Trinity School Croydon 13+ Preparation

Trinity School is a selective independent day school for boys in Shirley Park, Croydon, whose 13+ entry point admits boys directly into Year 9 each September. Applications for September 2027 entry close on Friday 16 October 2026, and every 10+, 11+ and 13+ candidate sits the same Trinity-designed assessment: a 70-minute computer-based test plus a 30-minute guided written paper — not the ISEB Common Pre-Test that several independent guides assume.

Does Trinity Use the ISEB Pre-Test at 13+?

Two of the highest-ranking independent guides to Trinity's 13+ route describe it as a pre-test: a Year 6 assessment that guarantees deferred entry into Year 9, or a four-part timed exam of English, Maths, Verbal Reasoning and Non-Verbal Reasoning sat as separate papers, each with its own clock. Neither description matches what Trinity has published for September 2027 entry. The school's entrance assessment guidance, uploaded in June 2026, is unambiguous: 10+, 11+ and 13+ candidates all sit the same instrument, built by the assessment provider Quest — not the ISEB board that sets the Common Pre-Test used by many other 13+ schools. Families who want to understand how the ISEB Common Pre-Test itself works, for comparison with a school that does use it, can read our ISEB Common Pre-Test guide.

Except for the English section, each part of the computer-based test adapts in difficulty as a candidate answers, so two boys sitting the same assessment may see different questions after the first few responses. A separate 30-minute guided written paper follows, in which candidates respond to a set of prompts; Trinity is explicit that it marks spelling, vocabulary and structure rather than a single fixed essay title. There is no separate English paper and Maths paper sat back to back, and no test taken in Year 6 for guaranteed Year 9 entry — a boy applying for September 2027 sits his assessment as a Year 8 pupil, on Saturday 14 November 2026. Preparing against a Year 6 pre-test timetable, or against four separately-timed 20/20/10/10-minute papers, is preparing for a different exam.

Why Does 13+ Stay Single-Sex Until 2029?

Trinity announced in 2026 that it is extending co-education from its Sixth Form to the whole school. The change is staged by year group rather than introduced all at once: the first mixed intake arrives in Year 6 and Year 7 in September 2027, and Trinity has said it will be fully co-educational by 2031. That staging has a direct consequence for 13+. Trinity states outright that it will not introduce a 13+ entry point for girls until 2029, once the cohort that joins Year 7 in 2027 reaches Year 9 itself — full detail is on Trinity's own co-education page. A boy applying for the 13+ entrance assessment in November 2026, for a September 2027 start, is applying to what is still a single-sex Year 9: the wider school around him will already be mixed in its two youngest year groups, but his own cohort will not be. A family researching “Trinity School Croydon girls” specifically for a 13+ place, rather than for 10+ or 11+, is asking about a change that has not reached that entry point yet.

The Year 9 Curriculum a 13+ Place Buys

Entry at 13+ is entry into the Third Year — Trinity's own name for Year 9 — and it is the point at which the curriculum stops being uniform across the year group. Every boy studies two Modern Foreign Languages alongside Latin from Year 7; at Third Year he can continue both languages, or set one aside in favour of Latin, and has the option to add Classical Greek on top of whichever combination he chooses. Alongside languages, each boy picks three further subjects from Design Technology, Drama, Music, Art and Photography, and Computing, while still following a broad, balanced core that leads towards GCSE options two years later.

That has a practical consequence for how preparation should be timed. A boy who is only practising exam technique in the autumn of Year 8 arrives at his subject-choice conversations with no more information than the entrance assessment itself gives him. A Trinity-specific programme should build in time to talk through what a Third Year timetable actually contains, so a candidate walks into his interview — and into September 2027 — with a view on what he wants to specialise in, not only a strategy for answering reasoning questions under time pressure.

When Are Trinity's Key 13+ Dates for September 2027 Entry?

Every date below comes from Trinity's own key-dates document for 10+, 11+ and 13+ entry in September 2027, cross-checked against the school's 13+ admissions page.

One detail is easy to miss: 13+ offer-holders are invited to a decider tour on 8 January 2027, weeks before Trinity's 10+ and 11+ round even receives its offers, on Friday 12 February 2027. The 13+ cycle runs its own, earlier timetable — a family that assumes offers arrive in February, because that is when a sibling's 11+ offer came, risks missing Trinity's actual 13+ decision window.

