11+ Tuition in Kent

The Kent Test is the county-wide eleven-plus assessment for entry to Kent's state grammar schools, including Judd, Skinners', Maidstone Grammar, Tonbridge Grammar and Weald of Kent Grammar; families register for it with Kent County Council. Children sit it in the September of Year 6, for entry the following September: for September 2027 entry, the test was sat on 10 September 2026, with results due on 15 October 2026.

Grammar Schools and Selective Entry in Kent

Kent operates a selective system across the county, with grammar schools admitting pupils based on performance in the Kent Test rather than proximity or catchment area alone. This means your child is not competing against a local cohort — they are competing against every child who sits the test across Kent and, increasingly, from outside it.

The schools themselves vary in character and specialism. Judd School and Skinners' School are both boys' grammars in Tonbridge and are consistently among the most oversubscribed boys' grammar schools in England. Tonbridge Grammar School and Weald of Kent Grammar School are highly regarded girls' grammars. Maidstone Grammar School is a boys' school drawing from a wide area, while the Simon Langton Grammar Schools — one for boys, one for girls — serve Canterbury and the surrounding area. Each school has its own admissions criteria and oversubscription rules, so understanding where your child is likely to be competitive geographically and academically matters from the outset.

The Kent Test is valid only for Kent's own grammar schools: Medway Council runs a separate Medway Test for its grammar schools, and the London Borough of Bexley runs its own Bexley selection test, so a family considering schools across more than one of these areas must register separately for each. Kent County Council describes its own grammar schools as catering for children in about the top 25% of the ability range. Weald of Kent Grammar School, with sites in Tonbridge and Sevenoaks, now also runs its own alternative Weald Grammar Assessment alongside the Kent Test for September 2027 entry - a school-specific route, not a second county-wide test.

The Entrance Exams — What Your Child Will Face

Families register for the Kent Test with Kent County Council, which publishes the timetable for the September sitting in Year 6, ahead of entry the following September. Kent's independent schools sit outside this system and set their own papers: Ashford School assesses Year 7 candidates on an online Atom Learning test covering English, non-verbal reasoning and numerical ability, with no verbal reasoning section and no writing task, so a child sitting both is preparing for two genuinely different assessments.

The Kent Test itself is two papers, both multiple-choice and marked by computer against a separate answer sheet. The first combines English and maths in one hour, split into two 30-minute sections, each opening with a five-minute unmarked practice exercise followed by a 25-minute test. The second is a reasoning paper of about an hour, covering verbal reasoning and non-verbal reasoning in roughly equal measure; the non-verbal reasoning element is split into several short sections, each timed and administered separately. For the full paper-by-paper breakdown, see our Kent 11+ format guide.

Children also complete a short writing exercise - 40 minutes, including 10 minutes of planning time. It is not marked as part of the score, but Kent County Council says it may be used by a local headteacher panel as part of the headteacher-assessment stage of the process, a safety net for borderline results covered in full below.

One concrete point of preparation: the same question formats recur across Kent Test papers year on year. Drilling those formats systematically - rather than doing random mixed practice - lets a child build genuine fluency, so the reasoning paper's timing pressure, not the underlying reasoning itself, is usually what costs marks.

The Headteacher Assessment Route and Support for Borderline or Visually Impaired Candidates

Kent County Council builds two safety nets into the Kent Test process that many 11+ guides do not mention. The first uses the test's own unmarked writing exercise: a local headteacher panel may draw on it, alongside the three standardised scores, when a child's result sits close to the qualifying threshold. The second is a separate route entirely: any child with a severe visual impairment who cannot access the test papers is assessed instead by a headteacher panel on their classwork and academic achievement, without sitting the papers at all.

Neither provision is specific to one school; both sit inside the county-wide Kent Test process that every Kent grammar school relies on. A family that thinks either route might apply should raise it directly with their child's current school and with Kent County Council, and for the visual-impairment route or any other access arrangement, register the request before the same 1 July 2026 deadline that closed ordinary Kent Test registration - Kent County Council does not accept access-arrangement requests after that date.

How Competitive Is Entry? Places, Applicants, and Pass Marks

Kent grammar schools are heavily oversubscribed, and Kent County Council is candid that this cuts against out-of-county applicants in particular: some of the schools most likely to offer places to children from outside Kent give priority to the highest-scoring applicants, so a well-prepared Kent-resident child and a well-prepared out-of-county child are not competing on equal terms at the most popular schools.

