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

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

Mayfield Grammar School in Gravesend is one of Kent's leading selective girls' schools, offering 210 Year 7 places each September via the Kent Test (PESE). What makes Mayfield distinctively different from most other grammar schools is the optional Mayfield Procedure — a school-specific second assessment for girls who sit the Kent Test but do not initially meet the required standard. For parents whose daughters might not perform at their best on a single test morning, this route is uniquely valuable. 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, a short walk from Gravesend railway station. It is a state-funded selective girls' academy — one of 32 grammar schools across Kent — 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 across the Gravesham and Dartford areas, though girls from outside both priority catchment zones are eligible to apply.

In the 2026 Sunday Times Parent Power Guide, Mayfield Grammar School is ranked 166th nationally and 31st in the South East among state secondary schools — a consistently strong position that reflects its GCSE and A-Level outcomes. Like all Kent grammar schools, Mayfield does not charge fees: a place is won through the selective admissions process, not a cheque. For families researching the full range of Kent grammar school options, our Kent grammar schools guide 2026 covers all 32 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?

Unlike the majority of grammar schools in England, Mayfield Grammar School offers two separate 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 — formally the Procedure for Entrance to Secondary Education — is the standard route into all 32 Kent 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 available only to girls who have already taken the Kent Test. 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 meets the required standard through the Mayfield Procedure is treated as eligible for a place at Mayfield — but not necessarily at other Kent grammar schools, since the Mayfield Procedure is school-specific rather than consortium-wide.

Registration for the Mayfield Procedure is entirely separate from Kent Test registration and uses a paper form collected from the school office — there is no online registration. This distinction matters: families who do not proactively contact the school and request a form during the registration window (1 June to 3 July 2026) will miss the opportunity entirely. Our specialist tutors consistently advise parents to register for both routes simultaneously, 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 is administered by GL Assessment and consists of two main papers plus a creative writing task. All children in Kent grammar school applicants sit the same papers on the same morning (for those in Kent primary schools) or on the same weekend (for others). Here is the precise breakdown of what each section tests.

Paper 1: English and Maths (approximately 1 hour total)
Paper 1 is divided into two 30-minute sections. Each section begins with a 5-minute unscored practice activity to help children settle before the timed test begins. The English section is built around a reading comprehension passage, with questions testing inference, vocabulary, grammar, and punctuation. Children may be asked to choose the best word to complete a sentence, identify spelling or grammar mistakes, or find synonyms and antonyms. The maths section covers curriculum content up to the start of Year 6: times tables, the four operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division), fractions, decimals and percentages, ratio, area, perimeter, and measurement. Some questions are designed to be harder than typical Year 5 work so that children can demonstrate problem-solving ability beyond rote recall.

Paper 2: Reasoning (approximately 1 hour total)
Paper 2 covers verbal reasoning and non-verbal reasoning in roughly equal proportions. Verbal reasoning tests a child's ability to work with words, letters, and numbers: spotting patterns in sequences, choosing words with similar meanings, working out codes, and completing word analogies. Non-verbal reasoning uses shapes, diagrams, and patterns: identifying the odd one out, completing sequences, finding analogies between shape arrangements, and block counting. Neither verbal reasoning nor non-verbal reasoning is typically taught in primary school curriculum — they are included to measure a child's potential and pattern-recognition ability rather than curriculum knowledge alone. This is why targeted practice with VR and NVR question types in the year before the test has a measurable positive impact on scores.

Creative Writing Task (40 minutes)
All children complete a creative writing task of approximately 40 minutes, including 10 minutes for planning. This task is not scored as part of the main Kent Test marks, but it is retained and may be reviewed by a headteacher panel if a child's results are borderline or subject to appeal. Writing quality therefore matters even though it does not directly contribute to the numeric score.

How Does the Mayfield Procedure Work?

The Mayfield Procedure is what distinguishes Mayfield Grammar School from most other Kent grammar schools, and it is the most important thing for families to understand before the registration window closes. No other school in the Gravesham or Dartford area offers an equivalent school-specific second assessment at 11+.

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
This is a standardised, computer-administered reasoning assessment covering three areas. Verbal ability is the dominant component, weighted at 50% of the total Mayfield Procedure score. Numerical reasoning carries 25% of the weighting. Non-verbal reasoning accounts for the remaining 25%. Scores are locally standardised, meaning they are adjusted to account for the specific group of children sitting the Mayfield Procedure on that date. This locally standardised approach is intentional: it means a child's result reflects her performance relative to her peers on that day, not against the wider Kent cohort. The verbal ability emphasis (50%) is notably higher than the standard Kent Test's implicit weighting, which has practical implications for preparation — a child with strong language skills but moderate spatial reasoning is better served by the Mayfield Procedure weighting than by the standard Kent Test's more even balance.

