Holcombe Grammar School 11+ Guide 2026: Medway Test, Co-Education and Admissions

1. Home
2. ›
3. Blog
4. ›
5. Holcombe Grammar School 11+ Guide 2026

Holcombe Grammar School 11+ entry for September 2027 follows on from an unusually significant change: Holcombe's 2026/27 admissions arrangements say it became a co-educational school on 1 September 2026, welcoming boys and girls into Year 7 for the first time in its history, so September 2027 is the second year of co-educational Year 7 entry. Holcombe Grammar School was a selective boys' school for Years 7 to 11, with a co-educational Sixth Form, and its 2026/27 arrangements make Year 7 entry open to both boys and girls from 1 September 2026. The school sits on Maidstone Road in Chatham, Kent, holds a Good Ofsted rating from its March 2024 inspection, and has 1,060 pupils on roll. It sits within the Medway selective admissions system, using the Medway Test, provided by GL Assessment, to identify grammar-suitable children, with a published admission number of 180 Year 7 places from September 2026 — up from 150 places before the co-educational change. This guide covers what the co-educational transition means for families applying now, exactly how the Medway Test works and how it differs from the neighbouring Kent Test, the oversubscription criteria, key dates for 2027 entry, Holcombe's academic results and history, and how to prepare effectively. For the wider regional picture, see our Kent grammar schools guide 2026.

Key Facts: Holcombe Grammar School

Is Holcombe Grammar School Still a Boys' School?

Not for Year 7 entry. Holcombe's 2026/27 arrangements say it is a co-educational school from 1 September 2026, with boys and girls welcomed into Year 7 for the first time in its history; pupils already at the school (Years 8 to 11) are not affected. Holcombe Grammar School's predecessor was Chatham Grammar School for Boys.

Holcombe's own explanation of the change is that it will balance access to grammar school education for boys and girls in the area and, alongside changes to the Medway Test, support more young people from Medway to attend grammar schools. Holcombe's arrangements make it co-educational from 1 September 2026, and Chatham Grammar School said on 14 July 2026 that it would welcome its first co-educational Year 7 cohort in September 2026.

The practical implication for applicants is straightforward: since Holcombe's 2026/27 arrangements make it co-educational from 1 September 2026, girls sitting the Medway Test for September 2027 entry onwards may include Holcombe on their Common Application Form as a preference, alongside boys. The co-educational change widened eligibility and raised the Year 7 published admission number from 150 to 180. The six oversubscription priority groups are the same in the 2025/26 and 2026/27 arrangements, but the 2026/27 arrangements use distance, rather than random selection, to separate applicants within each group. Holcombe says pupils already at the school are not affected by the change, which applies to Year 7 entry from 2026, and its Sixth Form already welcomes girls. For the neighbouring Medway grammar schools, see our guides to Fort Pitt Grammar School and Chatham Grammar School.

How Does Admission to Holcombe Grammar School Work?

Holcombe Grammar School admissions run in two distinct stages, and both must be completed correctly for a child to be considered. The first stage is the Medway Test. Every child who wants to be considered for Holcombe, or for a Medway grammar school other than Chatham Grammar (whose policy also accepts the Kent Test), must register for and sit this test. Only children subsequently assessed as being of selective ability are eligible to be considered for a place at Holcombe. The second stage is the Common Application Form (CAF), the standard secondary transfer application submitted to your home local authority, naming Holcombe among your preferences.

These two stages run on entirely separate timelines, and missing either one means a child cannot be offered a place at Holcombe, however strong their test performance. Registration for the Medway Test for September 2027 entry followed the same council-wide calendar as all Medway grammar schools: it opened on 18 May 2026 and closed on 12 June 2026, well ahead of the test itself, and Medway does not accept late registrations. Once a child has an assessed result, families then submit their CAF, listing Holcombe among their secondary school preferences, by the national closing date of 5pm on 31 October 2026. A child assessed as non-grammar can still name grammar schools, but Medway recommends naming a mixture of grammar and non-grammar schools, because it will not be able to offer a grammar school place to that child on 1 March 2027.

Holcombe's own 2026/27 admissions arrangements confirm the school's Published Admission Number (PAN) as 180 places for Year 7 from 1 September 2026, up from 150 places before the co-educational transition. Only applications from children who have achieved the required standard in the Medway Test are considered; meeting that standard does not guarantee a place, since Holcombe then ranks all qualifying applicants under the oversubscription criteria in its 2026/27 admissions arrangements.

What Are the Key 2026 Dates for Holcombe Grammar School 11+ Entry?

For children seeking September 2027 Year 7 entry to Holcombe Grammar School, the following Medway-wide timetable applies. The six Medway grammar schools, including Holcombe, share the Medway Test and the same council calendar (Chatham Grammar also accepts the Kent Test), so these dates apply equally whichever Medway grammar schools a family is considering.

Registration itself is completed through Medway Council's Parent Portal rather than directly with Holcombe. See our 11+ exam dates 2026–2027 timetable for the equivalent Kent Test and independent school dates alongside Medway's own calendar.

