Bacup and Rawtenstall Grammar School 11+ Guide 2026: Admissions, Exam & Prep

Bacup and Rawtenstall Grammar School (BRGS) is a fully selective co-educational grammar school in Waterfoot, in the Rossendale valley of Lancashire, tracing its origins back to 1703. For September 2027 entry, children currently in Year 5 must register for the school’s own entrance examination by 12 noon on 14 September 2026, sit three GL Assessment-provided papers on Saturday 26 September 2026, and be ranked highly enough within the school’s oversubscription criteria to secure one of 180 Year 7 places. This guide covers BRGS’s history, exam format, 2026 key dates, priority areas and oversubscription criteria, Ofsted history, and how to build an effective preparation plan for this school’s distinctive three-paper test.

Key Facts: Bacup and Rawtenstall Grammar School

About Bacup and Rawtenstall Grammar School: History and Character

The story of Bacup and Rawtenstall Grammar School stretches back to 1703, when the school was established as Newchurch Grammar School on land bequeathed by local benefactor John Kershaw. After several relocations within the Rossendale valley, the school moved to its present site in Waterfoot in 1913, at which point it adopted the name Bacup and Rawtenstall Grammar School to reflect the two principal towns it served. Today the school sits at the heart of the Pennine landscape of the Rossendale valley, drawing pupils from the market towns of Bacup and Rawtenstall and from a wide surrounding area of East Lancashire.

BRGS converted to academy status in September 2012 and, more recently, became part of Star Academies in September 2023. Star Academies is a large multi-academy trust that runs a network of schools across the North of England and beyond, and its arrival at BRGS marked a significant change in the school’s governance and leadership structure following a difficult period (covered in more detail in the Ofsted section below).

BRGS has a particularly strong sporting pedigree for a school of its size. In the 1970s and 1980s it produced no fewer than six England international hockey players, and in the 2000s it produced four England international handball players. Football has traditionally been especially prominent, and the school’s most famous recent alumna is Keira Walsh, the England women’s football captain and UEFA Women’s Euro 2022 winner. Other notable former pupils include model Agyness Deyn, actress Natalie Casey and Olympic rower Jessica Leyden — a breadth of achievement that reflects the school’s longstanding emphasis on extracurricular life alongside academic study.

With around 1,300 pupils across Years 7 to 13, BRGS is a comparatively large grammar school, admitting 180 pupils into Year 7 each September and maintaining a substantial sixth form. As a fully selective school, all Year 7 entrants must have sat and been ranked highly enough in the school’s own entrance examination — there is no separate non-selective intake at BRGS.

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How Is the BRGS 11+ Different from Other Lancashire Grammar Schools?

Unlike some regions of England — Lincolnshire and parts of Kent, for example — where a group of grammar schools shares a single regional consortium test, Lancashire’s remaining grammar schools each set and administer their own entrance examinations independently. BRGS is one of a small number of fully selective state grammar schools left in Lancashire, and it does not share a common paper with any other school. A child applying to BRGS sits BRGS’s own test; a child also applying to a different Lancashire or Cumbrian grammar school would need to check that school’s separate registration process and test date, as scores are not shared between schools in the way they are in a consortium area. This pattern of independent, school-set testing is common across the wider North of England: Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, Penrith in Cumbria sets its own GL Assessment-based test in the same way BRGS does, rather than sharing a paper through a regional consortium. For families weighing up more than one selective option in the North of England, our guides to Altrincham Grammar Schools and Sale Grammar School in Greater Manchester cover two further well-known state grammar options within reach of North West families, though each operates its own distinct admissions process, as BRGS does.

According to BRGS’s own admissions page, the entrance examination is “set and standardised by our service provider” — identified elsewhere on the school’s website as GL Assessment — and free familiarisation materials are available to download from the GL Assessment website ahead of test day. For a general introduction to how 11+ entrance tests work across England, see our guide to what the 11+ exam involves.

What Does the BRGS 11+ Entrance Exam Cover?

The BRGS entrance examination is unusual among grammar school tests in the North of England because it covers three distinct papers rather than the two reasoning-only papers used in many consortium areas. According to the school’s published admissions information, the examination comprises:

• Verbal Reasoning: testing a child’s ability to work with word relationships, codes, sequences and logical patterns in language — a skill not directly taught in the primary curriculum.
• Mathematics: based on the Key Stage 2 curriculum, testing arithmetic fluency, reasoning and problem-solving under timed conditions.
• English: assessing reading comprehension and written expression, including creative writing, clarity of ideas and control of language.

This three-paper Maths, English and Verbal Reasoning combination means that preparation for BRGS needs to be broader than preparation for a purely reasoning-based consortium test. Families who have researched 11+ preparation primarily through Verbal Reasoning and Non-Verbal Reasoning workbooks (the standard format in many consortium regions) should note that BRGS also expects a solid Key Stage 2 Mathematics foundation and genuine English comprehension and creative writing skill.

The school is clear that passing the examination is a necessary but not sufficient condition for admission. As BRGS’s own admissions page states, “passing the examination is not a guarantee of a place due to our over-subscription criterion.” There is no published fixed pass mark: instead, candidates who reach the required standard are ranked by score, first within their priority category (see below) and then, if places remain, more widely.

What Are the Key 2026 Dates for BRGS Admissions?

For children seeking September 2027 entry to Year 7 at Bacup and Rawtenstall Grammar School, the following 2026 timetable applies, based on the school’s published admissions arrangements:

Parents can request a review of their child’s result within five days of notification if they believe the outcome does not reflect the child’s ability, considering test scores, invigilator reports and any special circumstances. Registration and the entrance examination are administered directly by BRGS, but families must separately submit Lancashire County Council’s Common Application Form listing BRGS (and any other preferred schools) by 31 October 2026 — failing to do so means a child will not be considered through the coordinated admissions round even if they have sat and passed the BRGS test. For the wider national picture, see our 11+ exam dates 2025–2026 guide. Full official details are published on the BRGS admissions page and on Lancashire County Council’s school admissions site.

