Real oversubscription criteria, Medway Test scores and the co-education transition, explained
Book a Free ConsultationFort Pitt Grammar School is a state selective grammar school on Ordnance Street, Chatham, offering 150 places in Year 7 through the Medway Test, GL Assessment's three-paper selection exam. Rated Outstanding by Ofsted in every judgement area, the school currently has 1,009 pupils on roll against a capacity of 1,027. Fort Pitt is also mid-transition: the Department for Education approved a move to full co-education, with the school admitting boys into Year 7 from September 2026, so the intake now being decided - for September 2027 - will be Fort Pitt's second co-educational Year 7 cohort. This guide sets out exactly what has changed, corrects an oversubscription myth several tutoring sites still publish about Fort Pitt, and covers the Medway Test format, the school's academy trust and its GCSE results.
The table below draws together the essential facts about Fort Pitt Grammar School, verified against the school's own published policy documents and the Department for Education's official record.
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| School type | State selective grammar academy, Ordnance Street, Chatham; co-educational for Year 7 entry from September 2026 |
| Academy trust | FPTA Academies (Fort Pitt Grammar School and The Thomas Aveling School), part of Beyond Schools Trust; academy status since 1 November 2010 |
| Year 7 places (PAN) | 150 places, offered to children assessed as of selective ability by the Medway Test |
| Current admissions policy | The school's Determined Admissions Policy for September 2027 governs the intake now being decided |
| Entry test | Medway Test only (English, Mathematics, Reasoning), set by GL Assessment for Medway Council |
| Pupils on roll / capacity | 1,009 pupils against a capacity of 1,027 |
| Free school meals eligibility | 14.2% of pupils |
| Ofsted rating | Outstanding in all five judgement areas, inspected 4 October 2022 |
Fort Pitt Grammar School has been a girls' school for most of its history, but that is changing. The Department for Education approved a move to full co-education, and Fort Pitt began admitting boys into Year 7 from September 2026 - the school's first mixed intake. The Year 7 place being decided through the admissions process now under way, for entry in September 2027, will therefore be Fort Pitt's second co-educational cohort, open to boys and girls on identical terms and assessed against the same Medway Test result and the same oversubscription criteria.
Two details are worth knowing precisely, because they trip families up. First, the school's official record with the Department for Education's Get Information about Schools (GIAS) service still lists "Gender of entry: Girls" as its current administrative designation - a lag between the legal change and the database entry that is easy to mistake for the transition not having happened. Second, the rules are not identical for boys and girls during the transition period: the school's admissions policy states that in-year (mid-year, outside the normal September Year 7 round) vacancies are offered to "girls deemed to be of selective ability evidenced through age-appropriate testing in years 7-11 and boys in years 7-8 only." In practice, that means a family moving into the area with a son already part-way through Key Stage 4 cannot currently apply for an in-year place at Fort Pitt, while the equivalent daughter could. It does not affect a standard September Year 7 application for either sex.
Applying to Fort Pitt Grammar School for September 2027?
Our tutors prepare children specifically for the Medway Test's English, Mathematics and Reasoning papers, with a plan built around where each child's score currently sits against the recent qualifying threshold.
Book a Free Consultation Message us on WhatsAppSeveral independent 11+ guides for Fort Pitt Grammar School publish a "Junior Academies" priority tier, describing children who attend Fort Pitt Thomas Aveling (FPTA) feeder primaries as ranking above other applicants once they have passed the Medway Test. That tier does not exist. Fort Pitt's own Determined Admissions Policy for September 2027 sets out exactly six categories, applied strictly in this order once a child has already been assessed as being of selective ability through the Medway Test:
| Priority | Category |
|---|---|
| 1 | Children in public care, or previously in public care |
| 2 | Siblings of a student who will still be attending the school |
| 3 | Children of staff employed at the school for three years or more, or recruited to a skill-shortage post |
| 4 | Children residing within 2 miles of the school |
| 5 | Children residing in a named parish, allocated by nearest safe walking distance |
| 6 | All other eligible children, allocated by nearest safe walking distance |
There is no seventh category, and no reference anywhere in the policy to a primary school, junior academy or feeder-school relationship of any kind. The named parishes at tier 5 are Allhallows, Cliffe and Cliffe Woods, Cooling, Cuxton, Frindsbury Extra (including Wainscott and Upnor), Halling, High Halstow, Hoo St Werburgh (including Chattenden), St James Isle of Grain, St Mary Hoo and Stoke - a family outside this list and outside the 2-mile radius competes only in the final, "all other eligible children" category. Where two children cannot otherwise be separated for the last available place, Fort Pitt uses a random draw as the tiebreaker, not a further ranking of any kind. A family that assumes a Junior Academies place in the queue is relying on a tier that simply is not there, and should plan their application around the six categories the school actually publishes.
