The verified places figure, Kent Test threshold, priority areas, Ofsted result and exam results for September 2027 entry
Book a Free ConsultationGravesend Grammar School is a selective boys' grammar school on Church Walk in Gravesend, Kent, and its own admission arrangements confirm it will admit 210 boys to Year 7 in September 2027 via the Kent Test — not the "150+" figure still published on one well-ranked practice-paper site. The most recently published Kent Test qualifying threshold (2025 entry) was 332 aggregate with no section below 108; the 2026 threshold, which governs the cycle now underway, is not due until October 2026. The school is catchment-based, was reinspected by Ofsted on 18 March 2025, transferred to a new multi-academy trust during the 2024/25 academic year, and posted its best A-level results in over a decade in 2025 — none of which appears in the pages currently ranking for this school's name. This guide sets out each of those points against the school's own documents and the relevant official registers.
Two of the current top five search results for "Gravesend Grammar School 11 plus" disagree on the single most basic fact a parent needs: how many Year 7 places actually exist. One site — a detailed, long-form practice-paper guide — states the figure plainly: "Places available in year 7 — 150+". The school's own 2027 admission arrangements document says otherwise: Gravesend Grammar School will seek to admit 210 boys in September 2027 using the Kent Procedure for Entrance to Secondary Schools (PESE) Age 11 Assessment Process. That gap between "150+" and the true figure is large enough to change how a family assesses its odds, and the official document is unambiguous.
Passing the Kent Test is a separate question from securing a place. Kent County Council's own published results show that for the most recent cycle with a confirmed threshold — 2025 entry — a child needed a total score of 332 or more, with no single section score below 108, to be given a grammar school assessment. Section scores range from 69 to 141, and the highest possible total score is 423. For the cycle currently underway, covering September 2027 entry, Kent County Council states the 2026 threshold will not be available until October 2026 — several weeks after most candidates sit the test in September. Families preparing now are working towards a moving target, not a fixed pass mark.
| Measure | Figure |
|---|---|
| Qualifying score needed | 332 or more (total) |
| Minimum per section | 108 |
| Section score range | 69 to 141 |
| Highest possible total | 423 |
| Gravesend Grammar School PAN, Sept 2027 | 210 boys |
Because the 2026 threshold is unpublished, the honest answer for a family applying now is that no one can currently state the precise pass mark for September 2027 entry — treat 332 as the most recent benchmark, not a guarantee, and revisit Kent County Council's page once the October 2026 update lands.
Passing the Kent Test qualifies a child for a grammar school place in general; it does not by itself secure a place at Gravesend Grammar School, which — like every oversubscribed grammar school in Kent — allocates places using a published order of priority once demand exceeds the 210-place PAN. The school's 2027 admission arrangements set out eight criteria in order:
| Criterion | Who it covers |
|---|---|
| 1 | Looked After Children and previously Looked After Children |
| 2 | Medical, social and special access reasons |
| 3 | Children with a sibling already due to attend the school |
| 4 | Children of a parent who is a member of staff at the school |
| 5 | Children living within the Borough of Gravesham |
| 6 | Children living in named civil parishes, including the Unparished Area of Ebbsfleet, Southfleet, Swanscombe and Greenhithe, and Stansted |
| 7 | Children living in the parishes of Stone, Darenth, Horton Kirby and South Darenth, Cliffe and Cliffe Woods |
| 8 | All other eligible children |
Criterion 6 is the detail worth flagging. The school's own document reads: "Eligible Children who live within the civil parishes of Ash-cum-Ridley, Bean, Fawkham, Hartley, Longfield and New Barn, Southfleet, Swanscombe and Greenhithe, Stansted and the Unparished Area of Ebbsfleet." The Unparished Area of Ebbsfleet — the fast-growing development around Ebbsfleet International station — does not appear in either of the two most detailed guides currently ranking for this school, both of which list several of the same civil parishes but stop short of naming it. A family who has recently moved to the Ebbsfleet development and is relying on a competitor's parish list could reasonably, and wrongly, conclude they sit outside every priority band above "all other eligible children".
The practical implication: a child living in the Borough of Gravesham (criterion 5) is ranked ahead of a child living in the Ebbsfleet area (criterion 6), who is in turn ranked ahead of a child in Stone or Darenth (criterion 7). All are ranked ahead of any other eligible child nationally (criterion 8) — but only once a child has already met the Kent Test qualifying score, since the priority order only applies among children who have already qualified.
