Bexley Grammar School 11 Plus 2026: Entry Guide

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Bexley Grammar School is a co-educational selective state school located in Welling, in the London Borough of Bexley, and one of the four grammar schools in the borough. For September 2027 entry, the school offers 210 places in Year 7. Children gain entry by sitting the Bexley Selection Test, whose papers are provided by Quest Assessments; the 2026 sessions ran between 2 and 10 September 2026, and results were emailed to parents from 4pm on Friday 2 October 2026. The 2026 registration window ran from 1 March 2026 to midnight on 31 March 2026 and is now closed. This guide covers what makes Bexley Grammar distinctive, exactly what the Quest test involves, how places are allocated, and how to structure your child's preparation for the 11+ 2026 cycle.

What Is Bexley Grammar School?

Bexley Grammar School sits on Danson Lane in Welling, in the London Borough of Bexley. It is an academy converter grammar school, and children must be deemed selective in the Bexley Selection Test to be considered for a place. The school is co-educational from Year 7 — admitting both boys and girls at secondary entry — which distinguishes it from Beths Grammar School (boys only) and Townley Grammar School for Girls among the four Bexley grammar schools. Chislehurst and Sidcup Grammar School is the other mixed school of the four.

Bexley Grammar is one of four Bexley grammar schools that share a single test, which means that a child sits the Bexley Selection Test once, and the result can be used to apply for any of the four schools: Bexley Grammar, Beths Grammar, Chislehurst and Sidcup Grammar, and Townley Grammar. This shared test structure simplifies the admissions process for families — there is no need to sit separate tests for each school. Parents list their preferred schools on their child's Common Application Form, and the Bexley application period runs from 1 September 2026 to 31 October 2026.

Across the four schools, a total of 800 Year 7 places will be available in September 2027. Demand is intense: 5,866 children sat the Bexley Selection Test in 2025, and the council describes the selection process as extremely competitive.

The school has a sixth form and was judged Outstanding overall at its Ofsted inspection on 18 October 2022; from September 2026 it delivers A levels to all new sixth form students; the school has taught the International Baccalaureate since 2003 and current IB students continue until May 2027. For families considering which of the four Bexley grammar schools to list, Bexley Grammar is one of two mixed schools alongside Chislehurst and Sidcup Grammar School, while Beths Grammar School is for boys and Townley Grammar School is for girls. The school's admissions policy for 2027-2028 is published on the official Bexley Grammar School website, and the council points families to the Quest website for familiarisation exercises.

What Does the Bexley Selection Test Involve?

For the 2026 cycle, the Bexley Selection Test papers are provided by Quest Assessments. For more on the Quest Assessments format, see our dedicated Quest Assessment guide for Bexley Grammar Schools.

The test consists of two timed papers, which together cover three subject areas:

Verbal ability and English comprehension — This element tests vocabulary knowledge, reading comprehension, and verbal reasoning skills. Children are expected to understand written passages, infer meaning, identify relationships between words, and reason logically from written information. This section carries the heaviest weighting in the final score calculation.

Numerical reasoning — Mathematical problem-solving questions using content up to the end of Year 5 curriculum. Year 6 topics covered in school are not required knowledge for the test.

Non-verbal reasoning — Questions that assess the ability to recognise patterns, understand relationships between objects, and make logical deductions.

The full test session typically lasts between two and a half and three hours, including a short break between the two papers. An invigilator guides children through the session and signals when to move from one section to the next. According to the school's admissions policy, most questions are multiple choice, and all answers are marked on a separate machine-readable answer sheet.

Each child is informed of their total age-standardised score, which determines whether they meet the selective standard. The overall score is then calculated using the weighted formula above: verbal ability contributes 50% of the total weighted score, while numerical and non-verbal reasoning each contribute 25%. All children who take the test are ranked in order of their total age-standardised score, and the council gives the average total weighted age-standardised score as 200, with approximately two-thirds of candidates scoring between 170 and 230. The council says the test papers are marked externally, and that it does not hold the raw scores.

The selective standard — the threshold a child must reach to be considered for grammar school admission — is set, according to the council's page, by the council in conjunction with the four grammar schools (the same page's introduction says the Grammar School Head Teachers decide the selective mark, and Bexley Grammar's policy calls it the standard prescribed by Bexley LA). In 2025, 2,070 of the 5,866 children who sat the test (about 35%) achieved the selective standard; the council's pages describe the figure as approximately 30%. Meeting the selective standard does not by itself guarantee a place: the 180 children with the highest total age-standardised scores across all four schools are guaranteed a place at their preferred grammar school in Bexley, and other selective children are considered under each school's admissions criteria.

