English and Mathematics, one day in early October 2026, the top 300 girls only. No past papers, no scores, no rankings.
Book a Free ConsultationThe Henrietta Barnett School is a girls' grammar school in Hampstead Garden Suburb whose entrance test runs in two rounds. Round Two is a written English and Mathematics paper sat on one day in early October, open only to the 300 highest-ranked girls from Round One, who compete for 120 places. The school publishes no past papers for it and releases no scores afterwards.
The school's admissions policy for 2027-2028 entry, approved by the Governing Body on 3 December 2025, describes it in two sentences: "The Round Two Test is in English and Mathematics and will take place in School on one day in early October 2026." Candidates "will be able to take the Test once only and will be tested on literacy and numeracy appropriate to Key Stage 2."
Three details in that are load-bearing.
It is a different test from Round One in subject and in kind. Round One is verbal reasoning, non-verbal reasoning and English, set by what the policy calls "a nationally recognised body" — and the school signposts GL Assessment familiarisation booklets for it. Round Two brings in Mathematics, which does not appear in Round One at all, and drops the reasoning papers entirely. A girl can reach Round Two without her Maths having been tested once.
It is pitched at Key Stage 2. The policy says so explicitly. It is not a Year 7 or Year 8 paper, whatever is claimed on forums, and the school's own words are the answer to that question.
And it happens fast. For the September 2027 intake, the school's admissions FAQ document gives Round One on 2, 3 and 4 September 2026, results and Round Two invitations by 28 September 2026, and Round Two in the week commencing 5 October 2026. A family finds out their daughter is through and sits the second paper inside about a week.
The gap that catches families out: Round One tests no Mathematics. Round Two does, with roughly a week's notice.
Book a Free Consultation Message us on WhatsAppAfter Round One, the policy says, "the results of the verbal, non-verbal and English questions will be standardised, combined and placed in rank order. On the basis of this rank order, the highest ranked (top 300) candidates will be invited back to sit the Round Two test." If several girls are tied on the cut-off score, all of them are invited, so the invited group can exceed 300.
Set that against the places. The Published Admission Number for Year 7 is 120. So an invitation to Round Two means a girl is, at worst, in a group of about 300 competing for 120 places — and the school's own appeals disclosure gives the scale of the funnel behind that: "In 2025, 3121 applications were received for 104 places in Year 7."
| Stage | Roughly how many | What survives |
|---|---|---|
| Applications, 2025 entry | 3,121 | — |
| Invited to Round Two | 300 | About one in ten |
| Places offered, 2025 entry | 104 | About one in three of those 300 |
Source: application and place figures from The Henrietta Barnett School Admissions Policy 2027-2028, appeals section; the 300 figure from section 2.1 of the same policy. The ratio column is our arithmetic on those figures.
That second ratio is the one worth holding on to. Reaching Round Two is genuinely difficult and genuinely does not settle anything. Roughly two girls in every three who sit it will not be offered a place on National Offer Day.
Because the school will not release any, and says so on its admissions page in one line: "We do not release any past papers or offer any resources for Round Two."
That is a firmer position than it takes on Round One, where it links parents to GL Assessment familiarisation booklets and notes that these "include packs of free materials". The asymmetry is deliberate. Round One uses a nationally recognised test provider whose familiarisation material is public. Round Two is the school's own paper.
Families ask what the practical answer is. It is that Round Two preparation cannot be paper-specific, so it has to be subject-specific: writing at Key Stage 2 standard under timed conditions, and Key Stage 2 Maths done accurately at pace. A tutor promising you a Henrietta Barnett Round Two paper does not have one.
Claims about the paper's format do circulate — that the Maths section carries negative marking, that the English is creative writing, that the shape changes year to year. We are not going to repeat any of them as fact, because the only body that could confirm them has chosen not to, and a page that dresses forum recall as school policy is worse than no page. What the school states is the subject pair, the Key Stage 2 level and the single sitting. Everything beyond that is unverified.
