Handsworth Grammar School 11+ Guide, 2027 Entry

King Edward VI Handsworth Grammar School for Boys — Handsworth Grammar — is a selective boys' grammar school on Grove Lane, Handsworth, Birmingham, and it is part of the King Edward VI Foundation and the King Edward VI Academy Trust. It admits 150 boys into Year 7 each September, selected through the shared King Edward VI Foundation entrance test rather than a test the school sets on its own. For September 2027 entry, that test was sat on 12 September 2026, after registration closed on 26 June 2026. Before any of that is useful, though, there is a more basic problem worth clearing up first: two of the five web pages that currently rank for this exact search are not about this school at all. Browse all of our 11+ school guides for other selective schools.

Which Handsworth Grammar School Is This — and Why Do Search Results Keep Getting It Wrong?

Search for "handsworth grammar school 11 plus" and the real, live top five results include two pages that are actually about King Edward VI Handsworth School for Girls — a separate school on Rose Hill Road in Handsworth Wood, with its own admissions cycle, its own address and its own catchment. Both of those pages rank for a search that names the boys' school while covering the girls' school throughout, and both display dates from a cycle that has already passed for either school.

The two schools share a surname and a Foundation, and not much else that matters to an application. Handsworth Grammar, the subject of this guide, is the boys' school on Grove Lane, taking 150 boys into Year 7 each year. If you are researching the girls' school on Rose Hill Road, this is not the page you want — check the school name and the road name together before you register, apply, or plan around any date you read online.

Getting this right matters immediately, because dates, catchment areas and closing scores for the two schools are not interchangeable. A family planning around the wrong school's dates risks missing their own registration window while reading about someone else's.

Is Handsworth Grammar Independently Governed, or Part of King Edward VI?

Handsworth Grammar is not an independently run grammar school separate from the "King Edward VI" name — it is one of the King Edward VI Foundation's own grammar schools. The school's own site states this directly: King Edward VI Handsworth Grammar School for Boys is "part of the Grammar Schools in Birmingham, the King Edward VI Foundation, and the King Edward VI Academy Trust." That single line changes how a family should plan: there is no separate Handsworth Grammar entrance test to register for, and the current qualifying and priority scores, catchment rules and results tables that govern the school's admissions sit on the King Edward VI Foundation's own website, not on the school's own admissions page.

Ofsted's own provider record dates this relationship precisely. Handsworth Grammar's academy conversion — its formal join to the King Edward VI Academy Trust — is recorded as taking place on 6 September 2017. Before that date, Ofsted's records list the pre-conversion school as closed, with the current-name record beginning from the 2017 conversion. That is a comparatively recent institutional change against the school's own history, and it is why the school's admissions process today runs through the Foundation rather than through Handsworth Grammar acting alone. For the wider picture of how all eight King Edward VI Foundation grammar schools share this same test and governance structure, see our guide to the King Edward VI Foundation schools.

How the Real Closing Score Has Moved, 2023-2026 Entry

The King Edward VI Foundation publishes a single Qualifying Score and a single Priority Score that apply across all eight of its grammar schools together. For 2026 entry, the Qualifying Score was 205 and the Priority Score was 224. Neither figure, on its own, tells you what actually secured a place at Handsworth Grammar specifically — for that, the school's own category-by-category closing scores matter, and the Foundation publishes those as a four-year table rather than a single snapshot.

Two things stand out once the scores are read as a trend rather than a single year. First, the score that has actually cleared a place for a general applicant at Handsworth Grammar has sat between 215 and 217 in every one of the last four years — consistently ten points or more above the Foundation-wide 205 Qualifying Score that many published guides quote as if it were the school's own pass mark. Second, 2026 is the first year in this run in which Category 3 — Pupil Premium applicants living outside the catchment area — did not clear every qualifying applicant: its closing score landed at 211, with a recorded distance of 6,776 metres, after three straight years in which every Category 3 applicant scoring above 205 was offered a place regardless of distance.