Part B: English Writing Paper
The second component is a marked English writing paper. This is not multiple choice — it is an extended written response that is assessed by markers. The writing paper gives assessors a different type of evidence than the computer-based test: it tests a child's ability to organise ideas, construct sentences, vary vocabulary, and write coherently under timed conditions. Critically, the Mayfield Procedure places greater emphasis on English skills overall than the standard Kent Test. A child who is a strong writer but whose scores on reasoning or maths papers are inconsistent may demonstrate a more accurate picture of her ability through the Mayfield Procedure than through the Kent Test alone.

Results from the Mayfield Procedure are shared with parents in line with the Kent Test results timeline — in mid-October 2026. 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 Common Application Form before the 31 October deadline.

One important registration note: the Mayfield Procedure registration form must be collected from the school office and returned directly to the school. There is no online registration facility. The registration window runs from 1 June 2026 to 3 July 2026 — the form must be returned before the July closing date. Parents who discover the Mayfield Procedure after this deadline cannot retrospectively register their daughter.

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

For children currently in Year 5 aiming for September 2027 entry at Mayfield Grammar School, the 2026 admissions calendar is as follows. Dates for the Kent Test registration are set by Kent County Council; the Mayfield Procedure dates are set by Mayfield Grammar School independently.

A note on timing that parents frequently overlook: the Kent Test registration window and the Mayfield Procedure registration window close in early July — three months before the test itself and five months before the CAF deadline. Families who are still at the "we might apply" stage in August have already missed both registration deadlines. Planning needs to begin in late Spring for September 2027 entry. 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 offers 210 Year 7 places each September — a larger intake than many other grammar schools in the region (for comparison, the nearby boys' school Gravesend Grammar School offers 150 places). With this number of places, Mayfield is one of the highest-capacity girls' grammar schools in Kent, but a larger intake does not mean easier entry: the school's consistent league table position attracts strong demand from across the Gravesham and Dartford catchment areas, as well as from families further afield.

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 admissions cycle, this was a total score of 332 out of 420, with a minimum component score of 108 in each of English, maths, and reasoning separately. These thresholds are set annually by Kent County Council based on standardised score distributions, so the 2026 numbers may differ slightly, but the 2025 figures provide the most accurate planning benchmark currently available. A standardised score of 332 total places a child broadly in the top 25% of the county-wide distribution — selective, but not at the level of the very highest-scoring grammar schools. For comparison, some of the most competitive Kent schools require total scores of 380 or above.

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 Mayfield is oversubscribed among qualified candidates (which it routinely is), places are allocated in the following priority order:

First, within each priority area, girls currently in receipt of Free School Meals are prioritised. Then, the school works through the following tiers: (1) girls in the first priority postcode area; (2) girls in the second priority postcode area; (3) girls outside both priority areas, ranked by score and then by proximity to the school.

First priority postcodes: DA2 6xx, DA2 8xx, DA3, DA4, DA9, DA10, DA11, DA12, DA13, ME3, TN15 7xx, TN15 6AR, TN15 6AT, and TN15 6AS. This covers central Gravesend and the immediate surrounding area, as well as parts of Swanley, Longfield, Dartford, and the Medway/Hoo peninsula.

Second priority postcodes: DA1, DA2 7xx, ME2, TN13, TN14, and TN15 (excluding the first-priority subcodes above). This extends to Dartford town, Sevenoaks, Tonbridge, and parts of west Kent.

Girls outside both priority areas are eligible but rely on remaining places after all in-catchment qualified applicants are placed. The practical implication for out-of-catchment families: if the school fills its 210 places entirely from first and second priority zones (which is not guaranteed but is possible in competitive years), out-of-catchment children who met the qualifying standard receive no offer from Mayfield regardless of their scores. Out-of-catchment families should always name additional grammar schools on their CAF. 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 typically takes 10–16 weeks of 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. Because these subjects are not formally taught in most primary schools, children who encounter them for the first time in a mock exam setting are at a significant disadvantage. Our recommendation is to spend at least as many hours on VR and NVR practice as on maths in the preparation period. The 11 question types in GL Assessment's verbal reasoning format (such as word codes, letter sequences, number analogies, and missing-letter pairs) are all learnable with practice — they reward familiarity with the format rather than raw intelligence alone.

Preparing specifically for the Mayfield Procedure's English writing paper. Because the Mayfield Procedure includes a marked extended writing task — assessed holistically, not by 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 writing task in the Mayfield Procedure is specifically designed to surface children whose language skills are strong but whose performance on the standard Kent Test (with its multiple-choice English format) may not fully reflect their ability.

Mock exams and familiarisation. Timed practice under conditions that replicate the real test day is the single most impactful preparation technique for reducing test-day anxiety and improving speed and accuracy. Our tutors use official GL Assessment familiarisation materials alongside high-quality third-party mock papers. For the Mayfield Procedure specifically, children benefit from practising computerised reasoning assessments in advance of the test — the interface and question delivery format of a computer-based test differs meaningfully from paper-based practice, and first-time exposure to a computer-based format on test day itself can cost valuable seconds per question.

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. July: Register for both Kent Test and Mayfield Procedure before deadlines (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.

Frequently Asked Questions