What Does the Medway Test Involve for Holcombe Grammar School?

The Medway Test is provided by GL Assessment and written specifically for Medway Council. It is a single admissions test used by the six Medway grammar schools and it cannot be used for grammar schools in other areas, so there is no separate Holcombe-specific paper. Children sit the test once, receive one assessed result, and may then name Holcombe alongside any other Medway grammar schools on their Common Application Form.

The test comprises three compulsory papers. The English paper (30 minutes) covers reading comprehension, punctuation and grammar. The Mathematics paper (50 minutes) covers the mathematical elements, and Medway Council does not recommend the test for a child who is not working at or above their expected levels for their age. The Reasoning paper (45 minutes) combines both verbal and non-verbal reasoning in a single paper.

Raw scores are age-standardised, then combined in Medway Council's formula: the English standardised score is multiplied by 2, the Mathematics score by 2 and the Reasoning score by 1 (2 + 2 + 1 = 5, so each paper's share of the formula is 2/5, 2/5 and 1/5), which gives weightings of 40% of the formula for English, 40% for Mathematics and 20% for Reasoning. The Medway Test's pass mark is not fixed in advance. A minimum total weighted score is set every year: 478 for 2027 admissions (26% of the cohort assessed as grammar), 481 for 2026 admissions (25%) and 482 for 2025 admissions (25%). Medway says the tests are designed to assess the equivalent of 26% of children attending Medway maintained schools as grammar.

Does Holcombe Use the Kent Test or Medway's Own System?

This is a genuinely important distinction, and one that trips up families researching grammar schools across the Kent and Medway border. Holcombe's local authority is Medway Council, not Kent County Council. Medway Council runs the Medway Test and the co-ordinated admissions scheme for Medway's schools, including Holcombe. The Kent Test is run by Kent County Council.

Because of this, Holcombe Grammar School does not use the Kent Test, the separate 11+ used for Kent's own grammar schools . Holcombe uses the Medway Test instead, a test written specifically for Medway Council and used by Medway's own six grammar schools. The two tests have a broadly similar purpose — identifying children suited to a grammar school education — but they are separate tests, with the Medway Test provided by GL Assessment for Medway Council and the Kent Test run by Kent County Council. The Kent Test has an English and maths paper and a reasoning paper, plus a writing exercise that is not marked but may be used by a local headteacher panel, and its grammar threshold for 2026 (the Kent Test sat in September 2026, for September 2027 entry) was a total score of 345 or more, with no single score lower than 111. The Medway Test uses three papers (English, Mathematics and Reasoning) and does not have a pass mark fixed in advance; 26% of the cohort was assessed as grammar for 2027 admissions.

For families living near the Kent/Medway boundary, this matters practically: a child needs to sit the relevant test for the grammar schools in each area the family is considering, because under Medway's 2027/28 co-ordinated scheme Medway Test results are not transferable between authorities unless a school's published arrangements accept them, as Chatham Grammar's do for the Kent Test. Families weighing up schools on both sides of the boundary may also find our guides to Rochester Grammar School (Medway Test) useful alongside broader coverage of the Kent grammar schools system for comparison.

What Are the Oversubscription Criteria for Holcombe Grammar School, and Is There a Catchment Area?

Holcombe Grammar School has no designated catchment area or priority parishes in its 2026/27 admissions arrangements. When more grammar-assessed applicants apply for Holcombe than there are places, the school's published oversubscription criteria, as set out in its 2026/27 admissions arrangements, the latest listed on Holcombe's admissions page on 24 October 2026 alongside 2025/26 and 2024/25, rank applicants strictly in this order:

1. Looked-after children and previously looked-after children, including those who became subject to an adoption, child arrangements or special guardianship order
2. Siblings — children who will have a brother or sister attending Holcombe Grammar School at the time they start
3. Children attending specified Thinking Schools Academy Trust primary academies in Medway — namely The Gordon Children's Academy, New Horizons Children's Academy, All Faiths Children's Academy and Cedar Children's Academy
4. Children of staff employed at Holcombe for two or more years, or recruited to fill a demonstrable skills-shortage post
5. Children with specific medical or health reasons, supported by written evidence from a GP or hospital consultant that a health reason requires the child to attend Holcombe
6. All remaining qualifying children, ranked by distance — the shortest route from home to school along roads and paths known to the GIS software used under Medway's 2027/28 co-ordinated scheme

If two or more applicants at the final distance cut-off have exactly identical distances and cannot otherwise be separated, Holcombe's 2026/27 policy allows for places to be allocated to all such applicants, even where this takes the intake marginally above the published 180-place PAN. Because Holcombe's 2026/27 arrangements include no designated catchment area, the practical determinant of who receives a place, once the first five priority groups are satisfied, is the shortest route from home to school. Within each of the first five groups, if the school reaches its published admission number, the 2026/27 arrangements also allocate places on distance, where the 2025/26 arrangements used random selection.

What Academic Results Does Holcombe Grammar School Achieve?