How Are 210 Places Allocated at Bexley Grammar School?

Bexley Grammar School offers 210 places in Year 7 for September 2027 entry. Allocation of these places follows the school's oversubscription criteria, which apply once the selective standard has been met. Simply achieving the selective standard does not guarantee a place — more children are deemed selective than there are places (in 2025, 2,070 children achieved the selective standard and 800 grammar school places were available), and each school has its own oversubscription criteria for allocating places among qualifying applicants.

The admissions process works as follows. After the September 2026 test, parents were sent their child's results by email from 4pm on Friday 2 October 2026; the council asks anyone who still has not received the email to contact the School Admissions Team on Monday 5 October 2026. These results confirm whether the child has met the selective standard. To be considered for a place, a child must meet the selective standard and parents must list Bexley Grammar School (or another Bexley grammar school) on the Common Application Form (CAF), which goes to their home local authority. For Bexley residents the closing date is 31 October 2026; families living elsewhere should check their home authority's admissions information. Naming the school on the CAF is mandatory — meeting the selective standard alone is not sufficient, and a child whose parents do not name the school on the Common Application Form cannot be considered for a place there.

Among children who meet the standard and have named Bexley Grammar School on their CAF, places are allocated in priority order according to the school's published oversubscription criteria. The school's 2027-2028 admissions policy applies these criteria in order once places are oversubscribed: looked-after and previously looked-after children; up to 12 places for selective children eligible for Pupil Premium funding, in rank order of distance; the 180 highest scorers among all children who take the test for the four Bexley grammar schools, who are guaranteed a place at their preferred grammar school in Bexley; siblings; children of staff; and finally distance from the school, measured in a straight line. Children with an EHC plan naming the school who are deemed selective are admitted first; the Pupil Premium criterion needs a supplementary form returned by 31 October. Families applying from outside the London Borough of Bexley apply through their home local authority and should read Bexley Grammar School's admissions policy carefully; the test is open to all children, regardless of where they live.

Offers of places to on-time applicants will be made on 1 March 2027. Where applications exceed places, Bexley Grammar School keeps a waiting list until at least 31 December of the school year of admission, and only children deemed selective can be included on it. Waiting list positions follow the school's oversubscription criteria, and the list is ranked again each time a child is added, rather than by the date you joined the list.

Key Dates for the Bexley 11+ 2026

The 2026 Bexley Selection Test cycle covers children aiming to start Year 7 in September 2027. The key dates below apply to this cycle. For children who started Year 7 in September 2026, the test was held in September 2025.

A note on registration: the 2026 registration window (1–31 March 2026) is now closed. Families planning for the 2027 cycle — for children currently in Year 5 who will sit the test in September 2027 — should watch the London Borough of Bexley's selection test pages for the registration announcement. For the 2026 test the council said late registrations would not be accepted under any circumstances, while Bexley Grammar School's 2027-2028 admissions policy says late requests go to the Bexley School Admissions Team and are accepted only for exceptional and extenuating circumstances. For the complete 11+ test calendar across grammar schools and independent schools, see our 11+ exam dates guide.

Does Bexley Grammar School Have a Catchment Area?

Bexley Grammar School's admissions policy for 2027-2028 sets out six oversubscription criteria, and none of them is a catchment area; the last is straight-line distance from home to school. Any child who achieves the selective standard on the Bexley Selection Test is eligible to apply for a place, regardless of where they live. Because the test is open to all children regardless of where they live, applicants are not restricted to residents of the London Borough of Bexley.

However, where places are oversubscribed among children who have all met the selective standard, distance from the school does become relevant. If demand for places at Bexley Grammar exceeds the 210 available, the school's oversubscription criteria determine which qualifying children receive offers. Distance is the sixth and final criterion, measured in a straight line, and the higher test score is used as the tie-break only where distances are identical (to an accuracy of 0.001 of a mile). In practical terms, the council states that most places are offered based on the distance between home and school, so children living closer to the school are more likely to receive an offer than those living further away.

For families living outside the Borough of Bexley, the process is slightly different at the point of sitting the test. Pupils whose primary school was not one of the school-based test centres listed by the London Borough of Bexley (some of which are outside the borough) sat the test at one of the four grammar school test centres between 7 and 10 September 2026, rather than at school between 2 and 10 September 2026. If you are applying from outside the borough, the council says test results are not automatically sent to out-of-borough schools, so it is the responsibility of parents and carers to tell their child's school the outcome; the School Admissions Team can be contacted at selectiontests@bexley.gov.uk. Out-of-borough applicants also had to register during the same March window, using the London Borough of Bexley's online registration.

