North Halifax Grammar School 11+ Guide 2026

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

North Halifax Grammar School, in Illingworth, Halifax, is a selective, co-educational state grammar school with academy status, offering 180 places in Year 7 each year. For September 2027 entry, the school sits the FSCE (Future Stories Community Enterprise) test jointly with The Crossley Heath School as the "Halifax Grammar Schools" on Saturday 19 September 2026, with registration open from 20 March to 26 June 2026. This guide sets out the exact test format, every key date, how places are allocated (including the Priority Admissions Area), the school's officially published 2025 GCSE results, and how to prepare — verified directly against North Halifax Grammar School's own admissions pages, The Crossley Heath School's official admissions page, and Calderdale Council's secondary admissions criteria.

What Is North Halifax Grammar School and Who Can Apply?

North Halifax Grammar School traces its roots to 1931, when Princess Mary High School was founded, and to 1957, when Halifax Technical High School opened. The two merged in 1985 to form North Halifax High School, before the school became fully selective and adopted grammar status around 1993–94. Today it is a co-educational academy on Moorbottom Road, Illingworth, Halifax, West Yorkshire (postcode HX2 9SU), with around 1,199 pupils on roll across Years 7–13.

Any child in Year 6 may apply, regardless of where they live — North Halifax Grammar School has no fixed catchment area that excludes applicants, though (as explained below) a small proportion of places carry geographic priority. The school's joint-test partner, The Crossley Heath School, sits roughly 1.1 miles away in Halifax and also offers 180 Year 7 places, making the pair together the largest single source of state-selective places in Calderdale.

What Is the FSCE 11+ Exam Format at North Halifax Grammar School in 2026?

North Halifax Grammar School and The Crossley Heath School moved to the FSCE (Future Stories Community Enterprise) entrance test as their joint "Halifax Grammar Schools" admissions assessment. Confirmed directly on Crossley Heath's official admissions page (the two schools share one paper), the test has three components. English and Mathematics are answered using a combination of multiple-choice and short written-response questions, are marked by computer and age-standardised so that candidates of different ages within the eligible year group are compared fairly, and are combined into a single order-of-merit score. Candidates who meet the required standard on the English and Maths papers then progress to a Creative Writing task, which is assessed by a trained panel of readers rather than marked by computer.

There is no separate verbal reasoning or non-verbal reasoning paper under the FSCE format — a significant change from the GL Assessment-style tests some families may associate with Yorkshire grammar schools. All written elements are completed on the same day in September. Because North Halifax Grammar School and Crossley Heath share a single test sitting, a family applying to both schools sits the paper only once, on 19 September 2026 — but must still register separately for each school, since registration and school preference are handled independently even though the underlying test is identical.

For families weighing the FSCE format against the GL Assessment or CEM tests used elsewhere in England, our FSCE 11+ guide explains how the format works across all ten schools now using it, and our Yorkshire grammar schools hub compares North Halifax against the five other grammar schools in the North and West Yorkshire cluster.

Key Dates for North Halifax Grammar School 11+ Entry 2026–27

All dates below apply to children applying for Year 7 entry in September 2027 (born between 1 September 2015 and 31 August 2016), based on the FSCE registration timetable published on the school's own admissions page and confirmed by Calderdale Council's official secondary admissions criteria for North Halifax Grammar School.

Meeting the required standard in the FSCE test is not the same as securing a place — families must still name North Halifax Grammar School on their Common Application Form, submitted to their home local authority by 31 October 2026, for the school to be considered. For a wider view of every grammar and independent school's timetable this cycle, see our 11+ exam dates guide for 2025–2026.

How Are the 180 Places Allocated? Oversubscription Criteria Explained

North Halifax Grammar School's Published Admission Number (PAN) is 180 places for September 2027 entry. Because the school is consistently oversubscribed, Calderdale Council's published admissions criteria set out a strict order in which places are allocated once a candidate has met the FSCE qualifying standard:

1. Looked-after and previously looked-after children (including those under a special guardianship order) who meet the qualifying standard.
2. Children eligible for Pupil Premium or Service Premium (children of serving UK Armed Forces personnel), who meet the qualifying standard.
3. Up to 10% of places to children living within the Priority Admissions Area, who meet the qualifying standard.
4. All remaining places awarded strictly by combined English and Mathematics order of merit among qualifying candidates.

Where two candidates have identical combined scores for the final available place, priority goes first to siblings of current pupils, and then to the candidate living closest to the school, measured as a straight-line (GIS) distance from home to the school gate. This tie-break structure means that, outside the small Priority Admissions Area allocation, admission to North Halifax Grammar School is overwhelmingly determined by test performance rather than by where a family lives.

