Herschel Grammar School 11 Plus Guide 2026

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Herschel Grammar School in Slough offers 150 places in Year 7 for both 2026-27 and 2027-28 entry, filled through the Slough Consortium of Grammar Schools' shared 11+ examination and a strict priority order that starts with looked-after children and a 4-mile catchment area. This guide sets out the exact test format, the qualifying score, the full 2027 entry timetable, and Herschel's 2025 GCSE and A-level results — including the Progress 8, Attainment 8 and Russell Group progression data that most 11+ admissions guides for this school leave out entirely.

How Many Places Does Herschel Grammar School Offer for 2026-27 Entry?

Herschel Grammar School's Determined Admission Arrangements set the Year 7 Planned Admission Number (PAN) at 150 places for both September 2026 and September 2027 entry. Places are not allocated purely by test score. Instead, the school works through five priority categories in order, filling as many places as possible from each category before moving to the next: looked-after and previously looked-after children (Children Act 1989, sections 20, 31 and 38); children living within the 4-mile catchment area; up to 10 places for Pupil Premium-eligible children living within a wider 10-mile radius; children of permanent school staff who have been employed continuously for 2 or more years; and, finally, any places remaining after those categories are filled, allocated strictly by examination performance rank order. If two applicants tie on any criterion, the tie-break is proximity to the school, and if distances are also equal, an independent person makes a random allocation.

The school also runs a separate Sixth Form (Year 12) intake with a PAN of 160, of which a minimum of 10 places is reserved for external applicants — students who did not attend Herschel for Years 7-11 and are joining for A-levels. Entry to the Sixth Form depends on GCSE average points score and subject-specific grade requirements published each November in the school's Sixth Form Course Information Booklet, with conditional offers confirmed on GCSE Results Day.

What Format Is the Herschel Grammar School 11+ Exam?

The 11+ entrance examination that determines eligibility for Herschel Grammar School is set and administered by the Slough Consortium of Grammar Schools, the group of five state grammar schools serving Slough — Herschel, Upton Court Grammar, Langley Grammar, Slough Grammar and St Bernard's Catholic Grammar. Every child registering for consideration at Herschel sits the same single examination, and the same standardised score is shared with any other Slough Consortium school named on the application, so families do not sit separate tests for each school.

The test is delivered as two papers, each approximately 60 minutes long, sat on the same day. Paper 1 tests verbal skills: reading comprehension, grammar, punctuation, spelling, vocabulary and verbal reasoning. Paper 2 tests non-verbal skills: non-verbal reasoning, spatial reasoning and mathematics at KS2 level. Both papers use a GL Assessment-style multiple-choice format. Scores are converted to an age-standardised score to account for the spread of birth dates within a Year 6 cohort, and a standardised score of 111 or above is required for a child to be eligible for consideration at any Slough Consortium school, including Herschel.

Families who cannot sit the test on the designated day can apply for an alternative date through the Consortium, and access arrangements — such as extra time or rest breaks for a documented learning difficulty or disability — must be requested well in advance of the test window, as deadlines for access arrangements applications typically close several weeks before the exam itself.

Does Herschel Grammar School Have a Catchment Area?

Yes. After looked-after children, the second admission priority category is the school's 4-mile catchment area. This is measured as a straight-line ("as the crow flies") distance from a child's home address to the school's main entrance gate, using Slough Borough Council's Geographic Information System (GIS) — not driving distance or walking route. A separate, wider catchment applies to Pupil Premium-eligible children: up to 10 additional places are made available to Pupil Premium applicants living within a 10-mile radius, recognising that eligible families may live further from the school than the standard catchment allows.

Residency matters as much as distance. Families must have been living at their stated home address since 1 May of the year before the closing date, and must remain resident there through to the Common Application Form deadline. An address change after this point, or a second-home arrangement used only to gain catchment priority, can result in the application being assessed against a different, lower-priority address — Slough Borough Council's admissions team may request proof of residency such as council tax or utility bills.

