Bourne Grammar School 11+ Guide 2026: Admissions, Exam & Prep

Bourne Grammar School is one of Lincolnshire’s largest and most academically distinguished selective schools. Located on South Road in the market town of Bourne, Lincolnshire, PE10 9JE, the school offers 240 Year 7 places for September 2027 entry through the Lincolnshire Consortium of Grammar Schools entrance examination. With a history stretching back to the fourteenth century and an Ofsted rating of Outstanding, Bourne Grammar occupies a distinctive position among English selective schools — a large, mixed, state-funded grammar with a thriving Sixth Form and a national reputation for academic achievement.

This guide covers everything families need to know about Bourne Grammar School and the Lincolnshire 11+ in 2026: the school’s history and character, the consortium test format, 2026 key dates, the oversubscription criteria, the qualifying score, and how to approach preparation effectively. For a broader view of Lincolnshire selective admissions, see our hub guide to Lincolnshire 11+ tuition.

About Bourne Grammar School: History, Character and Sixth Form

A grammar school has existed in Bourne since at least the fourteenth century, when records show Sir John Fisher appointed as master in 1330. The present school traces its formal founding to a bequest made in 1636, and the iconic Old Grammar School building — which still stands as a landmark in the town — was constructed in 1678, known then as the Free Grammar School of King Charles in the Town of Bourn. The school occupied that historic building for more than two centuries before moving to its current site on South Road in 1921.

Today, Bourne Grammar School is a co-educational mixed selective state grammar school serving pupils aged 11 to 18. It gained Academy status in January 2012. The school is rated Outstanding by Ofsted — a designation that reflects the quality of teaching, leadership, and pupil outcomes observed by inspectors. The school’s large size (240 Year 7 places is among the highest PAN of any Lincolnshire grammar school) gives it the breadth of staffing and resources to offer a genuinely wide curriculum, strong extracurricular provision, and a sixth form large enough to offer the full range of A-Level subjects.

The Sixth Form at Bourne Grammar is a significant feature of the school. It draws students from the school itself and from the wider Lincolnshire area, and consistently produces strong A-Level results. Pupils aiming for competitive university places — including Russell Group, medicine, dentistry, and Oxbridge pathways — receive dedicated support through the school’s sixth form programme. Entry to the sixth form requires a strong GCSE profile, with subject-specific requirements for each A-Level. The sixth form curriculum is complemented by tutorial support, university preparation programmes, and enrichment activities designed to develop academic independence alongside high examination grades.

Extracurricular life at Bourne Grammar is equally well-developed, with sport, music, drama, Duke of Edinburgh, and a range of academic clubs all forming part of the school’s offer. The school’s welcoming, purposeful culture — consistent across multiple Ofsted inspection cycles — reflects the balance the school strikes between high academic expectations and a genuinely inclusive community ethos for its 11 to 18 year old pupils.

How Does the Lincolnshire 11+ Consortium Work?

Bourne Grammar School is one of 14 schools that share the Lincolnshire Consortium of Grammar Schools’ common 11+ entrance examination. (Caistor Grammar School, also in Lincolnshire, conducts its own separate tests on different dates.) The consortium model means that a child registering and sitting the consortium test becomes eligible for consideration at any of the 14 participating schools — there is no need to register separately with each school, and the child sits only one set of papers regardless of how many consortium schools their family wishes to apply to.

The full list of Lincolnshire Consortium member schools is as follows:

School	Location	Type	Places (PAN)
Boston Grammar School	Boston	Boys	120
Boston High School	Boston	Girls	120
Bourne Grammar School	Bourne	Co-ed	240
Carre’s Grammar School	Sleaford	Boys	120
Kesteven and Grantham Girls’ School	Grantham	Girls	174
Kesteven and Sleaford High School	Sleaford	Girls	120
King Edward VI Grammar School, Louth	Louth	Co-ed	145
Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School, Alford	Alford	Co-ed	84
Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School, Horncastle	Horncastle	Co-ed	120
Queen Elizabeth’s High School, Gainsborough	Gainsborough	Co-ed	186
Skegness Grammar School	Skegness	Co-ed	132
Spalding Grammar School	Spalding	Boys	150
Spalding High School	Spalding	Girls	150
The King’s School, Grantham	Grantham	Boys	174

The consortium’s shared test is produced and marked by GL Assessment, the UK’s leading provider of selective school entrance examinations. All scores are age-standardised, and the combined qualifying threshold across all 14 consortium schools is 220 out of a maximum possible combined score of 282.

