Devonport High School for Girls 11+ Guide 2026: Admissions, Exam & Prep

Devonport High School for Girls (DHSG) is a fully selective state grammar school for girls aged 11 to 18, with a co-educational sixth form, located on Lyndhurst Road in Peverell, Plymouth. For September 2027 entry, girls currently in Year 5 must register for DHSG’s own 11+ entrance examination — set by Quest Assessment — between 27 April and 31 August 2026, sitting an English Comprehension paper on 12 September 2026 and a Mathematics paper on 19 September 2026. DHSG currently has a Published Admission Number of 158 Year 7 places, a substantial rise from the 120 places recorded in its 2022/2023 admission arrangements, and shares its examination directly with neighbouring Plymouth High School for Girls (PHSG) as part of a combined allocation across the two schools.

This guide covers DHSG’s history and naval-town character, exactly how its shared entrance test and combined-allocation admissions process work, whether Plymouth’s three grammar schools now sit within a common testing arrangement, the school’s oversubscription criteria and lack of a catchment area, the key 2026/27 dates, recent GCSE and A-Level results, and how to prepare effectively for a test built around English and Maths rather than the verbal and non-verbal reasoning papers used in many other English 11+ regions.

Key Facts: Devonport High School for Girls

About Devonport High School for Girls: History and Character

Devonport High School for Girls traces its roots to St Michael’s Lodge, a day and boarding school on Devonport Road in Stoke that operated from around 1875 to 1912 under headmistress Miss M Raymond, who had grown the school to roughly 71 pupils, including 11 boarders, by 1905. Formal recognition as a girls’ secondary school followed in September 1908, when Plymouth City Council recognised the newly named Devonport Municipal Secondary School for Girls, which opened with just 10 girls on its roll and, for its first 27 years, shared premises within Devonport Technical School on Paradise Road. Mrs A Hill, M.A., served as the school’s first headmistress under this formal secondary designation, from 1911 to 1918, and the school’s house system — St Joan, St Ursula, St Monica and St Margaret — was established in 1916 and survives in some form to this day.

In 1937, the school left its shared Paradise Road premises for a purpose-built Art Deco building on Lyndhurst Road in Peverell, close to what is now Plymouth Argyle’s Home Park stadium — the site DHSG still occupies today. That move coincided with a period of intense change for the surrounding area: Devonport itself, together with Stonehouse and the original town of Plymouth, had been merged into the single County Borough of Plymouth only in 1914, having previously existed for centuries as one of England’s most important Royal Naval Dockyard towns in its own right. The Second World War brought that naval identity directly to DHSG’s door: the school building is reported to have been requisitioned in part as a machine shop for Devonport Royal Dockyard and used by the Ministry of Defence for training dockyard apprentices, and it sustained bomb damage during the Plymouth Blitz — a crater from an unexploded mine is said to remain beneath the school’s sports courts to this day.

DHSG’s own founding character, however, was markedly different from that of its brother school. Devonport High School for Boys (DHSB) was founded in 1896, twelve years before the girls’ school gained formal secondary recognition, and was established explicitly “to meet the needs of boys in Devonport and the surrounding area who sought a career in the Royal Navy, as engineers and civil servants.” DHSB’s catchment historically stretched across south-west Devon and south-east Cornwall, drawing boys in by train from the Tamar Valley and beyond, reflecting its role as a genuine regional naval-training pipeline school; Devonport Borough Council took over the boys’ school in 1906. DHSG, by contrast, was constituted as a general municipal secondary school for girls rather than a naval-vocational institution — its founding mission was broad academic education for girls in a rapidly growing dockyard town, not preparation for Royal Navy careers that were, at the time, closed to women. The two schools have therefore always been distinct institutions with separate governance, separate sites and separate founding purposes, even though both carry the Devonport name and both sit within the same historic naval town. For families researching Plymouth’s other Devonport-named grammar school, see our companion guide to Devonport High School for Boys.

Today, DHSG describes itself as “a 21st Century grammar school, whilst retaining the best academic traditions,” and is led by Head Teacher Mr L J Sargeant. The school has previously held Specialist Language College status, a designation that still appears on some of its official admissions documentation, reflecting a long-standing emphasis on modern foreign languages alongside its core academic curriculum.

Do Plymouth’s Grammar Schools Share a Common 11+ Test?

This is one of the most important practical questions for Plymouth families, and the honest answer has changed recently. Plymouth has three state grammar schools: DHSG, Devonport High School for Boys, and Plymouth High School for Girls (PHSG). Historically, each set its own separate entrance arrangements. Today, the picture is much closer to a genuine shared arrangement, though it stops short of a single unified consortium test in the way Lincolnshire or Buckinghamshire operate one.