Key Dates for September 2027 Entry at Herschel Grammar School

For children applying for a Year 7 place starting September 2027 (born between 1 September 2015 and 31 August 2016), the Slough Consortium's timetable runs across roughly ten months from registration to National Offer Day. Missing the registration window or the Common Application Form deadline is one of the most common — and entirely avoidable — reasons families lose priority, so the dates below are worth calendaring as soon as your child enters Year 5.

The Common Application Form is submitted through Slough Borough Council rather than directly to Herschel Grammar School, and it is where families rank their preferred schools — including any combination of the five Slough Consortium schools and out-of-area preferences. Because the examination result becomes available in mid-October, roughly two weeks before the CAF deadline, families have a short but real window to review their ranking in light of the actual standardised score before submitting. The waiting list, which remains open until 31 December in the year of entry, is reassessed every time a place becomes free or a family removes their child from the list, so a lower initial offer is not necessarily final.

How Competitive Is Entry to Herschel Grammar School?

Herschel Grammar School is consistently oversubscribed, in line with all five Slough Consortium schools. A standardised score of 111 makes a child eligible for consideration, but eligibility is not the same as a place: once the looked-after children and 4-mile catchment categories are filled, the remaining places are awarded strictly by examination rank order, so realistic competitiveness depends heavily on where a family lives relative to the 4-mile boundary. Families living inside the catchment compete primarily against other catchment applicants for the majority of the 150 places; families outside it are competing for a much smaller pool of places that remain after catchment applicants are seated, and in practice this usually requires a standardised score well above the 111 minimum.

Herschel's reputation as a strong all-round academic school — named after the astronomer Sir William Herschel, who lived in Slough, and known for a particularly strong sciences culture — means demand from both inside and outside the catchment area is high every year. The school moved to its current Northampton Avenue site in 1958, having first opened in 1952, and today operates as part of the Schelwood Trust alongside Beechwood School, under headteacher Mrs Joanne Rockall.

What GCSE and A-Level Results Does Herschel Grammar School Achieve?

Most 11+ guides for Herschel Grammar School stop at admissions mechanics — places, catchment, dates and pass marks. Just as important for families choosing between the five Slough Consortium schools is what happens after a child is admitted. Herschel's most recently published results give a detailed, dated picture.

In the 2025 GCSE results, 98.7% of Herschel pupils achieved grade 5 or above in both English and maths, and 73% of all GCSE entries were graded 7-9, with 50% graded at the very top band, 8-9. The average Attainment 8 score was 75.8, with an EBacc entry rate of 78% and an EBacc Average Points Score of 7.25 per pupil. In the most recent year for which the Department for Education has published headline Progress 8 data for the school (2023), Herschel's Progress 8 score was +0.74 — well above the national average of 0.0, indicating pupils make substantially more progress between Key Stage 2 and GCSE than pupils with similar starting points nationally.

At A-level in 2025, 148 pupils had A-level or equivalent entries, achieving an average point score of 41.68 (an average grade of B+), with 39.9% of entries reaching AAB or higher including at least two facilitating subjects. Of recent leavers, 86% progressed to higher education or training at level 4 or above, 34% went on to a top-third institution, and 33% progressed to a Russell Group university. Ofsted rated Herschel Outstanding in every one of its five inspection categories — quality of education, behaviour and attitudes, personal development, leadership and management, and sixth form provision — following its inspection on 21 May 2024, repeating the Outstanding grading the school also received at its previous full inspection on 18 September 2012. In the Sunday Times Parent Power 2026 school rankings, Herschel placed 70th nationally.

For families weighing Herschel against the other four Slough Consortium schools, our Slough Grammar Schools 11+ hub compares admissions routes across all five schools, and our 11+ Tuition in Slough guide covers borough-wide preparation timelines. If you're mapping out the wider exam calendar alongside other consortiums and independent schools, our 11+ Exam Dates 2025-2026 timetable is a useful cross-check, and our Slough tuition page covers local support options beyond 11+ preparation. For the school's own admissions documentation, the official Herschel Grammar School Year 7 Admissions 2027 page is the primary source for any figures in this guide.

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