Mayfield Grammar School 11 Plus Guide: Kent Test and the Mayfield Procedure 2026

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Mayfield Grammar School in Gravesend is a selective girls' school rated Outstanding by Ofsted (inspection of 30 April 2024), with an agreed admission number of 210 for Year 7 each September and entry via the Kent Test (PESE). Mayfield also offers an optional Mayfield Procedure — a school-specific additional assessment for girls who sit the Kent Test but are unsuccessful in it. For parents whose daughters might not perform at their best on a single test morning, this route offers a further opportunity to be assessed eligible. This guide covers the Kent Test format, the full Mayfield Procedure process, key 2026 dates, catchment postcodes, qualifying scores, and how to build a structured preparation plan for both routes.

About Mayfield Grammar School, Gravesend

Mayfield Grammar School (MGSG) sits on Pelham Road, Gravesend, Kent DA11 0JE. It is a selective girls' academy in the Kent grammar school system and is co-educational only at Sixth Form level, where boys may join for A-Level study. The school draws its Year 7 intake primarily from over thirty different primary schools in the area, though girls from outside both priority catchment zones are eligible to apply.

Places are allocated through the selective admissions process set out in the school's admissions policy. For families researching the full range of Kent grammar school options, our Kent grammar schools guide 2026 covers Kent's grammar schools by area, and our best grammar schools in Kent page includes performance data and league table comparisons.

Parents can contact the school's admissions team via Kent County Council's admissions line: 03000 41 21 21, or email kentonlineadmissions@kent.gov.uk. The school's official admissions page at mgsg.co.uk is the authoritative source for the most up-to-date admissions criteria and policy documents.

What Are the Two Routes into Mayfield Grammar School?

Mayfield Grammar School offers two assessment pathways for Year 7 entry. Understanding both is the most important first step in planning your daughter's application.

Route 1: The Kent Test (PESE)
The Kent Test (the Kent PESE procedure) is the route into Kent's grammar schools, including Mayfield. Girls who achieve the required standard (see scoring section below) are deemed eligible for a grammar school place. You then name Mayfield Grammar School as a preferred school on your Common Application Form (CAF). This is the primary route and the one all applicants must attempt.

Route 2: The Mayfield Procedure
The Mayfield Procedure is an optional additional assessment run exclusively by Mayfield Grammar School. It is open only to girls who also take part in the Kent PESE procedure. If your daughter sits the Kent Test but does not meet the required standard, the Mayfield Procedure gives her a separate opportunity to demonstrate her suitability for a selective grammar school environment specifically at Mayfield. A girl who reaches the required standard through the Mayfield Procedure is eligible for admission to Mayfield.

Registration for the Mayfield Procedure was entirely separate from Kent Test registration and used a registration form available from the school office or for download from the school website — there was no online registration. The distinction matters because the registration window (1 June to 3 July 2026) has closed, so a family that did not request and return a form in that window has missed the 2026 Mayfield Procedure. For families planning ahead, our specialist tutors advise registering for both routes together, treating Route 2 as an insurance pathway rather than a fallback after Route 1 results arrive.

What Does the Kent Test Cover at Mayfield Grammar School?

The Kent Test consists of two multiple-choice papers, marked by a computer, plus a writing exercise. Pupils at Kent primary schools sat the Kent Test on Thursday 10 September 2026; pupils who do not attend a Kent primary school sat it over the weekend of 12 and 13 September 2026. Here is the precise breakdown of what each section tests.

Paper 1: English and Maths (1 hour total)
Paper 1 is divided into two sections. Each section has a 5-minute practice exercise followed by a 25-minute test. The English section involves a comprehension exercise as well as some additional questions drawn from a set designed to test literacy skills. The maths section is the other half of Paper 1, and both Kent Test papers are multiple choice.

Paper 2: Reasoning (approximately 1 hour total)
Paper 2 covers verbal reasoning and non-verbal reasoning in roughly equal proportions. On the Kent Test the non-verbal reasoning is split into short sections that are administered and timed individually. Kent County Council publishes a familiarisation paper that explains the Kent Test papers, and targeted practice with the reasoning question types in the year before the test is standard advice from our specialist tutors.

Writing Task (40 minutes)
The Kent Test also includes a writing exercise: 40 minutes are allowed, including 10 minutes of planning time. The exercise is not marked, but a local headteacher panel may use it as part of the headteacher assessment stage of the process. Practising this writing exercise is therefore still worthwhile.

How Does the Mayfield Procedure Work?

The Mayfield Procedure is Mayfield Grammar School's own optional assessment, taken in addition to the Kent Test, and families should understand it before deciding which schools to name on the application.