None of the current top five search results for this school state Ofsted's findings — the highest-ranking independent guide only links out to Ofsted's website rather than reporting the judgement. Ofsted inspected Gravesend Grammar School on 18 March 2025, under the framework introduced in September 2024 that no longer issues a single overall-effectiveness grade to any state school. Instead, Ofsted reports separately against a fixed set of areas, and Gravesend Grammar School's results were:
| Judgement area | Grade |
|---|---|
| Quality of education | Good |
| Behaviour and attitudes | Outstanding |
| Personal development | Outstanding |
| Leadership and management | Good |
| Sixth form provision | Good |
Read together, the two Outstanding judgements — for Behaviour and attitudes, and Personal development — sit alongside two Good judgements for the areas that most directly describe classroom teaching (Quality of education) and how the school is run (Leadership and management), plus a further Good for the Sixth form specifically. There is no lower grade anywhere in the report, and the direction of travel from the school's previous inspection is positive. Because no state school has received a single overall grade since the September 2024 framework change, any competitor content still describing Gravesend Grammar School as, for example, simply "Outstanding" or "Good" overall is using a rating system that no longer applies.
Exam results are absent from every one of the five pages currently ranking for this school's name, despite being the clearest evidence of what a Kent Test place at Gravesend Grammar School actually buys a family. The school's own published 2025 results show an Attainment 8 score of 6.5, the average pupil achievement across eight qualifications including English and maths. Of all GCSE grades awarded in 2025, 44% were at grade 7-9 and 24% at the very top band of grade 8-9.
At A level, the school's 2025 grade profile was 33.1% A*-A, 63.5% A*-B and 83.8% A*-C. The school describes this itself as its best set of A-level results in over ten years, attributing the improvement to "our programme of improving progress at A level" — language that suggests a deliberate, tracked intervention rather than a single strong cohort.
| Measure | 2025 result |
|---|---|
| GCSE Attainment 8 score | 6.5 |
| GCSE grades at 7-9 | 44% |
| GCSE grades at 8-9 | 24% |
| A level A*-A | 33.1% |
| A level A*-B | 63.5% |
| A level A*-C | 83.8% |
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Book a Free Consultation Message us on WhatsAppYear 7 entry at Gravesend Grammar School is boys-only, but the school's Sixth Form is co-educational and has its own admissions process, entirely separate from the Kent Test. The Published Admission Number for students joining the school in Year 12 for the first time is 30. Entry requires a minimum of two grade 5s and four grade 6s at GCSE, including at least a grade 5 in English and mathematics — a meaningfully different, and in some respects lower, bar than the Kent Test threshold that governs Year 7 entry, since it is assessed on actual GCSE performance rather than a Year 6 aptitude test.
The Sixth Form also runs a route that none of the guides currently ranking for this school mention at all, because all five are written exclusively for Year 7 entry: a Sporting Aptitude admission criterion. Up to 10 Sixth Form places are reserved for students who have demonstrated aptitude in one of the school's three performance sports — Rugby, Basketball or Netball. This sits alongside the school's standard academic entry requirements as a distinct oversubscription criterion within the Sixth Form's own admission arrangements, and it is unusual among Kent grammar schools to publish a named sporting route at this scale.
For families whose sons are already at the school, or whose daughters are considering it for Sixth Form only, this route is worth investigating directly with the school's admissions office well before the Year 12 application window opens, since a place secured through Sporting Aptitude still requires the underlying GCSE grade profile to be met.
Gravesend Grammar School converted to academy status on 1 August 2011 — a date confirmed directly against the DfE's own register, cross-verifying the same figure published by one of the competing 11+ guides. What none of the currently ranking pages reflect is a more recent change: the DfE's own school performance tables record that this academy transferred to its current multi-academy trust, Aletheia Academies Trust, after the start of the 2024/25 academic year. A change of trust during the admissions cycle a family is applying into is the kind of governance detail that rarely reaches search results quickly, and it had not reached any of the five pages currently ranking for this school at the time of this page's research.
