Devonport High School for Boys 11 Plus: The Complete 2027 Entry Guide

Devonport High School for Boys (DHSB) is a state grammar school for boys in Stoke, Plymouth, and one of the most competitive 11+ entry points in Devon. Most of what circulates online about its admissions test is either scattered across five separate pages on the school's own site, written by the company that also happens to sell DHSB's test preparation materials, or simply wrong — one currently ranking page still describes the assessment as "GL Assessment," a claim that has not been accurate for some time. This guide pulls together verified 2026 test dates, the school's actual exam format, its real Ofsted judgement, official Department for Education GCSE data, and the 1896 founding story that explains why a school in Plymouth is built around Navy and Engineering careers — all checked directly against dhsb.org, Ofsted and the DfE's Compare School Performance service.

Quick Facts: Devonport High School for Boys at a Glance

Before the detail, here is the essential picture of the school as it stands today, verified against its Ofsted report and the DfE's own school record.

The absence of a catchment area is worth underlining on its own: DHSB's own admissions FAQ confirms that any boy who meets the qualifying standard is eligible to apply for a place, regardless of where he lives in the country. Distance and postcode simply do not enter into whether your son can apply, though they can matter later if the school is oversubscribed and tie-breaks come into play.

What Test Does DHSB Actually Use — and Why Do Some Sites Still Say GL?

This is the single most consequential fact on this page, because it determines how you should actually prepare. Devonport High School for Boys does not use GL Assessment for 11+ entry. The current test provider is Quest Assessment, and DHSB's own admissions FAQ is explicit about the structure: there are three papers, an English reading paper set by Quest Assessment in multiple-choice format, a Maths paper also set by Quest Assessment in multiple-choice format, and an English writing paper that is set and marked by DHSB itself rather than by the external provider.

That third paper matters. Families who prepare only with generic GL-style verbal and non-verbal reasoning workbooks — which is what a "GL Assessment" label would lead you to buy — will have practised the wrong style of multiple-choice question for the reading and maths papers, and will have done no preparation at all for the DHSB-written creative writing component, which is unique to boys applying to DHSB rather than shared with the other Plymouth grammar schools.

The school is equally clear about scope: no content beyond Year 5 of the National Curriculum is assessed, which rules out any need to pre-teach Year 6 material and instead points preparation toward secure, well-practised Year 5-level reasoning and comprehension skills applied under timed, multiple-choice conditions.

Where does the GL Assessment confusion come from? At least one currently visible search result for this exact query, passelevenplus.co.uk, lists DHSB's assessment simply as "GL Assessment" in its summary of Plymouth grammar schools — a claim that is out of date. A separate result, theexamcoach.tv, correctly identifies the real exam as "Quest and school written testing" in its body text, but then undermines that accuracy by labelling its own practice papers for the school as "GL" papers, which is confusing for any parent trying to work out what to actually buy or practise. If you take one thing from this page, it should be this: prepare for Quest Assessment's multiple-choice format plus a DHSB-specific written English task, not a traditional GL Assessment paper.

Key Dates for September 2027 Entry: Registration, Tests, Open Evening

DHSB publishes its admissions timetable directly on its website, and the dates below are taken from the school's own admissions FAQ page rather than from a third-party summary that may lag behind changes.

Registration for the 11+ test is done via an online form on the DHSB website, published during the summer term, with a firm deadline of 31 August 2026 — the day before the first test sitting on 12 September. Given how tight that gap is, we recommend registering as soon as the form goes live rather than waiting until late August, since any administrative delay leaves almost no room to resolve before the first test date. The open evening on 7 July 2026 is a sensible first step for families still deciding whether DHSB is the right choice, and it takes place well before registration opens.

How Places Are Allocated: The A/B/C System and What Happens If You're Not First Choice

DHSB grades 11+ results using three letters rather than a raw pass mark: A, B or C. An A result means your son has met the qualifying standard and can be listed as a preference on Plymouth City Council's common application form with confidence that DHSB will consider him for a place. A B result also means he has passed the required standard, but he may be placed on a waiting list rather than offered a place outright — B-graded boys are effectively in a second tier, offered places only once all A-graded applicants who chose DHSB have been accommodated. A C result means he did not reach the qualifying standard for DHSB.

Because DHSB shares its underlying English and Maths papers with the other Plymouth grammar schools, the practical mechanics of applying are slightly different depending on which schools you are targeting. Boys applying to Devonport High School for Girls (DHSG) or Plymouth High School for Girls (PHSG) — for siblings, or for families comparing options — sit only the English and Maths papers. Boys who want to be considered for DHSB itself additionally sit the DHSB-specific creative writing task described above. This shared-paper structure means one exam sitting can support several applications, but it also means DHSB's own written English component is the one genuinely unique element you cannot skip if your son is applying there.

Once testing is complete, allocation follows a two-track notification process: Plymouth City Council notifies families of primary school place allocations on the first working day of March, and DHSB writes separately to families on the same day to confirm its own decision. Some third-party sources — theexamcoach.tv, in particular — report that DHSB has over 1,300 pupils on roll, offers 180+ places in Year 7 each year, and receives more than 4 applications for every place available, organised across six houses. We flag these as reportedly accurate rather than independently verified, since they are not currently confirmed on dhsb.org itself, but they are broadly consistent with a heavily oversubscribed single-sex grammar school serving Plymouth and the wider Devon and Cornwall area.