The Mayfield Procedure consists of two distinct parts, both of which a candidate must meet a minimum standard in order to qualify:

Part A: Computer-Based Reasoning Test
Mayfield's information document describes this as a computer-based test set by CEM Durham, assessing verbal ability, numerical reasoning and non-verbal reasoning. Verbal ability is the dominant component, weighted at 50% of the computer-based test's overall score. Numerical reasoning carries 25% of the weighting. Non-verbal reasoning accounts for the remaining 25%. The computer-based test is locally standardised, and the school's policy says the pass marks depend on the range of results the local girls achieve on the tests.

Part B: English Writing Paper
The second component is a marked English writing paper. This is not computer based or multiple choice: the paper consists of a passage to read and a number of writing tasks, from which one title is chosen, and it is marked by staff from the school's English faculty. The English paper assesses writing skills and is scored separately from the computer-based test. Critically, the Mayfield Procedure places greater emphasis on English skills overall than the standard Kent Test. A girl whose strengths lie in English may therefore see a different outcome from the Mayfield Procedure than from the Kent Test.

Mayfield Procedure results are emailed to parents on Thursday 15 October 2026, the same day the Kent Test results are sent (Kent County Council posts them where no email address was given). If a child meets the qualifying standard through the Mayfield Procedure, she becomes eligible for a place at Mayfield Grammar School and her parents can name the school on the application form, which closes at midnight on Monday 2 November 2026.

One registration note: the Mayfield Procedure registration form was available from the school office or for download from the school website. There was no online registration facility. The registration window ran from 9.00am on Monday 1 June 2026 to 4.00pm on Friday 3 July 2026. The school's policy allowed late registrations only in evidenced exceptional circumstances, and only up to 4.00pm on Monday 6 July 2026.

When Are the Key Dates for Mayfield Grammar School 2027 Entry?

For children now in Year 6 (born between 1 September 2015 and 31 August 2016) aiming for September 2027 entry at Mayfield Grammar School, the admissions calendar is as follows, and the September 2026 tests have now taken place. Kent County Council publishes the Kent Test dates, and Mayfield Grammar School publishes the Mayfield Procedure dates in its own key dates document.

Both registration windows closed in early July 2026, before the Kent Test in September 2026 and months ahead of the application closing date on 2 November 2026. Families who had not registered by early July 2026 missed both registration deadlines. Kent County Council's register page says that anyone who wants their child to take the Kent Test for September 2027 entry but has not registered should email kent.admissions@kent.gov.uk with the child's name, date of birth, full address and current school; the September 2026 sittings have already taken place, so ask the council what this means for a child who missed them. For later entry years, planning needs to begin in the spring, before registration opens (it opened on 1 June 2026). Mayfield's key dates document also lists Open Morning tours on Tuesday 13 and Wednesday 14 October 2026, an Open Evening on Thursday 15 October 2026, and 13 April 2027 as the deadline to submit an appeal for Year 7 entry in September 2027. For a full overview of 11+ dates across Kent and other regions, see our 11+ exam dates 2026-2027 timetable.

How Competitive Is Entry? Places, Scores, and the Catchment System

Mayfield Grammar School has 210 Year 7 places, the school's agreed admission number. The school's policy says it will admit at least 210 pupils in the relevant age group each year if sufficient applications from eligible girls are received, and it applies oversubscription criteria if more eligible girls apply than there are places.

Kent Test qualifying score: To be eligible for a grammar school place via the Kent Test, children must meet the Kent Test threshold. For the 2025 Kent Test, the grammar school threshold was a total score of 332 or more, with no single score lower than 108; test scores range from 69 to 141, so the highest possible total score is 423. Kent County Council says the grammar school threshold for 2026 will be available in October 2026, so until then the 2025 figures are the latest published benchmark. Kent County Council says grammar schools in Kent provide for children in about the top 25% of the ability range.

The catchment and oversubscription criteria: Meeting the Kent Test standard qualifies a child for a grammar school place — but it does not guarantee a place at Mayfield specifically. When more eligible girls apply than there are places, places are allocated in the following priority order:

Before the criteria are applied, eligible girls with an Education Health and Care Plan that names the school are admitted, which reduces the number of places available. Places are then allocated in this order: (a) looked after and previously looked after children; (b) an eligible brother or sister attending the school at the time of entry; (c) girls permanently living in the first priority postcode areas; (d) girls permanently living in the second priority postcode areas; (e) all other eligible girls. In (c) and (d), girls in receipt of Free School Meals come first (parents wishing to apply for this priority must return the school's Supplementary Information Form by 2 November 2026; the policy requires it only from Kent residents in receipt of Free School Meals), then places go to the highest aggregated Kent PESE score and then to the home closest to the school; in (e), girls are ranked by score and then by proximity.