On scale: Gravesend Grammar School has 1,495 pupils on roll, of whom 10.8% are eligible for free school meals, according to the DfE's Get Information about Schools register. Set against a Year 7 PAN of 210 and a total roll of 1,495, this is a substantial school spanning Year 7 to Year 13 — useful context for a family trying to judge how oversubscribed "oversubscribed" really is here, and how much a single trust or leadership change might realistically be expected to affect day-to-day teaching in the short term.
Families comparing Gravesend Grammar School with other Kent grammar schools may also find our guides to Weald of Kent Grammar School and Tonbridge Grammar School useful, or our wider overview of grammar school entry across Kent. For general Kent Test preparation, see our 11+ tuition page.
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Book a Free Consultation Message us on WhatsAppGravesend Grammar School's own admission arrangements confirm it will seek to admit 210 boys in September 2027 using the Kent Procedure for Entrance to Secondary Schools (PESE) Age 11 Assessment Process. This is the current, published Published Admission Number (PAN), and it should be treated as the correct figure over the "150+" estimate that appears on at least one well-ranked 11+ practice-paper site. Families comparing several Kent grammar schools should always check the specific school's own admission arrangements document for the entry year they are applying for, since PANs can and do change between cycles, and Gravesend Grammar School's has not been 150 for some years.
For the most recently published cycle (2025 entry), Kent County Council set the grammar school qualifying threshold at 332 or more out of a maximum 423, with no single section score below 108. Section scores range from 69 to 141. The 2026 threshold, which applies to the cycle running now for September 2027 entry, has not yet been published — Kent County Council's own guidance states it will be available in October 2026, several weeks after most Kent Test candidates sit the assessment in September. Passing the Kent Test qualifies a child for a grammar place generally; it does not itself guarantee a place at Gravesend Grammar School specifically, which is also governed by the oversubscription criteria described above.
Not strictly, but it matters a great deal once the school is oversubscribed, which it is every year. Gravesend Grammar School's admission arrangements set out eight oversubscription criteria in order, running from Looked After Children through sibling and staff links, then the Borough of Gravesham, then two further bands of named civil parishes. Criterion 6 explicitly includes "the Unparished Area of Ebbsfleet" alongside parishes such as Southfleet and Swanscombe and Greenhithe — a detail that does not appear in either of the two most detailed competing guides to this school. A family just outside these named areas can still apply and may still be offered a place if there is space after higher criteria are filled, but they are placed behind every child who qualifies under criteria 1 to 7.
Ofsted inspected Gravesend Grammar School on 18 March 2025 under the framework introduced in September 2024, which no longer issues a single overall-effectiveness grade to any state school. Across the five judgement areas it does still report, the school was graded Good for Quality of education, Outstanding for Behaviour and attitudes, Outstanding for Personal development, Good for Leadership and management, and Good for Sixth form provision. None of the current top five search results for this school state any of these findings; the highest-ranking independent guide only links out to Ofsted's website rather than reporting the judgement itself.
At GCSE in 2025, Gravesend Grammar School reported an Attainment 8 score of 6.5, with 44% of all grades awarded at 7-9 and 24% at the very top band of 8-9. At A level, the school's own published grade profile was 33.1% A*-A, 63.5% A*-B and 83.8% A*-C — results the school itself describes as its best in over ten years, attributing the improvement to a specific programme of work on A-level progress. None of the pages currently ranking for this school's name publish any exam results at all, so this data is not something a family can currently find by searching for the school.
Year 7 entry at Gravesend Grammar School is boys-only, but the school's Sixth Form is co-educational, with its own Published Admission Number of 30 for students joining in Year 12 for the first time. Entry requires a minimum of two grade 5s and four grade 6s at GCSE, including at least a grade 5 in English and mathematics. The Sixth Form also runs an unusual Sporting Aptitude route, reserving up to 10 places for applicants who have demonstrated aptitude in one of the school's three performance sports: Rugby, Basketball or Netball. None of the guides currently ranking for this school's name, all written for Year 7 entry, mention the Sixth Form route at all.
Gravesend Grammar School converted to academy status on 1 August 2011, but it changed multi-academy trust during the current admissions cycle: the DfE's own performance tables record that the academy transferred to its current trust, Aletheia Academies Trust, after the start of the 2024/25 academic year. This transfer is not reflected in any of the content currently ranking for the school's name. The school has 1,495 pupils on roll, of whom 10.8% are eligible for free school meals — useful context for judging how large, and how oversubscribed, a place at Gravesend Grammar School actually is.
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