DHSG and PHSG effectively run one combined process for girls. According to DHSG’s own published guidance, candidates register for the 11+ through one school’s system, can indicate a venue preference, and then sit exactly the same English and Mathematics papers wherever they sit the test. Places across the two schools are then allocated together: DHSG’s own 11+ FAQ explains that offers go to the first candidates — up to the combined total of places at both schools — who have named a Plymouth girls’ grammar school as their first or second preference, ranked by score. With a DHSG PAN of 158 and a PHSG PAN of 120, that combined total is 278 places shared between the two girls’ grammar schools each September.

The more recent development concerns the boys’ school. From September 2026, Devonport High School for Boys also adopted Quest Assessment as its test provider, alongside its own separately set English writing paper. This means all three of Plymouth’s grammar schools — DHSG, PHSG and DHSB — now use the same underlying test provider and a broadly aligned English-and-Maths format, a genuine convergence compared with the more fragmented arrangements of previous years. It is important to note, however, that DHSB remains a legally and administratively separate admission authority from DHSG and PHSG: it sets its own Published Admission Number (180 places), its own oversubscription criteria, and its own registration process, and boys and girls are, of course, not competing for the same places. So while Plymouth now has something close to a shared testing standard across its grammar schools, it does not have a single unified “Plymouth Consortium” scheme of the kind found in some other English counties, where one registration and one qualifying score cover every participating school regardless of gender. Families should always check each school’s own admissions page directly for the current position, since this is an area that has genuinely moved in recent admissions cycles.

What Does the DHSG 11+ Entrance Test Cover?

DHSG’s entrance examination, set by Quest Assessment, is built around exactly two subjects: English and Mathematics. There is no separate verbal reasoning or non-verbal/spatial reasoning paper, which marks DHSG out from many regional 11+ consortia elsewhere in England (Lincolnshire and several London and home-counties consortia, for example, test only VR and NVR with no academic subject content at all).

English Comprehension: A single paper of around 40 minutes and 60 multiple-choice questions, covering reading comprehension alongside spelling, punctuation and grammar (SPaG). There is no creative writing component in this paper for DHSG candidates. A girl’s ability to read a passage quickly and accurately, then answer detailed and inferential questions about it under time pressure, is central to strong performance here.

Mathematics: A two-part paper covering Key Stage 2 content, split into a shorter fluency section, of around 10 minutes, testing rapid, accurate arithmetic, and a longer reasoning section, of around 30 minutes, testing multi-step problem-solving and application. Across both sections there are roughly 60 questions in total. Because this is a genuine mathematics paper rather than an abstract reasoning test, girls need solid command of the full Key Stage 2 curriculum — fractions, decimals, percentages, ratio, measurement and geometry, as well as the four operations — not just quick pattern-spotting.

DHSG’s own published guidance is explicit that there is no fixed, advance-published pass mark. Instead, places are offered to the highest-scoring candidates, ranked by combined score and stated school preference, up to the total number of places available across DHSG and PHSG that year. A “cut-off score” is calculated only after each year’s allocation is complete — it is simply the score achieved by the last candidate admitted under the relevant oversubscription category — and that retrospective figure is then used for specific look-back provisions (covering looked-after children and Pupil Premium candidates) in future admissions rounds, rather than being set or published in advance of the test.

What Are the Key 2026/27 Dates for DHSG Admissions?

For girls seeking September 2027 entry to Year 7 at DHSG, the following 2026–2027 timetable applies:

Registering for the 11+ examination itself is a separate step from applying for a secondary school place. Families must both register their daughter for the DHSG (or PHSG) entrance test online between 27 April and 31 August 2026, and separately submit a Common Application Form to Plymouth City Council, naming DHSG among their preferences, by the national closing date of 31 October 2026. Missing the CAF deadline means a girl will not be considered through the coordinated admissions process, even if she sat and performed well in the 11+ test. Official information is published on the Devonport High School for Girls website and on Plymouth City Council’s 11+ admissions pages. For the national context, see our 11+ exam dates guide, and for how English 11+ testing varies from region to region, our GL Assessment vs CEM vs local school exams guide.

Does DHSG Have a Catchment Area, and How Does Oversubscription Work?

DHSG has no catchment area for Year 7 entry — any girl who qualifies through the 11+ examination may be considered for a place, regardless of where in Plymouth, Devon or Cornwall she lives. This is consistent with the pattern across all three of Plymouth’s grammar schools, none of which operates a defined geographic priority area at Year 7.