What Are BRGS’s Priority Areas and Oversubscription Criteria?

BRGS does not have a traditional geographical catchment area with a fixed boundary line. Instead, its admission arrangements define two priority areas based on named primary schools:

• Area 1 comprises 18 primary schools serving Bacup, Rawtenstall, Waterfoot, Newchurch, Stacksteads and Crawshawbooth — the towns and villages closest to the school itself.
• Area 2 comprises 13 primary schools serving Haslingden, Helmshore, Whitworth, Stubbins and parts of Accrington — a wider ring of communities across Rossendale and the fringes of the Ribble Valley.

When the school is oversubscribed among qualifying candidates, places are allocated in the following priority order:

1. Children with an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) naming BRGS.
2. Looked-after and previously looked-after children (including those adopted or subject to a guardianship or child arrangements order).
3. Area 1 primary school pupils, with siblings of current pupils prioritised first, then ranked by exam score.
4. Area 2 primary school pupils, with siblings of current pupils prioritised first, then ranked by exam score.
5. Children of staff employed at BRGS for two years or more, or recruited to fill a demonstrable skill shortage.
6. Siblings of pupils already attending the school in Years 7 to 11, where not already covered above.
7. All other qualifying applicants, ranked by exam score.

Where two or more children cannot otherwise be separated within a category — for example, two applicants with identical exam scores competing for the final place — the tie-break is straight-line distance from home to school, with the closer child prioritised. In the rare case of identical distances, the local authority allocates the place at random. Families living in Area 1 or Area 2 who also have an older sibling at BRGS are in a particularly strong position; families living outside both priority areas can still apply and qualify, but are only offered a place once the priority categories above have been exhausted and places remain.

What Is BRGS’s Ofsted History and Current Position?

BRGS’s Ofsted history has seen a significant change over the past decade. The school was rated Outstanding in 2016, the highest possible grade. However, its most recent full inspection, carried out on 14–15 June 2022, resulted in an overall rating of Inadequate. The 2022 report judged Quality of Education as Good — inspectors found a well-structured, appropriately ambitious curriculum and noted that the school had worked effectively to address learning gaps arising from pandemic disruption — but rated both Behaviour and Attitudes and Safeguarding as Inadequate, citing serious concerns about bullying, discrimination and unaddressed harmful sexual behaviour, along with gaps in safeguarding recruitment records and referral processes.

BRGS joined Star Academies in September 2023, after the period covered by the 2022 inspection, and the trust has been working to address the issues identified. Because Ofsted ratings can change materially between inspections, and because a new trust took over governance after the 2022 report, families should check the school’s most recent Ofsted report directly for the current position before making admissions decisions, rather than relying solely on historical ratings.

What Is the Sixth Form and Wider School Life Like at BRGS?

The sixth form at Bacup and Rawtenstall Grammar School is a substantial part of the school, with roughly 200 students studying A-Levels and equivalent qualifications across Years 12 and 13 — alongside around 900 pupils across the main Years 7 to 11. Because BRGS runs its own sixth form rather than sharing provision with another institution, students benefit from continuity with staff and pastoral relationships built up over several years of secondary education.

Sport has long been central to the school’s identity, with football, hockey and handball all producing pupils who have gone on to represent England at international level. Beyond sport, the school offers the broad range of clubs, societies and enrichment activities typical of a large secondary school, set within the distinctive semi-rural Pennine landscape of the Rossendale valley. Its long institutional history — stretching back over three centuries to 1703 — sits alongside its recent transition into the Star Academies trust, giving the school a combination of deep local roots and a newer, wider network of support.

How Should My Child Prepare for the BRGS 11+?

Because BRGS tests three subjects rather than two, an effective preparation plan needs to build competence across Verbal Reasoning, Mathematics and English rather than focusing narrowly on reasoning skills alone.

Verbal Reasoning preparation should use GL Assessment-style familiarisation materials, since the school confirms its paper content is provided by GL Assessment. Children should work through the full range of question types — codes, analogies, sequences, hidden words, synonyms and antonyms — under timed conditions, since fluency and speed matter as much as understanding the underlying logic. Wide reading from an early age builds the vocabulary base that underpins strong Verbal Reasoning performance.

Mathematics preparation should be built firmly around the Key Stage 2 curriculum, since BRGS’s Maths paper draws directly on national curriculum content rather than testing unfamiliar reasoning skills. Arithmetic fluency, times tables, fractions, ratio, and multi-step word problems should all be practised regularly, with an increasing emphasis on timed problem-solving as the exam date approaches.

English preparation should address both comprehension technique — reading unfamiliar passages and answering questions that test inference, vocabulary and understanding — and creative writing, where children need to demonstrate structure, a clear narrative voice, varied vocabulary and technical accuracy within a set time limit. Because many other regional grammar school tests do not include an English paper, families who move to Rossendale from a different part of the country should make sure their child’s preparation programme actually includes this component rather than assuming a reasoning-only test.

A personalised, one-to-one approach is particularly valuable for BRGS preparation because it allows a tutor to diagnose which of the three papers (or which specific skills within each paper) need the most attention, and to build a programme around those gaps rather than a generic, one-size-fits-all course. At Leading Tuition, our specialist 11+ tutors cover all three BRGS exam components and work with families across Lancashire, including through online tuition for those outside the immediate Rossendale area. For a structured overview of how to plan preparation over time, see our 11+ six-month countdown guide.

Frequently Asked Questions: BRGS 11+ 2026