11 Plus Pass Marks by Region: How High Do You Need to Score?

There is no national 11+ pass mark, and the areas that publish one are not measuring the same thing. Buckinghamshire qualifies a child at 121. Kent needs a total of 332 with no single score below 108. Bexley reports a weighted total centred on 200. Here is what each admissions authority publishes, in its own words, for September 2027 entry.

Is there a single 11+ pass mark in England?

No, and the deeper problem is that the areas publishing a number are not publishing the same kind of number. Buckinghamshire gives one standardised total and a fixed qualifying score. Kent gives three separate standardised scores, an aggregate, and a floor that applies to each paper individually. Bexley gives a weighted total on a scale centred on 200 and names no pass mark at all. The Slough Consortium gives a single score and tells you what percentile it represents. A parent who reads "my child needs 121" and applies it outside Buckinghamshire is using a figure that means nothing where they live.

That is why the table below carries a column for the scale as well as the threshold. The threshold on its own is the number every other guide reprints, and on its own it is close to useless.

Two areas on that list publish no threshold at all, and that is a design decision rather than an omission. Bexley ranks and allocates; Reading School selects on the FSCE outcome. Where no threshold exists, the only meaningful question is how many children sit ahead of yours, which our guide to what happens when a child misses the 11+ by a few marks covers in detail.

Who sets the test in your area now?

For roughly a decade the honest answer was "GL or CEM", and most 11+ guides still frame it that way. It is out of date. Warwickshire County Council announced that its Year 5 applicants for September 2023 entry "will now take an 11+ exam from GL Assessment", and gave the reason in one sentence: "This is the result of a joint procurement exercise with The Schools of King Edward VI Foundation, which took place when the previous contract with CEM came to an end." Warwickshire and Birmingham moved together, and the same announcement noted that GL was "already used by other authorities, including Buckinghamshire, Kent and Lincolnshire".

Cambridge has not left the market. Its current product, Cambridge Select Insight, is described as suitable for "11+, 13+, late transfer and fair banding", and the 11+ and 13+ versions are marketed to independent schools. The one variant it describes for grammar schools is Cambridge Select Insight: Mid-Year Transfer, "designed explicitly as a late-transfer test for Grammar schools and is suitable for entry into years 8, 9 and 10". That is a Year 8, 9 or 10 test, not a Year 7 entry test. If a practice book is sold to you as CEM preparation for a state grammar school place, ask which authority sets that test. Our guide to CEM and GL Assessment sets out the area-by-area position in full.

Cambridge also states that it does "not provide any commercially available practice materials (including practice or past papers) nor endorse any other commercially available resources or tuition services". Reading School says the same of the FSCE tests it uses. Where an official past paper does not exist, familiarisation with the question types is the only preparation available, and a product claiming to be the real thing is not.

One further change is already scheduled. Herschel Grammar School states that the Slough Consortium "has contracted with GL Assessment as the test provider for the 11+ examination to be held in September 2026", and separately that it "has contracted with Quest Assessments as the test provider for the 11+ examination to be held in September 2027". A family with a child in Year 4 in Slough is preparing for a different provider from a family with a child in Year 5.

Why can 121 be a pass in one county and meaningless in another?

Buckinghamshire and Bexley weight their papers identically and still produce numbers that cannot be compared. Buckinghamshire builds its Secondary Transfer Test Score from "50% of the standardised score for verbal skills, 25% of the standardised score for mathematical skills, 25% of the standardised score for non-verbal skills", and a child's standardised score "will be between 60 and 170". Bexley applies "50% from the verbal ability score, 25% from the numerical ability score, 25% from the non-verbal ability score" and reports that "the average total weighted age-standardised score is 200".

Same weighting, different arithmetic at the end: Buckinghamshire reports one standardised score inside a 60 to 170 band, while Bexley reports a weighted total whose average is 200. A figure that would be strong in one county cannot occur at all in the other. Kent adds a third pattern by reporting three separate scores and a total, so a Kent child can be told the total of 332 was reached and still be refused because one paper came in under 108.

Standardisation is the reason none of these is a percentage. Buckinghamshire describes it as balancing "the overall performance of children from one year to the next" while taking "into account each child's age in years and months on the date they take the test". Kent describes the same adjustment, made "so that the youngest are not at a disadvantage". A raw mark out of a paper total never appears in either county's result letter.

How competitive is the top end?

Bexley publishes the clearest picture of any authority we checked. In 2025, 5,866 children sat the test and 2,070 achieved the selective standard, against 800 grammar school places across the borough. Roughly a third of the children who sit reach the standard, and roughly two in five of those who reach it can be placed. Bexley then adds a detail almost no authority publishes: "the top 180 children with the highest total age-standardised scores are placed in one of the highest priority groups for their preferred grammar school", while "other selective pupils are not guaranteed a place".

The two areas that do publish a threshold also publish how many children clear it. Buckinghamshire expects "about 37% of children will get an STTS of 121 or more". The Slough Consortium states that "Pupils who score 111 or above will be in the top 35% of the cohort sitting the examination". Both figures describe qualification, not admission — in Slough as in Buckinghamshire, qualifying puts a child into the pool that oversubscription criteria are then applied to. Our Bexley 11+ guide and Buckinghamshire grammar schools guide set out how each area allocates from that point.

This is where a national "top 10% passes" rule of thumb falls apart. Two of the areas above expect around 35% to 37% of their entrants to qualify, because the children who sit a grammar school test in a selective county are already a self-selected group. The comparison that matters is against the cohort sitting alongside your child, not against the country.

What happens if your child is just below the line?

Buckinghamshire runs the most transparent second route. A Selection Review is described as a parent's "opportunity to explain, in writing, why you think your child would be best suited to a grammar school even though they did not reach the qualifying score of 121". Cases go to a panel of "two grammar school headteachers and one primary school headteacher", and the council is candid about who succeeds: "historically most successful Selection Reviews have been for children whose score was between 110-120. Children with lower scores are rarely successful."

Bexley's equivalent is not something a parent can start. The borough states that "Headteachers will have the opportunity to request a review of a child's test score through the Headteacher Review process", and that this "will take place after results are published and after the secondary school application deadline". The conversation that matters there is with a child's own primary school, before results arrive.

Kent's position on a refused assessment is that an application to a Kent grammar school "will be refused when school places are offered on 1 March 2027", at which point "you will then have the right to appeal to explain why you think it is a suitable option for your child". Waiting lists are the other route, and how far they move varies by area — we publish waiting list movement data by region for exactly this decision.

Where should you check the figure for your own area?

Go to the body that sets the test rather than to a tuition site, and that includes this one. Every figure above is quoted from an admissions authority's own page and dated, so it can be re-checked in a minute. Kent County Council publishes its threshold each October. Buckinghamshire Council publishes the qualifying score and the proportion expected to reach it. The London Borough of Bexley publishes its weighting, its scale and its sat-to-selective ratio.

Two questions are worth asking every year rather than once. Which provider sets the test for the year my child sits it, given that Slough changes provider between the 2026 and 2027 sittings? And what kind of number does my authority report — a single score, an aggregate with a per-paper floor, or a weighted total with no published pass mark? Our Kent grammar schools guide, CSSE exam guide and the wider 11+ school guides answer both, area by area.

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