Is There a Catchment Area for North Halifax Grammar School?

North Halifax Grammar School does not operate a hard catchment area that excludes out-of-area applicants — any child who registers and sits the FSCE test is eligible for a place if they meet the qualifying standard and score highly enough in the merit order. However, the school does maintain a Priority Admissions Area covering the Illingworth, Mixenden and Ovenden wards of Halifax, and up to 10% of the 180 places are reserved for qualifying children living in this area, allocated ahead of the general merit order (but after looked-after children and Pupil Premium/Service Premium priority).

For the remaining 90%-plus of places, location is irrelevant except as a final tie-break between candidates with identical scores. This makes North Halifax Grammar School considerably more accessible to families outside Halifax than many grammar schools with strict catchment boundaries — families across Calderdale, Kirklees, Bradford and further afield regularly apply successfully, provided their child meets the required standard in the FSCE test.

North Halifax Grammar School GCSE Results and Academic Performance (2025)

North Halifax Grammar School's own 2025 GCSE results statement, published on the school's website, gives a detailed and specific picture of academic outcomes that goes well beyond the headline "good school" descriptions found on most 11+ directory sites. The school's Attainment 8 score for 2025 was 68.69 (unvalidated at time of publication), against a national average of 45.9 — a gap of nearly 23 points. The school's Progress 8 score for 2024 was +0.18, indicating that pupils on average made more progress from Key Stage 2 to GCSE than pupils with similar starting points nationally.

The school reports that over half of all grades awarded in 2025 were grade 7 or above, with more than a third at grade 8 or above, and 179 candidates were entered for both English Language and Mathematics GCSEs, with 146 each entered for separate Biology, Chemistry and Physics — indicating the large majority of the Year 11 cohort follow the triple science route rather than combined science. Ofsted's most recent inspection, carried out on 8 and 9 November 2023 and published 18 December 2023, rated the school Good overall across quality of education, behaviour and attitudes, personal development, and leadership and management, with the Sixth Form rated Outstanding. For a comparison against other high-performing grammar schools nationally, see our 2026 grammar school league tables.

North Halifax Grammar School vs The Crossley Heath School: What's the Difference?

Because North Halifax Grammar School and The Crossley Heath School sit the same FSCE paper on the same day and each offer 180 Year 7 places, families in Calderdale often ask what actually distinguishes the two schools. Structurally, the admissions process is near-identical: the same test, the same registration window, and closely aligned oversubscription criteria built around looked-after children, Pupil Premium/Service Premium priority, and a small area-based allocation. The schools do, however, run entirely separate registrations, separate order-of-merit rankings and separate offers — passing the required standard for one does not automatically qualify a child for the other, and a family must register with both schools individually if they wish to be considered for either.

Where the schools differ is in campus, culture and specific enrichment offering rather than in the admissions mechanics. North Halifax Grammar School is based in Illingworth to the north of Halifax town centre, with roughly 1,199 pupils on roll and a Priority Admissions Area covering Illingworth, Mixenden and Ovenden. Families deciding between the two, or applying to both to maximise their chances within Calderdale's selective sector, should treat the FSCE test itself as identical preparation regardless of which school (or both) they ultimately hope to secure a place at.

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

Because the FSCE format tests only Key Stage 2 content up to the end of Year 5, and does not include verbal or non-verbal reasoning, the most effective preparation is built around genuine subject strength rather than drilling unfamiliar question types. For the English and Maths papers, focus on reading comprehension across a range of fiction and non-fiction texts, vocabulary breadth, spelling accuracy, and confident, accurate arithmetic applied to multi-step word problems covering the Year 5 curriculum — number and place value, fractions, decimals and percentages, measurement, geometry, and basic statistics. Because both papers are computer-marked and age-standardised, speed and accuracy under light time pressure matter as much as raw content knowledge.

For the Creative Writing element, which only candidates who clear the qualifying standard on English and Maths will sit, preparation should focus on planning a complete short piece within a fixed time limit, varying sentence structure and vocabulary, and building a habit of checking work for punctuation and spelling accuracy — since this component is read and scored by a human panel rather than marked by computer. Because it is assessed only after the standardised papers, families should not divert preparation time away from English and Maths content in the hope of relying on a strong creative writing score alone.

Regular reading — at least 15–20 minutes daily across varied genres and text types — remains the single most reliable long-term preparation activity for the English components, and should ideally begin well before Year 6. For a broader introduction to the 11+ process generally, our guide on what the 11+ exam is provides useful background for families new to the selective school system.

Related guides: Ermysted's Grammar School 11+ Guide 2026 and our Yorkshire grammar schools hub, covering all six North and West Yorkshire grammar schools including North Halifax.

Frequently Asked Questions