Scholarships and Bursaries at 13+

Every applicant for 13+ entry is automatically considered for an Academic Scholarship; no separate form is needed. Boys who also want to be considered for Music, Sport, Drama, Art or Design Technology scholarships apply separately, and each has its own assessment date in November and December 2026 (above). Scholarships have historically reached as much as 50% of fees, but Trinity is candid that the era of very large individual awards is ending: a 20% award was typical for 2026 entry, as the school directs more of its scholarship budget toward a larger number of smaller awards, and channels the rest into bursary support instead.

That bursary support is substantial. The John Whitgift Foundation, the historic charity connected to Trinity, funds over 10% of the school's total fee income each year in bursaries, and Trinity has built its own Trinity Bursary Fund on top of that to reach more families than the Foundation alone can support. Bursary assessment is means-tested and has to happen before, not after, the entrance exam: a family applying for a 13+ bursary must indicate it on the original application and have the assessment form completed ahead of the November assessment date, because places offered with a bursary are decided alongside academic performance, not as an afterthought once an offer is already on the table.

Fees and the Acceptance Process

Trinity's fee is £30,468 a year from September 2026, a figure the school states is inclusive of VAT and other applicable taxes. That figure does not cover lunches, uniform, sports kit, external examination entry fees, or individual music and LAMDA tuition, and some non-academic trips are billed separately from the core Field Days that are included in fees.

On acceptance of an offered place, families pay £2,000: £1,000 of it is a donation to the Trinity Bursary Fund, and £1,000 is held as a deposit, returned only when the boy eventually leaves the school. From September 2027, Trinity is introducing a 10% fee reduction for a third or subsequent sibling while all the siblings concerned remain on the school roll — a detail that matters for any family already paying Trinity fees for an older child and now weighing up a 13+ application for a younger one.

What Boys Are Working Towards: Trinity's 2026 Results

The results a 13+ entrant is joining a cohort working towards give useful context for how demanding the years after Year 9 are at Trinity. In 2026, 44% of GCSE grades awarded were a 9 (the equivalent of the old A*), 71% were a 9 or 8, and 86% were a 9, 8 or 7 — the school's second-best set of GCSE results on record outside the Covid-affected years. At A Level the same year, the average grade profile across the cohort was AAA, with 92.2% of grades at A*, A or B.

Results are only part of the picture Trinity puts forward about itself. Its most recent ISI inspection, in 2024, reported “an atmosphere of warmth, friendliness, and teamwork across the whole school that supports pupils’ wellbeing” — language the school keeps prominent in its own materials rather than leaving in an inspection archive. A 13+ candidate joining Year 9 in September 2027 is joining a school growing carefully rather than rapidly: total pupil numbers are planned to rise from 1,050 currently to 1,400 by 2033, with individual year groups capped at no more than 200 once that growth is complete, up from a typical 135 in a year group up to GCSE today.

How Leading Tuition Prepares Boys for Trinity's 13+ Assessment

We build a Trinity-specific programme rather than a generic 13+ course, because the format described above is not what most 13+ candidates elsewhere are practising for. Sessions work through computer-based-style questions across Mathematics, English, Non-Verbal Reasoning and Verbal Reasoning at the pace and adaptivity of Trinity's own test, alongside regular timed practice at the 30-minute guided written paper, where structure and control under a prompt matter more than a rehearsed essay. Our tutors are experienced across day-school 13+ entry more broadly, and each programme is built around a specific boy's gaps rather than a fixed course of lessons.

Most families start in Year 7, which gives roughly a year to close specific gaps before the 14 November 2026 assessment date and still leaves time to think properly about the Third Year subject choices covered above, rather than treating the exam as the end of the process. For boys invited to interview, we run a mock academic interview focused on the kind of open conversation Trinity's own staff describe: interests, engagement with the wider world, and the ability to think laterally, not a rehearsed set of answers. We are rated 4.8 out of 5 from 57 reviews on Trustpilot, and 91% of our students achieve their desired grades. If a bursary or scholarship application is part of the plan, we build the timeline backwards from Trinity's own deadlines, not from ours.

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