Grammar Schools in Barnet and Enfield: 2027 and 2028 Entry

Barnet and Enfield hold four selective state schools offering 620 places between them, and they share nothing but a corner of north London. Four separate tests, four registration forms closing between June and July, and four sets of rules: Queen Elizabeth's has no catchment, while Latymer admits only from a published Inner Area list of 34 postcode districts, some of them only in named sectors.

Three of the four are in the London Borough of Barnet: Queen Elizabeth's (180 places), Henrietta Barnett (120) and St Michael's (128). Latymer (192 places) is in Enfield.

The Department for Education's register of schools lists exactly these three as Barnet's open, state-funded selective schools, and The Latymer School in Edmonton as Enfield's. For preparation rather than comparison, see 11+ tuition in Barnet, which also covers the independent schools Barnet families shortlist.

Is There a Barnet Grammar School Consortium?

No, and this is the single most consequential mistake a family in this corner of London can make. There is no shared paper, no shared registration and no shared results. Each school holds its own entrance test, publishes its own admission number and opens its own form on its own timetable. A family that registers once, believing they have registered for the borough, will find their child sitting one test and locked out of three.

Look at what those four test descriptions actually ask of a child. Queen Elizabeth's is entirely multiple choice, with no written paper. Latymer sets written English. St Michael's and Henrietta Barnett both use non-verbal reasoning, which the other two do not test at all. A child prepared for one of these schools is, for at least one paper, unprepared for the next.

Which of These Four Grammar Schools Can Your Child Sit?

Start from the child. All three Barnet grammar schools are single-sex, and St Michael's invites to its tests the girls who meet its Catholic criteria, widening the invitation only if fewer than 175 do.

Barnet's three grammar schools offer 428 places (180 + 120 + 128), 180 for boys and 248 for girls, though in practice only Henrietta Barnett's 120 are open to girls of every faith.

Queen Elizabeth's gives no priority to Pupil Premium candidates, has no sibling or multiple-birth policy and runs no music, sport or drama aptitude tests: its FAQ says admission is based solely on entrance test results. Henrietta Barnett's policy gives its own figure for 2025: "3121 applications were received for 104 places in Year 7".

Does Your Address Decide Anything in Barnet or Enfield?

Geography is where these four diverge most sharply, and where a misunderstanding costs the whole application rather than a few marks. The range runs from genuinely address-blind to a hard postcode list.

At Henrietta Barnett, the distance criterion, Criterion Three, sits above rank order, which is Criterion Four. A girl inside three miles who reaches Round Two is placed ahead of a higher-scoring girl outside it.

Latymer is blunter. The Inner Area is a condition of admission: for September 2027 entry, an applicant living outside it when registering for the tests must provide evidence of an Inner Area address by Thursday 7 January 2027 to be considered. A family outside those postcodes should not spend a year preparing for a Latymer test.

Long-form guides: Henrietta Barnett's three-mile priority, Queen Elizabeth's tie-break and Latymer's Inner Area.

Four Registration Windows, and None of Them Fall in October

Every one of these schools requires its own form in addition to the Local Authority Common Application Form, and every one of those forms closes months before the October CAF deadline that parents have in mind. GOV.UK states that you must apply for a secondary school place by 31 October, so for September 2027 entry the Local Authority Common Application Form closes on 31 October 2026, and National Offer Day for September 2027 entry is 1 March 2027. Your home council publishes its own closing details. For September 2027 entry the four windows fell like this.

That is four windows spread across March to July, with the earliest closing five weeks before the latest. None of them appears on the Common Application Form. The practical consequence is that the work of applying to these schools starts in the spring of Year 5, not the autumn of Year 6.

Two further details are worth putting in a calendar. Henrietta Barnett requires both the Local Authority CAF and its own Entrance Test Entry Form, and the school is explicit that both are needed for an application to be considered. And St Michael's requires an original Certificate of Catholic Practice, available from the priest at the parish where the family normally worships.

Why Is 225 Not the Score That Wins a Place at Queen Elizabeth's?

Three of these schools publish a number that is easy to misread.

Queen Elizabeth's publishes 225 as the combined score that meets the Governors' standard. That is the eligibility floor: it makes a boy eligible to be considered, and nothing more. Above it, boys are ranked against 180 places, and the school publishes historical data on the lowest scores that have gained admission. Treating 225 as the target misreads what the number is.

Henrietta Barnett publishes 300 as the number invited back to Round Two, with ties at the cut-off all invited. Reaching the top 300 is therefore a real milestone, but it is a milestone in a two-round race for 120 places, so rather more than half of the girls who reach Round Two will not secure one of those 120 places.

Latymer publishes two different rank thresholds inside the same policy, which is easy to misread. Its looked-after-children criterion uses the top 900 applicants on combined Verbal Reasoning and Mathematics scores, whose English papers are then marked; its music criterion uses the top 700, and considers up to 20 applicants for music places, who must also live in the Inner Area. In normal terms the top 700 applicants are deemed selective. Places go to the top 192, with the next 50 on a waiting list.

Which Skills Do These Four Tests Actually Share?

Start by narrowing. A family will not sit all four, because the eligibility rules do most of the narrowing for them: St Michael's is for practising Catholic families, Latymer is for Inner Area postcodes, Queen Elizabeth's is for boys and the other two for girls. A boy can sit at most two of these tests, Queen Elizabeth's and Latymer, and a girl at most three, Henrietta Barnett, St Michael's and Latymer.

Then work out what the shortlisted schools have in common and what they do not. Mathematics and English are tested by all four schools, so that work is never wasted. Non-verbal reasoning is needed for Henrietta Barnett and St Michael's and for neither of the others. Written English is needed for Latymer and St Michael's, and Henrietta Barnett's Round Two is an English and Mathematics test sat in school, but Queen Elizabeth's is multiple choice throughout, so a boy preparing only for that school sits no written paper.

Finally, be realistic about materials. Queen Elizabeth's says past papers are not available and points to sample papers on its website. Henrietta Barnett points to GL Assessment familiarisation booklets for its Round One test. Because Queen Elizabeth's says past papers are not available, a product sold as one of its past papers is not an official paper.

What Have the Schools Published for September 2028 Entry?

Latymer's 2028 admissions page already describes a different test: from September 2027 its 11+ assessments will be provided by Quest Assessments, in three sections, Mathematics, English Comprehension and English Writing. Verbal Reasoning, part of the 2027-entry test, is not among them. Its Year 5 open afternoon is on Thursday 29 April 2027.

The other three describe a usual cycle. Henrietta Barnett says its next open day will fall in the summer term 2027. Queen Elizabeth's FAQ says test registration opens from early May and closes at a deadline in July, with tests usually held in September. St Michael's says applications open after the Easter holidays and families apply in the summer term of Year 5.

These are usual patterns, not 2028 dates: confirm each date with the school.

Registration windows and test dates change between cycles, so confirm them with the school before you rely on them.

Reviewed October 2026: dates, figures and rules checked against The Henrietta Barnett School's admissions page and Admissions Policy 2027-2028, Queen Elizabeth's, St Michael's and Latymer admissions pages and policies, and GOV.UK.

Frequently Asked Questions