The distance figure attached to the general-applicants category also moved sharply in 2026 — 13,733 metres, against 209 to 213 metres in the three years before it. That gap is large enough that a family should read it as a reason to check the Foundation's own results-and-offers page directly each year, rather than assume distance measures are comparable year to year.

150 Places, and What the Test Actually Involves

Handsworth Grammar's Published Admission Number is 150 places at age 11, confirmed on the school's own admissions page, which states plainly that "the number of intended admissions each year is 150 at age 11 years." That is the number to plan around for this school specifically, not any wider Foundation-level figure, and it is a separate figure from the Published Admission Number at the neighbouring girls' school.

The entrance test itself is the shared King Edward VI Foundation test, sat once by every candidate regardless of how many of the Foundation's schools they list on their Common Application Form. It is split across two papers, covering English, Verbal Reasoning, Mathematics and Non-Verbal or Spatial Reasoning. The papers are not weighted equally: the Foundation's own description of the test states that "the weightings for the test results are 50% for English/verbal reasoning, 25% for non-verbal reasoning and 25% for mathematics." In practice, that means English and Verbal Reasoning performance carries as much weight as Mathematics and Non-Verbal Reasoning combined — worth knowing before deciding where limited preparation time goes in the months before the test.

Key Dates for September 2027 Entry, and Why the School's Own Page May Look Out of Date Right Now

For September 2027 entry, the King Edward VI Foundation's own test page confirms the entrance test date directly: "the entrance test for 2027 entry will be held on Saturday 12th September 2026." Registration for that test has already closed — the West Midlands Grammar Schools consortium confirms the deadline passed at 4pm on 26 June 2026, with registration now shown as closed for Year 7 entry in September 2027.

If you go looking for these dates on Handsworth Grammar's own website, be careful: as of this guide's publication, the school's own "THE TEST" section on its admissions page still names dates from the previous admissions cycle rather than the current one, even though registration for the current cycle has already closed. The King Edward VI Foundation's own test page and results-and-offers page are the more current sources for live dates, closing scores and results, and are worth checking directly rather than relying on the school's own admissions page for anything time-sensitive.

The School's Own First Entrance Exam, in 1862

Handsworth Grammar has effectively been selecting on an entrance test since the day it opened. The school's own history records that the new headmaster, Mr Guest, opened the school — then the Bridge Trust School, its forerunner — in 1862, and that "63 boys came to be examined in reading, writing and mathematics by the Head," of whom "59 boys passed the test and were admitted to the school." Only four of the sixty-three were turned away on the school's very first entrance exam, more than a century and a half before the King Edward VI Foundation's modern, GL Assessment-marked test replaced it.

It is a detail no other page currently ranking for this search mentions, and it is a useful piece of context for families weighing up how selective the school's modern entrance process feels: Handsworth Grammar has, in a real sense, never not been an entrance-tested school.

Ofsted Rating and What 'Good Overall, Outstanding in Two Areas' Actually Means

Handsworth Grammar's most recent Ofsted inspection took place on 16 April 2024, and the published outcome is Good overall — but that headline figure hides two Outstanding sub-judgements that some third-party listings round up or flatten out. Ofsted's own record breaks the inspection down as: Quality of Education — Outstanding; Personal Development — Outstanding; Behaviour and Attitudes — Good; Leadership and Management — Good; Sixth Form Provision — Good.

That mix is worth reading correctly rather than rounding in either direction. The school is not rated Outstanding overall, but two of its five sub-judgements are, and both of the ones that are Outstanding are the ones most directly about what happens to a pupil once they are actually inside the school — the quality of teaching they receive, and how the school develops them personally, rather than purely administrative measures.

Leading Tuition provides specialist 11+ tuition for the King Edward VI Foundation entrance test, with tutors based in Birmingham who know the Foundation's format, weighting and timeline in detail. You can also read the official school admissions page at handsworth.bham.sch.uk for the school's own account of the process, alongside the Foundation's current dates and scores linked above.

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