Nothing about Round Two, before the Common Application Form is due. This is the single most-asked question about the school and the policy answers it in one sentence:
"Scores and rankings will not be released for candidates invited to sit Second Round Two tests on the basis that those who may eventually be offered a place at the School should arrive as equals."
The school repeats it in its FAQ document, and adds that the older practice of telling parents which band their daughter fell into has been dropped: "Banding for Round Two candidates is no longer used and you will not be given any results before you make your CAF application."
The position is not symmetrical. A girl who is not invited to Round Two is told more than one who is. The policy states that those candidates "will be informed of this prior to the deadline for the submission of the CAF. At this point they will be informed of their overall standardised score and also the cut off score for the top 300 candidates."
| Outcome of Round One | What the school tells you, and when |
|---|---|
| Not in the top 300 | Her standardised score, and the cut-off score for the top 300 — before the Common Application Form deadline |
| In the top 300, meets Criterion One or Two | A letter in late October saying that if you apply, she will be offered a place, subject to the tie-break |
| In the top 300, everyone else | A letter in late October saying she "may be eligible for the offer of a place". No score, no rank, no band |
Source: The Henrietta Barnett School Admissions Policy 2027-2028, section 5, "Communicating Outcomes".
Scores can be released later, but only once you have given up the waiting list. The FAQ document sets the condition out: a Round Two candidate's standardised scores for both rounds can be provided "after National Offers Day following confirmation that your daughter is either not on the waiting list or that you do not wish her to be on the waiting list", and even then "we will not provide rankings or any other data". Most families who want the score want it while they still want the place, and those two things are mutually exclusive here.
Nor is there a re-mark. The school "do not offer a remarking facility", describing a process in which answer papers are "scanned twice and carefully checked twice by GL statisticians who mark and score the papers". The route for a family that disagrees with the outcome is an appeal to an Independent Appeal Panel, held online.
They are added, not substituted. After Round Two, the policy says, "the results will be standardised and combined with the results from the Round One Test, and placed in rank order before being submitted to the Local Authority."
So Round One is not a qualifying hurdle that is then discarded. A girl who scraped into the top 300 carries that position into the combined ranking, and a girl who came near the top of Round One carries that too. Round Two changes the order; it does not reset it.
What the school has never published is the weighting — how much of the final combined score each round contributes. It is not in the admissions policy and it is not in the FAQ document. Any figure you are given for it is someone's assumption.
Rank order is the fourth of four oversubscription criteria, not the first. Looked After and Previously Looked After Children come first, then Pupil Premium candidates, then girls living within three miles of the school at the point of application — and only then "all remaining candidates in rank score order".
For the distance criterion, sitting Round Two is itself the qualification. The policy's wording is precise: in that category "a candidate will be considered to have the necessary capability if they sit the Round Two test". A girl inside three miles who sits Round Two therefore outranks a girl outside it who scored higher. We set out how that works, when the address is measured and what checks Barnet runs, in our guide to the Henrietta Barnett designated area question.
The school is careful not to oversell that priority, noting in its FAQ document that those three groups "will be offered places ahead of the rest of the applicants in rank order", and adding in brackets that "the rest" has so far been the substantial majority. Most places still go on rank.
You will know before the Common Application Form is due, and you will know by how much. That is more information than the girls who did get through receive, and it is genuinely usable: a standardised score set against a published cut-off tells you whether Henrietta Barnett was a near miss or was never realistic, which is exactly what you need in order to rank the rest of the form.
She cannot re-sit. The policy states that "a candidate may take the Entrance Test for admission to Year 7 once only", and the school does not offer 13+ entry at all. In-year vacancies exist but are rare, and the school describes the process for them as written English and Mathematics tests set at the candidate's current curriculum year, with no mock papers available.
For how the two North London super-selectives compare on everything else, see our comparison of QE Boys and Henrietta Barnett, and our complete Henrietta Barnett admissions guide for the full cycle. The primary source for everything on this page is the school's own admissions page and published policy, which should be checked before each cycle because dates and details move.