First priority postcodes: DA2 6xx, DA2 8xx, DA3, DA4, DA9, DA10, DA11, DA12, DA13, ME3, TN15 7xx, TN15 6AR, TN15 6AT, and TN15 6AS.

Second priority postcodes: DA1, DA2 7xx, ME2, TN13, TN14, and TN15 (excluding the first-priority subcodes above).

Eligible girls who live outside both priority areas are considered under the last criterion, after criteria (a) to (d). The practical implication for out-of-catchment families: if criteria (a) to (d) fill all 210 places, an out-of-catchment girl who met the qualifying standard would not be offered a place when offers are first made, whatever her score. Out-of-catchment families should name additional schools on the application: Kent County Council says it is in your best interest to list 4 schools, and naming only one school does not guarantee a place. For context on how to navigate Kent's grammar school system for families outside the immediate area, see our Kent 11+ format guide 2026.

How to Prepare for the Kent Test and the Mayfield Procedure

Effective preparation for Mayfield Grammar School entry means covering two distinct assessment types: the Kent Test (which requires breadth across English, maths, VR, and NVR) and the Mayfield Procedure (which requires specific preparation for a computer-based reasoning format and a marked English writing paper). The preparation strategies for each overlap substantially, but there are important specific elements to each route.

How early should preparation begin? Our specialist tutors typically recommend beginning structured Kent Test preparation in Year 4 (eight to nine years old) with light topic work and VR/NVR familiarisation, then moving to more intensive, timed practice in Year 5 from January onwards. Children who start in January of Year 5 have approximately eight months before the September test — enough time for meaningful progress if sessions are consistent. Children who begin later, in April or May of Year 5, can still reach the required standard, but they have less time to build automated fluency in VR and NVR question types, which takes regular practice to develop.

Verbal reasoning and non-verbal reasoning: the components parents most underestimate. The most common preparation gap our tutors encounter is families who focus heavily on maths and English (subjects children already study at school) while underinvesting in VR and NVR. In our tutors' experience, children who meet these question types for the first time in a mock exam are at a disadvantage. Our recommendation is to spend at least as many hours on VR and NVR practice as on maths in the preparation period. In our tutors' experience, the question types in the verbal reasoning section are learnable with practice, and they reward familiarity with the format.

Preparing specifically for the Mayfield Procedure's English writing paper. Because the Mayfield Procedure includes a marked English paper that is not computer based or multiple choice, the preparation approach needs to include regular timed writing practice with feedback. Children who have only practised MCQ-format papers will not be accustomed to the demands of organising and writing an extended response to quality under time pressure. Our tutors build this into Mayfield-specific preparation: weekly or fortnightly writing sessions with structured feedback on vocabulary range, sentence variety, paragraphing, and narrative coherence. The school's policy says the outcome of the Mayfield tests can differ from the Kent PESE result because there is a greater emphasis on English skills; Kent County Council says the Kent Test papers are multiple-choice.

Mock exams and familiarisation. Timed practice under conditions that replicate the real test day helps to reduce test-day anxiety and improve speed and accuracy. Our tutors use the familiarisation materials published by Kent County Council and CEM alongside timed practice papers. For the Mayfield Procedure specifically, the school's information document strongly advises pupils to use the CEM familiarisation website (plus.cem.org/cemselectfam), and says CEM does not provide commercially available mock exams, practice papers or sample materials for parents.

A month-by-month preparation outline for Year 5: September to December: VR and NVR familiarisation alongside school curriculum maths and English. January to March: Introduce timed Kent Test component practice; begin writing sessions for Mayfield Procedure preparation. April to June: Full timed mock papers monthly; identify and address specific weak areas by component. June to early July: Register for the Kent Test and, if wanted, the Mayfield Procedure before the deadlines (in 2026 these were 1 July and 3 July respectively). August: Consolidation and reducing anxiety — avoid cramming; focus on timed practice and confidence-building. September: Test day.

For a comprehensive overview of 11+ preparation timelines that applies across all regions and tests, see our 11+ preparation timeline: Year 4 to Year 6 guide.

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Reviewed September 2026: dates, figures and rules checked against Kent County Council's Kent Test and secondary school places pages, Mayfield Grammar School's 2027-2028 admissions policy, key dates, Mayfield Procedure information and secondary admissions leaflet, GIAS and Ofsted.

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