Passing the Kent Test - meeting the standard Kent County Council calls being assessed as suitable for grammar school - does not guarantee a place. Any Kent grammar school named on an application will consider it, but each school applies its own oversubscription criteria, so many children who clear the qualifying standard still do not receive an offer at their preferred school because demand for individual schools exceeds the places available.

Each child's result carries three standardised scores - English, maths and reasoning - plus an aggregate total, with every section scored between 69 and 141 out of a maximum combined 423. The most recently published grammar-school threshold, for September 2026 entry, required an aggregate of 332 or more with no single score below 108. Kent County Council has confirmed that the threshold for the test sat in September 2026 - the one that determines September 2027 places - will not be published until October 2026, so no fixed pass mark for the current cycle exists yet.

Our 11+ specialists work with Kent Test candidates on the reasoning, maths and English skills the test rewards, and with families weighing a Kent grammar school against Weald of Kent Grammar School's own alternative Weald Grammar Assessment. Our students have achieved a 95%+ offer rate across selective school entry. Book a free consultation to discuss a preparation plan for the Kent 11+.

Key Dates for September 2027 Entry

The table below draws together every published date for the cycle that determines September 2027 entry, cross-checked across Kent County Council's own Kent Test, grammar-school application and post-offer pages.

The secondary school application deadline is genuinely later than the 31 October figure several 11+ guides still publish: 31 October 2026 falls on a Saturday, and Kent County Council's own secondary school places page states the real cut-off as Monday 2 November 2026. The Kent Test registration and the secondary school application are two separate steps - closing the first does not complete the second, and a family must still submit a Secondary Common Application Form naming up to four schools in preference order, even after their child has already sat and passed the Kent Test.

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Living abroad? Our guide to the Kent Test for families overseas covers who can register, when a family must be resident and how each Kent grammar treats a home outside its area.

How to Prepare — Timeline and Strategy for Kent Families

Because the Kent Test is sat in September of Year 6, the preparation window is shorter than many parents realise. A realistic and effective timeline looks like this:

Year 4 to early Year 5: Build strong foundations in English and Maths. This is not about 11+ papers yet — it is about ensuring your child's core skills are secure. Reading widely and regularly is one of the highest-value activities at this stage.

Year 5 (from Easter onwards): Begin introducing verbal and non-verbal reasoning. Familiarise your child with the Kent Test's own question formats, drawn from real past papers rather than generic practice books. Start timed practice in short, regular sessions rather than long infrequent ones.

Year 5 summer holidays: Increase the intensity of practice. Full timed papers, review of errors, and targeted work on weaker areas. This is the period where preparation should feel structured and consistent.

September of Year 6: The test is sat. Children who have prepared thoroughly will approach it with familiarity and confidence rather than anxiety about the format.

Avoid the common mistake of leaving reasoning practice until the summer before the exam. Children need time to internalise question types, not just exposure to them.

How Leading Tuition Supports Kent 11+ Preparation

Leading Tuition provides 1-to-1 specialist tutoring for children preparing for the Kent Test and entry to Kent's grammar schools. Our tutors are experienced with the Kent Test's own paper formats and understand the specific demands of the Kent system — including the September sitting date, the reasoning paper formats, and the particular schools families are targeting.

Every child begins with an assessment so that tuition is focused on the areas that will make the most difference. Sessions are structured around the actual exam format, with timed practice, detailed feedback, and a preparation plan that accounts for where your child is starting from and which schools you are applying to. We work with families across Kent and with out-of-county applicants who are targeting Kent grammars from London and the wider South East.

Families targeting Weald of Kent Grammar School specifically should note that the school now accepts either the Kent Test or its own Weald Grammar Assessment for September 2027 entry; our tutors adjust a student's programme to whichever route, or both, a family is taking, rather than treating Kent 11+ preparation as one fixed syllabus. For every other Kent grammar school covered on this page, only the Kent Test itself applies.

Leading Tuition is rated 4.8 out of 5 on Trustpilot from 59 reviews, read on 3 October 2026, and 91% of our students achieve their desired grades.

For school-specific preparation elsewhere in the country, see our full library of other 11+ school guides.

Reviewed September 2026: Kent Test dates, papers, threshold and the September 2027 application deadline checked against Kent County Council's own Kent Test and secondary school places pages.

Frequently Asked Questions about 11+ in Kent