In the 2025 admissions cycle we worked with 40 students sitting selective entrance examinations at 11+ and 13+. Seven took up places at The Henrietta Barnett School, the second-largest single-school group in that cohort. Across the whole cohort, 38 of the 40 received at least one offer from a school the family had genuinely targeted.
We publish the cohort size next to the counts on purpose. Forty students is a small number, and a percentage quoted without it is not evidence. We hold no school-by-school pass rate for Henrietta Barnett and do not claim one. Families rate us Excellent on Trustpilot, 4.8 out of 5 from 57 reviews read on 19 August 2026, and 91% of our students achieve their desired grades — a practice-wide figure across every level we teach, not a Barnet cohort.
English and Mathematics. The school's Admissions Policy for 2027-2028 states that "the Round Two Test is in English and Mathematics and will take place in School on one day in early October 2026", and that candidates "will be tested on literacy and numeracy appropriate to Key Stage 2". Mathematics does not appear in Round One at all, which tests verbal reasoning, non-verbal reasoning and English, so a girl can reach Round Two without her Maths having been assessed by the school once.
No. The school's admissions page states: "We do not release any past papers or offer any resources for Round Two." It takes a different line on Round One, where it links families to GL Assessment familiarisation booklets that include packs of free materials. The asymmetry follows from who sets each paper: Round One comes from a nationally recognised test provider whose familiarisation material is public, while Round Two is the school's own paper. Any tutor offering a genuine HBS Round Two past paper does not have one.
No. The Admissions Policy states that "scores and rankings will not be released for candidates invited to sit Second Round Two tests on the basis that those who may eventually be offered a place at the School should arrive as equals". The school's FAQ document adds that the older practice of telling parents which band a daughter fell into has ended. Scores for both rounds can be requested after National Offer Day, but only once you confirm she is not on, or does not want to be on, the waiting list.
The top 300 candidates from Round One are invited back, and if girls are tied on the cut-off score all of them are invited, so the group can be slightly larger. The Published Admission Number for Year 7 is 120. The school's appeals disclosure records that in 2025, 3,121 applications were received for 104 places. On those figures roughly one applicant in ten reaches Round Two, and roughly one in three of those is offered a place on National Offer Day.
The week commencing 5 October 2026. The school's admissions FAQ document gives the full sequence for that intake: applications close at 5pm on 1 July 2026, invitations are sent by 17 August 2026, Round One runs on 2, 3 and 4 September 2026, results and Round Two invitations arrive by 28 September 2026, the Common Application Form is due on 31 October 2026 and National Offer Day is Monday 1 March 2027. Families get roughly a week's notice of the Round Two sitting.
No, the two are added. The Admissions Policy says that after Round Two "the results will be standardised and combined with the results from the Round One Test, and placed in rank order before being submitted to the Local Authority". A girl who came near the top of Round One carries that advantage forward, and a girl who scraped into the top 300 carries that position too. The school has never published how the two rounds are weighted against each other, so any stated split is an assumption rather than policy.
No. The school states that it does "not offer a remarking facility", describing a process in which answer papers are scanned twice and checked twice by GL statisticians who mark and score them. If she is not offered a place, the law entitles you to appeal to an Independent Appeal Panel, which is independent of both the school and the local authority and which holds its hearings online. The school publishes appeal details on its website no later than the day before National Offer Day in March 2027.
For getting a place, yes. Distance is the third of four oversubscription criteria and rank order is the fourth, so a girl living within three miles at the point of application ranks ahead of a higher-scoring girl outside it. The policy says that in that category "a candidate will be considered to have the necessary capability if they sit the Round Two test". The school is careful to add that the rank-order group "has so far been the substantial majority" of places, so most girls are still admitted on score.
Round Two cannot be practised from past papers, so it has to be prepared as Key Stage 2 English and Maths under time. We will tell you honestly where she stands.
Families rate us Excellent on Trustpilot — 4.8 out of 5 from 57 reviews. Read our QE Boys 11+ tuition and Henrietta Barnett 11+ tuition pages for how we work.
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