There is a useful practical consideration for families living some distance from Welling: if your child passes and receives an offer, they will be making a daily journey to Welling for up to seven years including sixth form. It is worth assessing journey time realistically, from your home to the school on Danson Lane in Welling. A journey of more than an hour each way is worth factoring into your decision-making, particularly for younger children at the start of secondary school.

How Should Your Child Prepare for Bexley Grammar 11+?

Preparation for the Bexley Selection Test needs to be structured, consistent, and focused on all three tested areas. Given that the Bexley Selection Test papers are provided by Quest Assessments, families should seek practice materials and tutors who are familiar with the Quest format; the council points families to the Quest website for familiarisation exercises and the Pupil and Parent Information Booklets. Some aspects of preparation are format-independent, but others depend on the timed format of the test.

Start early — Year 4 or early Year 5 is the recommended starting point for dedicated preparation. This does not mean intensive drilling from age 8, but it does mean introducing your child to reasoning question types during Year 4 and beginning structured practice by the start of Year 5. Children who begin in the summer term of Year 5 with little prior exposure to reasoning questions face a steep curve in the time available before the September test. The Bexley test takes place in early September (the 2026 sessions ran between 2 and 10 September 2026), leaving little buffer time if preparation has been left late.

For the verbal ability section — which carries 50% of the weighted score and is therefore the highest priority — the two most effective preparation strategies are daily reading and targeted vocabulary building. Regular reading across genres, both fiction and non-fiction, builds the comprehension and inference skills that the verbal section requires. Vocabulary work should go beyond school expectations. Practice comprehension passages at increasing difficulty, and work specifically on understanding tone, purpose, and implicit meaning.

For numerical reasoning, the test does not extend beyond Year 5 curriculum content, but it does require fluency and speed rather than just procedural knowledge. Children who can solve Year 5 maths problems accurately but slowly will struggle with the time pressure of the test format. Timed practice with a focus on mental arithmetic, problem recognition, and question technique is more productive than curriculum review. Data interpretation — reading tables, bar charts, and line graphs to extract specific information — is a useful skill to practise.

For non-verbal reasoning, the council describes the section as assessing the ability to recognise patterns, understand relationships between objects, and make logical deductions. Practice for this section should build pattern-recognition speed and accuracy. Practice with actual non-verbal reasoning question banks is the most direct preparation approach. Practising these question types regularly for a few months before the test helps the patterns and question types become familiar.

Across all three areas, regular timed practice under test conditions is essential. Children should experience sitting for the full test duration before the actual September date — the two-and-a-half to three-hour session is long for a ten- or eleven-year-old, and test stamina matters. Book sessions at a test centre or use full-length mock papers at home to build this endurance in the months before September. For specialist support covering all three Quest Assessment subject areas, see our 11+ tuition service. Our specialist tutors work with children from all starting points and build preparation programmes around the specific demands of the Bexley Selection Test.

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.

What Happens After the Results?

If a child was not deemed selective, the London Borough of Bexley says the decision can be reviewed where there is evidence that the child's score does not properly reflect their ability and exceptional circumstances may have affected the test performance. Review requests can only be submitted through the child's head teacher, who must discuss the process with parents.

• Requests: all review requests must be received by the Bexley School Admissions Team between Monday 5 October 2026 and Friday 16 October 2026; requests received after that are not considered.
• Panel: the Head Teachers Review Panel considers requests in early November 2026, after the secondary application deadline of Saturday 31 October 2026, on a date still to be advised.
• Outcome: School Admissions emails the head teacher with the outcome of the review by Tuesday 24 November 2026.

A head teacher requesting a review is asked to remind parents to include at least one Bexley grammar school preference on their secondary application, so that it can be considered if the panel decides the child should be deemed selective.

Bexley Grammar School's own Open Events 2026 page lists Year 7 Open Mornings for entry in September 2027 on Tuesday 13, Wednesday 14 and Thursday 15 October 2026; booking is required, with tickets released online at 10am on Monday 5 October 2026, and the school describes the mornings as for parents and carers of children who have been deemed selective.

Reviewed October 2026: dates, figures and rules checked against the London Borough of Bexley's selection test, review process and secondary admissions pages, Bexley Grammar School's 2027-2028 admissions policy and website, GIAS and Ofsted.

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