Holcombe Grammar School's published GCSE results are well above the England averages. In the 2025 GCSE cohort, 84.7% of pupils achieved grade 5 or above in both English and Mathematics — comfortably above the England state-school average of 45.4%. The school's Attainment 8 score of 62.4 sits well above the England average of 46.1. Holcombe's Progress 8 score for 2025 has not been calculated: the DfE reports that no Key Stage 2 assessment data is available to form a baseline for 2024/25 and 2025/26, due to Covid-19 disruption to primary assessments, so families should weigh the school's raw attainment figures above instead.

At A-level, Holcombe achieves an average points score of 33.55 per entry, with 9.7% of students achieving AAB or better including at least two facilitating subjects. The school's prospectus says that many of its students go on to places at Russell Group universities. Ofsted's most recent inspection, published 1 May 2024 following a visit on 12 March 2024, rated Holcombe Good overall; the school's previous full inspection, in September 2014, also rated the school Good overall.

What Is Holcombe Grammar School's History and Character?

Holcombe Grammar School opened as an academy on 1 April 2011, replacing Chatham Grammar School for Boys. Its prospectus says the school's history has strong links with Chatham Dockyard and that the sense of industry and hard work has not left the school.

The school converted to academy status in 2011 and joined the Thinking Schools Academy Trust (TSAT), a family of schools whose Thinking approach is reflected in Holcombe's own stated values: Develop Mastery, Show Endeavour, Become a Thinking Community. The school describes itself as “an ambitious and supportive grammar school where life chances are transformed,” and its prospectus describes a House system that allows for internal competition.

Holcombe's 2026/27 admissions arrangements describe it as a co-educational school from 1 September 2026. Holcombe's headteacher is Mr L. Preston, leading a school of 1,060 pupils aged 11 to 18, with a school capacity of 1,000, according to the Department for Education's school records.

How Should My Child Prepare for the Holcombe Grammar School 11+?

Preparation for the Medway Test — and therefore for Holcombe Grammar School entry — needs to start well before test day. We recommend beginning structured practice in Year 4 or early Year 5 at the latest, because the Medway Test is sat in Year 6 and there is no resit. The Medway Test is genuinely competitive: 26% of the cohort was assessed as grammar for 2027 admissions, and being assessed as grammar does not guarantee a place, so the real competition each September is not just for a place at Holcombe but for grammar school entry across Medway as a whole.

Because English and Mathematics each carry a 40% weighting of the formula (twice as heavy as Reasoning's 20%), neither should be neglected in favour of reasoning-only preparation. For English, children should practise reading comprehension at real speed and precision, working with unfamiliar passages under timed conditions, alongside explicit study of punctuation and grammar terminology. For Mathematics, children need secure Key Stage 2 mathematics, so it is worth practising fractions, ratio and proportion, percentages and geometry through multi-step, context-based questions rather than bare calculations.

Reasoning, carrying a 20% weighting of the formula, has four timed spatial and non-verbal reasoning sections (20 minutes in total) and one timed verbal reasoning section (25 minutes). Because it is weighted less heavily than English or Mathematics, reasoning should generally receive proportionately less preparation time — but children unfamiliar with these formats still need dedicated practice on each question type well before test day.

A personalised, one-to-one approach allows a tutor to identify exactly which of the three tested areas — English, Mathematics or Reasoning — is weakest for an individual child, and to weight preparation time accordingly rather than applying a generic, evenly-split study plan. At Leading Tuition, our specialist 11+ tutors teach online, one-to-one, preparing children for Holcombe and the other Medway grammar schools, starting with question practice and bringing in full mock papers later. For general background on how 11+ testing works across England's different selective regions, see our guide to what the 11+ exam involves.

What About Sixth Form Entry at Holcombe Grammar School?

Holcombe Grammar School's Sixth Form was already co-educational, admitting both boys and girls regardless of the historical single-sex status of Years 7 to 11, and continues unaffected by the 2026 Year 7 co-education change. The school's published 2026/27 admissions arrangements set an external Year 12 admission number of 50 places annually, within an overall Year 12 capacity of 200 places, with additional external students admitted up to that capacity if fewer than 150 of the school's own Year 11 pupils transfer. External applicants transferring from other schools must meet the academic entry requirements published in Holcombe's own Sixth Form prospectus, which sets out the specific GCSE grade profile expected for entry to particular subject combinations; families should check the Sixth Form prospectus directly for the exact thresholds in force for their entry year, since these can be revised between admissions cycles. Holcombe's Sixth Form Open Evening takes place on Thursday 26 November 2026, from 6:00pm to 9:00pm, and no booking is required.

For families weighing up grammar school Sixth Form options more broadly across Kent and Medway, our overview of 2026 grammar school league tables provides useful context on how schools like Holcombe compare on outcomes at both GCSE and A-level.

Reviewed October 2026: dates, figures and rules checked against Medway Council's key-dates, Medway Test and marking pages and its 2027/28 co-ordinated scheme, Holcombe Grammar School's admissions page and 2026/27 admissions arrangements, Kent County Council's Kent Test pages, GIAS, Ofsted and the DfE's Compare School and College Performance data.

Frequently Asked Questions