Is DHSB Actually a Good School? What Ofsted Really Found in 2023

Ofsted's most recent inspection of Devonport High School for Boys took place on 17 October 2023, with the report published on 11 December 2023. The overall outcome was Good, not Outstanding — a distinction worth stating plainly, because it is easy for a school with this profile to be assumed Outstanding by families who have not read the actual Ofsted report for themselves.

What the headline Good rating obscures, though, is that several sub-judgements were genuinely Outstanding. Behaviour and attitudes was judged Outstanding. Personal development was judged Outstanding. Sixth form provision was judged Outstanding. Quality of education and Leadership and management were both judged Good — solid, but not the top grade. In practice, this means DHSB is a school where pupil conduct, wider personal development and the sixth form experience are assessed as excellent, while the core teaching quality and how the school is run are assessed as strong but with room identified for further improvement. That is a more useful, and more accurate, picture than either "Outstanding school" or "just a Good school" would suggest on its own.

GCSE Results and Destinations, Verified Against DfE Data

Ofsted judgements tell you about the quality of teaching and school culture; the Department for Education's Compare School Performance service tells you about actual outcomes. We pulled DHSB's most recent published data — for the 2025 results — directly from the DfE's official service and set it against both the Plymouth local authority average and the England average.

The headline figures are strong and unambiguous. An Attainment 8 score of 69.3 against a national average of 46.1 puts DHSB well ahead of the typical English secondary school, and 94.4% of DHSB pupils achieving grade 5 or above in both English and maths is more than double the England-wide figure of 45.4%. Destinations are equally strong: 98% of DHSB leavers stay in education, an apprenticeship or employment, slightly ahead of both the Plymouth and England averages.

The one figure that runs against the grain is EBacc entry, at 25.3% — lower than both the Plymouth local authority average of 27.7% and, more strikingly, well below the England average of 40.5%. This is worth flagging honestly rather than glossing over: it suggests that, despite DHSB's engineering and technical heritage, a comparatively smaller proportion of pupils are entered for the specific combination of subjects that make up the EBacc measure, even though overall attainment across English and maths is exceptionally strong. Families should not read this as a weakness in teaching quality — Ofsted's Good/Outstanding judgements and the Attainment 8 score both argue against that — but it is a genuine data point that a school this strong on paper does not automatically translate into a high EBacc entry rate.

Why 'Devonport' and Why Engineering? The School's Founding Story

Devonport High School for Boys was founded by Alonzo Rider on 16 January 1896, and its founding purpose was specific rather than general: to meet the needs of boys in Plymouth and the surrounding district who were seeking a career in the Navy, in Engineering, or in the Civil Service. "Devonport" itself refers to the historic naval dockyard town on the western side of Plymouth — one of the Royal Navy's principal home ports — and the school's original curriculum and character were shaped directly around preparing boys for the technical, administrative and military careers that dominated the local economy at the time.

This is more than historical trivia. It explains why a state grammar school in Plymouth has, for well over a century, maintained a particular emphasis on the sciences, mathematics and technical subjects that align with engineering and naval careers — an emphasis that persists in the school's current identity as an academy, even as the specific career paths available to its pupils have broadened enormously since 1896. Understanding that founding story gives useful context to families weighing DHSB's academic profile: its strength in Attainment 8 and GCSE grade 5+ outcomes sits on top of a genuinely long institutional tradition of taking STEM subjects seriously, not a recent rebrand.

Preparing Without a Private Tutor: What the School Itself Provides Free

Not every family preparing for the DHSB 11+ needs to pay for private tuition, and the school is explicit about supporting this. DHSB provides free access to an online platform with supporting materials for English, Maths and 11+ preparation specifically for pupil premium children. Alongside this, the school runs Primary Scholars sessions, in which a current DHSB student mentor works directly with your child — a genuinely distinctive form of support that most 11+ guides for other schools simply do not mention, because most schools do not offer it.

Beyond the school's own provision, the most reliable free step any family can take is to work directly from DHSB's official 11+ familiarisation materials rather than generic third-party workbooks, precisely because those materials reflect the real Quest Assessment format and the DHSB-specific written English task rather than an outdated GL-style paper. Where structured, timed practice under exam conditions is still useful — particularly for the multiple-choice reasoning style used by Quest Assessment, and for building the stamina and technique the DHSB written English paper rewards — that is where working with specialist tutors who understand this specific exam format, rather than a generic 11+ package, tends to make the most difference. You can read more about how we approach the wider Quest Assessment format, used by DHSB and a number of other schools, on our Quest Assessment preparation page.

For families comparing DHSB against other grammar and selective schools while deciding where to apply, our full library of 11+ school guides covers exam formats and admissions timelines school by school, and our wider explainer on how grammar schools work is a useful starting point if this is your family's first experience of the 11+ process. Our 11+ tuition service pairs specialist tutors with families preparing for DHSB and other selective schools around the country.

Frequently Asked Questions About Devonport High School for Boys 11+ Entry