Fort Pitt Grammar School converted to academy status on 1 November 2010. Its academy sponsor is FPTA Academies - a name built from Fort Pitt Grammar School and The Thomas Aveling School, a non-selective secondary school also in Chatham - and FPTA Academies itself sits within the wider Beyond Schools Trust. This is almost certainly the origin of the "Junior Academies" myth described above: the trust pairs a selective grammar school with a non-selective secondary under one governance umbrella, and it is an easy, understandable mistake to read that structural link as an admissions pathway for children moving between the trust's own primary-facing partner schools. It is not. Academy trust membership is a matter of governance, staffing and finance; it has no bearing on the Medway Test result or the six oversubscription categories set out in the previous section, and appears nowhere in the school's admissions policy.
Two other Medway grammar schools - Chatham Grammar School for Girls and Holcombe Grammar School - are becoming co-educational on the same September 2026 timetable as Fort Pitt, as part of a council-led effort to balance boys' and girls' grammar places across Medway. None of the three shares a trust with the others; each has made the change under its own separate governance, coordinated only by the shared Medway Test and Medway Council's common admissions timetable.
The Medway Test, set by GL Assessment for Medway Council, is made up of three timed papers: English (30 minutes), Mathematics (50 minutes), and Reasoning, which combines verbal and non-verbal/spatial reasoning (45 minutes in total). Each paper produces an age-standardised score, and the three are then combined into a single weighted total: the English standardised score is doubled, the Mathematics standardised score is doubled, and the Reasoning standardised score is counted once. Fort Pitt sets no exam of its own and applies no additional weighting - a child's Medway Test result is used exactly as Medway Council calculates it. Families wanting the wider secondary-transfer calendar can also check our 11+ exam dates timetable for 2026-2027.
Fort Pitt does not publish its own pass mark, because there isn't one specific to the school: eligibility is decided by the countywide Medway Test qualifying threshold, recalculated each year once results are in, at the level needed to identify roughly the top quarter of the Medway cohort. Medway Council's own published figures show the minimum weighted score moving as follows: 492 for September 2024 entry, 482 for September 2025 entry, and 481 for September 2026 entry - a small but consistent downward drift over three admissions cycles. The threshold for September 2027 entry will not be confirmed until results are released, so families should treat the recent trend as a guide rather than a target to hit exactly, and prepare to a standard comfortably clear of the last published figure rather than to the figure itself.
Fort Pitt Grammar School and Chatham Grammar School for Girls are both girls' grammar schools in Chatham moving to full co-education for Year 7 entry from September 2026, under the same Department for Education decision, and both currently have a Published Admission Number of 150. Families in the Medway area weighing the two schools should know the one genuine procedural difference between them: Chatham Grammar School for Girls is the single Medway grammar school that also accepts the Kent Test as an alternative qualifying assessment, alongside the Medway Test, while Fort Pitt accepts the Medway Test only. A family that has already sat the Kent Test for a Kent-based grammar school cannot use that result for Fort Pitt; they would need to sit the Medway Test separately.
Beyond the test, the two schools' oversubscription lists are entirely separate. Fort Pitt's named-parish priority (tier 5, above) covers areas to the north and east of Chatham towards the Hoo Peninsula; Chatham Grammar's own catchment is defined independently and does not overlap automatically with Fort Pitt's list. A family close to one school's parish list is not thereby prioritised for the other, so it is worth checking both schools' policies directly if a child could realistically be offered either place.