Under DHSG’s published admission arrangements, children with an Education, Health and Care Plan naming the school are admitted first, provided they meet the required standard. Where the school is oversubscribed among remaining qualifying candidates, places are then offered in the following order:

1. Looked-after and previously looked-after children who achieve a score equal to or higher than the school’s adjusted cut-off score from the previous three years, ranked by highest 11+ score
2. Up to 12 places for candidates eligible for the Pupil Premium or “Ever 6” Free School Meals (children eligible for free school meals at any point in the previous six years), who achieve a score equal to or higher than the school’s lowest cut-off score from the previous three years, ranked by highest 11+ score
3. All other qualifying candidates, ranked by highest 11+ score

Where two or more candidates cannot be separated because they have identical aggregate scores, DHSG applies the following tie-break, in order: first, Free School Meal / Pupil Premium eligibility; second, straight-line distance from home to school, measured electronically using the National Land and Property Gazetteer’s address-point system (with flats treated as a single measurement point regardless of floor); and finally, if a tie still remains, an independent random ballot supervised by a Plymouth City Council officer. Because there is no catchment area, distance functions purely as a tie-breaker for otherwise identical scores, not as a primary allocation criterion — a genuinely different model from grammar schools that prioritise catchment residence or distance ahead of pure test rank.

A waiting list, ranked using the same published criteria, is maintained by the school beyond National Offer Day; girls whose 11+ score is not more than two marks below the relevant cut-off score may also be able to join the in-year waiting list once the September term begins. Families with a Pupil Premium, staff, or exceptional medical or social need application must also submit the relevant Supplementary Information Form directly to Plymouth City Council’s School Admissions Team, in addition to the standard Common Application Form.

What Are DHSG’s Recent GCSE and A-Level Results?

DHSG is consistently among the highest-performing state schools in the South West. In its most recently published Summer 2025 GCSE results, 99.2% of pupils achieved standard passes (grade 9–4) in English and mathematics, 98% achieved strong passes (grade 9–5) in both subjects, and 69.7% of all GCSE grades awarded were at grade 7 or above — broadly equivalent to the old A/A* boundary. The school’s Attainment 8 score of 73.8 corresponds to an average grade of 7 across a pupil’s best eight subjects. 87% of Year 11 pupils were entered for the English Baccalaureate, with 78.9% achieving a standard EBacc pass and an EBacc average point score of 7.0. Every pupil completing Key Stage 4 in the most recent published cohort remained in education, employment or training afterwards.

At A-Level, DHSG’s Summer 2025 results show an average points score equivalent to a grade B, with 64.5% of grades at A*–B. The school reports that 92% of its 2023 leavers progressed directly to higher education, an apprenticeship or employment, and 96% of 2024 leavers completed their main programme of study. DHSG holds a Good Ofsted rating following an inspection on 11 February 2025 (report published 6 March 2025); the school’s previous full inspection, in November 2019, was also rated Good overall, with Outstanding judgements for Quality of Education and for Behaviour and Attitudes. For a broader sense of how DHSG’s results compare with other selective schools nationally, see our 2026 grammar school league tables guide.

How Should My Child Prepare for the DHSG 11+?

Because DHSG tests English and Mathematics rather than verbal or non-verbal reasoning, effective preparation looks quite different from the VR/NVR-only programmes recommended for many other English 11+ regions.

English Comprehension rewards fast, accurate reading combined with a genuinely strong grasp of spelling, punctuation and grammar. The strongest foundation is wide, regular reading across fiction and non-fiction, paired with structured practice answering inferential and detail-based comprehension questions under timed conditions, since roughly 60 questions in around 40 minutes leaves little time to reread a passage repeatedly. SPaG questions respond particularly well to targeted, repeated practice of common error types — apostrophes, homophones, sentence punctuation and grammatical agreement — rather than generic reading alone.

Mathematics preparation should be built on rock-solid Key Stage 2 fluency: times tables, the four operations, fractions, decimals, percentages and basic geometry, practised until they are close to automatic, since the short fluency section rewards speed as much as accuracy. The longer reasoning section then demands practice with multi-step word problems that require careful reading as much as calculation, so girls preparing for DHSG benefit from working through problem types that combine two or three mathematical steps in a single question, not just isolated arithmetic drills.

Because DHSG’s places are allocated by rank order across a combined field of DHSG and PHSG applicants rather than against a fixed pass mark, preparation should aim for a genuinely strong, well-rounded score rather than narrowly targeting a known threshold — every mark matters in a rank-ordered system. A personalised one-to-one approach is particularly valuable here, since a tutor can quickly identify whether a girl’s weaker area is English or Maths (or a specific sub-skill within either) and adjust the balance of a preparation programme accordingly, rather than applying a generic, evenly split study plan. At Leading Tuition, our specialist 11+ tutors support families across Plymouth, South Devon and South East Cornwall, including through online tuition for families outside the immediate city. Families weighing up DHSG alongside other South West grammar schools may also find our guide to Churston Ferrers Grammar School in Torbay a useful point of comparison, and our 11+ pass marks by region guide explains how rank-order allocation systems like DHSG’s differ from fixed qualifying-score consortia elsewhere in England.

Most families begin structured preparation in Year 4 or the early autumn term of Year 5, giving twelve to eighteen months to build genuine English and Maths fluency, address individual weaknesses, and move on to full timed practice papers well ahead of the July mock examination and the real test in September 2026. For general background on how 11+ testing works across England’s different selective regions, see our guide to what the 11+ exam involves.