What Are the 2026 Test Dates for Bourne Grammar School?

For September 2027 entry, 11+ testing takes place in September 2026. Both tests are sat at Bourne Grammar School itself on Saturday mornings, though certain primary schools in the Bourne and Stamford area also conduct the tests on the preceding Fridays. Children must sit both papers: missing either paper means the entry cannot be completed, though catch-up sessions may be arranged in the event of genuine illness.

Date	Event
30 June 2026	11+ Registration deadline (late registrations cannot attend September testing dates)
5 September 2026	Familiarisation session at Bourne Grammar School
11 September 2026	Verbal Reasoning test at certain associated primary schools (Friday)
12 September 2026	Verbal Reasoning test at Bourne Grammar School (Saturday)
18 September 2026	Non-Verbal & Spatial Reasoning test at certain primary schools (Friday)
19 September 2026	Non-Verbal & Spatial Reasoning test at Bourne Grammar School (Saturday)
9 October 2026	Results emailed to parents at 12:00 noon
31 October 2026	Common Application Form (CAF) deadline for Year 7 place
1 March 2027	National Offer Day — Year 7 places offered by Local Authority

Registration is completed online via the school’s website (bourne-grammar.lincs.sch.uk). Once registered, all communications — test invitations, result emails, and subsequent correspondence — are sent to the email address provided. Details of testing-day arrangements are emailed in the week commencing 1 September 2026. Children who are unwell on a test day should not attend: email the admissions team immediately and a catch-up session may be arranged.

What Is the Qualifying Score and How Is It Calculated?

The qualifying score for Bourne Grammar School, and all Lincolnshire Consortium grammar schools, is a combined standardised score of 220 or above. This threshold is designed to identify broadly the top 25 per cent of children by academic ability in the relevant age group, as measured by GL Assessment’s scoring system.

Each paper — Verbal Reasoning and Non-Verbal and Spatial Reasoning — is equally weighted. The maximum standardised score on each paper is 141, giving a theoretical maximum combined score of 282. A child’s raw score (number of correct answers) is converted to a standardised score that accounts for the child’s exact age in years and months at the time of testing. A child born in August receives a more generous standardisation than a September-born child, because the younger child has had less time to develop relative to peers. Importantly, the standardisation parameters are set after all tests across all consortium schools have been taken and analysed, so they cannot be calculated in advance — the raw score needed to qualify varies slightly from year to year.

Achieving 220 is necessary but not sufficient for a place. Among qualifying children, the 240 places are allocated according to Bourne Grammar’s oversubscription criteria. In practice, the school’s large PAN means that most qualifying children who live within a reasonable distance of Bourne are likely to receive an offer, but families from further afield should check recent admissions data.

What Are Bourne Grammar’s Oversubscription Criteria?

Year 7 places at Bourne Grammar School are allocated only to children who have achieved a qualifying score of 220 or above. Among qualifying children, the 240 available places are allocated in the following order of priority:

1. EHCP. Any child with a Statement of Special Educational Needs or an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) naming Bourne Grammar School.
2. Looked-after children. Any child in public care or who has previously been in public care.
3. Siblings. Any child with a brother or sister currently on roll at Bourne Grammar School in Years 7 to 13 at the time of application.
4. Parent employed at school. A child whose parent or carer works at Bourne Grammar School.
5. Pupil Premium (35 reserved places). Up to 35 places are reserved for children eligible for Pupil Premium or Service Pupil Premium, prioritised by distance from home to school.
6. High-scoring within 15 miles (24 reserved places). Up to 24 places are allocated to the highest-scoring qualifying applicants who live within a 15-mile radius of the school, excluding any children already allocated a place under criteria 1–4.
7. Distance. All remaining qualifying applicants are ranked by straight-line distance from home to school.

There is no defined catchment area. The effective distance — the furthest point from the school at which a qualifying child can expect an offer — varies year to year depending on cohort size, sibling numbers, and the distribution of applicant distances. With 240 places, Bourne Grammar’s effective catchment tends to be among the widest of any Lincolnshire grammar school.

What Does the GL Assessment Lincolnshire 11+ Exam Actually Test?

Understanding what the exam tests — and critically what it does not test — is essential for effective preparation. The Lincolnshire Consortium GL Assessment does not include a Mathematics paper or an English comprehension paper. This surprises many families familiar with grammar school exams in other areas of England. Here is a precise account of each component.

