest official updates on test dates and registration.