Fort Pitt Grammar School's own published examination results show 99% of pupils achieving a grade 4 or above - a "good pass" - in both English and Mathematics, with nearly 90% reaching a grade 5 or above, and 42% of all grades awarded at the top 7-9 band. These are outcomes for a fully selective cohort, so they are best read alongside the school's Ofsted judgement rather than in isolation: Fort Pitt was rated Outstanding in every one of the five areas inspected - quality of education, behaviour and attitudes, personal development, leadership and management, and sixth-form provision - at its inspection on 4 October 2022. Together, the exam outcomes and the Outstanding rating across all five areas indicate a school whose academic results are underpinned by consistently strong teaching and pastoral provision, not solely by the selective intake.
Fort Pitt Grammar School is in the middle of becoming co-educational. The Department for Education approved the change on 5 November 2024, and Fort Pitt began admitting boys into Year 7 from September 2026. The Year 7 intake for September 2027 - the cohort now registering and sitting the Medway Test in autumn 2026 - will be the school's second co-educational Year 7 cohort, open to both boys and girls on identical terms. Despite this, the official DfE record for the school (GIAS) still lists 'Gender of entry: Girls' as its current administrative status, which is a genuine source of confusion for families researching this exact admissions cycle.
No. Several independent 11+ guides publish a 'Junior Academies' or feeder-school priority tier for Fort Pitt, but this tier does not appear anywhere in the school's own Determined Admissions Policy for September 2027. That policy sets out exactly six oversubscription categories - public care, siblings, children of staff, children within 2 miles, children in named parishes, and all other eligible children - with no reference to any primary or junior academy. A family relying on a feeder-priority tier that does not exist would misjudge their true position in the oversubscription order, so it is worth checking the school's own published policy rather than a third-party guide.
Fort Pitt does not set its own pass mark; it uses the county-wide Medway Test threshold published by Medway Council each year. The minimum weighted score needed to be assessed as grammar-suitable was 492 for September 2024 entry, 482 for September 2025 entry, and 481 for September 2026 entry - a gentle three-year downward drift. The weighted score is calculated as the English standardised score doubled, plus the Mathematics standardised score doubled, plus the Reasoning standardised score once. The September 2027 threshold will not be confirmed until Medway Council releases results, typically in October, after that year's test has been marked.
Yes, through their shared academy trust. Fort Pitt Grammar School converted to academy status on 1 November 2010 under FPTA Academies, whose name comes from Fort Pitt Grammar School and The Thomas Aveling School, a non-selective secondary a short distance away in Gravesend Road, Chatham. FPTA Academies is itself part of the wider Beyond Schools Trust. This shared trust identity is almost certainly why several tutoring websites mistakenly describe a 'Junior Academies' feeder-priority link between the two schools, even though no such priority exists in Fort Pitt's admissions policy - the trust link is administrative, not an admissions pathway.
Yes. Boys can apply for the standard Year 7 intake in September 2027 on exactly the same basis as girls, sitting the Medway Test and going through the same six-tier oversubscription process. The one place boys are treated differently is in-year (mid-year) admission: the school's current policy states that girls of selective ability can be offered a vacancy through age-appropriate testing anywhere from Year 7 to Year 11, while boys can only be offered an in-year vacancy in Years 7 or 8. That distinction does not affect a standard September Year 7 application, only a family moving into the area partway through secondary school.
Fort Pitt and Chatham Grammar are both Chatham-based girls' grammar schools moving to full co-education for Year 7 entry from September 2026 under the same Department for Education decision, and both have a Published Admission Number of 150. The clearest practical difference is the entry test: Chatham Grammar is the one Medway grammar school that also accepts the Kent Test as an alternative to the Medway Test, while Fort Pitt only accepts the Medway Test. Each school also has its own separate named-parish priority list for oversubscription, so a family living close to one school's catchment is not automatically prioritised for the other.
Fort Pitt Grammar School's own published examinations results show 99% of pupils achieving a grade 4 or above in both English and Mathematics, with nearly 90% reaching a grade 5 or above (a strong pass) and 42% of all grades awarded at the top 7-9 band. The school was rated Outstanding by Ofsted in every one of the five judgement areas inspected - quality of education, behaviour and attitudes, personal development, leadership and management, and sixth-form provision - following its inspection on 4 October 2022, and it currently has 1,009 pupils on roll against a capacity of 1,027.