Paper 1: Verbal Reasoning. This paper is taken first. It consists of multiple-choice questions that can be answered in any order throughout the exam, with answers recorded on a separate answer sheet using a pencil. Questions test the ability to see patterns and relationships within language: identifying words that do not belong to a group, completing letter or number codes, finding hidden words within phrases, selecting antonyms or synonyms, understanding word-level analogies, and spotting numerical patterns embedded in word sequences. Strong vocabulary is a significant advantage in Verbal Reasoning — a wide reading habit and deliberate vocabulary work both contribute to performance in this paper.

Paper 2: Non-Verbal and Spatial Reasoning. This paper is taken one week after the Verbal Reasoning test. Unlike Paper 1, it is strictly sectioned: children must complete each section in order following the invigilator’s precise instructions, and cannot move ahead to the next section or return to a completed one. Questions assess spatial thinking and visual pattern recognition: shape sequences (identifying which shape comes next), matrices (completing a grid of shapes by identifying the missing element), 3D spatial reasoning (visualising how 2D nets fold into 3D shapes), and coded visual relationships. Children who enjoy puzzles, spatial construction toys, or visual problem-solving often find Non-Verbal Reasoning more intuitive, though it rewards systematic practice regardless of starting ability.

Age standardisation. Both papers produce raw scores that GL Assessment’s third-party marking converts to standardised scores accounting for each child’s exact age in years and months. The standardisation parameters are set after all consortium tests have been marked, ensuring the system is fair to all children in the cohort regardless of birth month.

How Should We Prepare for the Lincolnshire 11+ Exam?

Preparation for the Lincolnshire Consortium GL Assessment is focused entirely on Verbal Reasoning and Non-Verbal and Spatial Reasoning. Families who have previously prepared for grammar school exams elsewhere, in areas where tests include mathematics or English comprehension, should be reassured: for Lincolnshire, maths revision and comprehension practice are not required. That said, a wide vocabulary — built through wide reading — supports verbal reasoning performance throughout the preparation period.

When to start. The most effective preparation begins in Year 5 — ideally in the autumn or spring term — giving twelve to eighteen months before the September exam. This gives time to introduce all GL Assessment VR and NVR question types, address weaknesses systematically, and consolidate with timed practice papers as the exam approaches. Children who begin in Year 6 can still prepare effectively, but the compressed timeline means targeted, structured one-to-one preparation becomes even more valuable.

Verbal Reasoning preparation. The first stage is familiarisation: ensuring the child recognises all major GL Assessment VR question types (there are approximately 21 distinct types) so that no format surprises them on test day. The second stage is speed and accuracy under timed conditions. The exam is time-pressured, and children who practise only on untimed material frequently find the transition to exam conditions challenging. Deliberate vocabulary work — investigating word roots, recording and revisiting unusual words encountered in practice — provides a high-return investment for VR preparation.

Non-Verbal and Spatial Reasoning preparation. NVR responds very reliably to structured practice. Children who initially find the abstract, visual nature of NVR questions unfamiliar typically show measurable score improvements over a preparation period once all the main question types have been introduced and practised. Key priorities: covering all NVR question types consistently (not just the ones the child finds easiest), practising the sectioned format of Paper 2 specifically, and building speed and accuracy together rather than separately.

Timed practice papers. From approximately January or February of Year 6, preparation should shift toward full timed practice papers. This reveals how a child’s performance changes under time pressure, and builds the pacing and stamina needed across two one-hour papers on consecutive Saturdays. Reviewing practice papers by question type — categorising and addressing the specific error patterns — allows preparation to stay targeted and productive right up to the exam.

Bourne Grammar School Academic Performance

Bourne Grammar School’s academic outcomes are consistently strong and reflect its Outstanding Ofsted rating. As a large selective grammar school, it works with a broad range of the most academically able children in south Lincolnshire, and its results place it among the highest-performing schools in the county year after year. The Sixth Form’s A-Level results support progression to competitive university destinations including Russell Group institutions and professional programmes in medicine, dentistry, law, and engineering.

The breadth of A-Level subjects offered — made possible by the school’s large sixth form — means that students are not limited to a narrow subject range. This is a significant practical advantage over smaller selective sixth forms, where staffing constraints sometimes limit subject choice. For families choosing between Lincolnshire grammar schools on the basis of academic culture and outcomes, Bourne Grammar’s size, resources, and track record make it one of the most compelling options in the county.

Frequently Asked Questions