Plymouth High School for Girls 11+ Guide 2026: Admissions, Exam & Prep

Plymouth High School for Girls (PHSG) is a fully selective state grammar school for girls aged 11 to 16, with a co-educational sixth form, located on St Lawrence Road, North Hill, in the heart of Plymouth. For September 2027 entry, girls currently in Year 5 must register for PHSG’s own 11+ entrance examination — set from September 2026 by a new provider, Quest Assessments — between 27 April and 31 August 2026, sitting an English paper on 12 September 2026 and a Mathematics paper on 19 September 2026. PHSG has a Published Admission Number of 120 Year 7 places, and — as this guide verifies directly from both schools’ own published sources — shares its entrance examination with neighbouring Devonport High School for Girls (DHSG) as part of a genuinely combined allocation process covering both schools.

This guide covers PHSG’s history as one of Plymouth’s oldest girls’ schools, exactly how its shared entrance test and combined-allocation admissions process work with DHSG, the school’s oversubscription criteria and lack of a catchment area, the key 2026/27 dates, recent GCSE and A-Level results, and how to prepare effectively for a test built around English and Maths rather than the verbal and non-verbal reasoning papers used in many other English 11+ regions.

Key Facts: Plymouth High School for Girls

About Plymouth High School for Girls: History and Character

Plymouth High School for Girls has a claim to being one of the oldest girls’ secondary schools in the South West. It was founded in 1874 by the Devon and Cornwall Girls’ School Company, an initiative driven by the Devonport branch of the National Union for the Education of Women working alongside seven prominent local businessmen — part of a wider Victorian movement to establish proper academic secondary education for girls at a time when very few such schools existed anywhere in England. The school opened on 14 September 1874 in temporary accommodation at Sherwell House on North Hill, admitting an initial cohort of 70 fee-paying pupils, including two of the school’s first recorded students, Bertha Collier and Alice Anthony.

The school’s permanent, purpose-built home on St Lawrence Road — the site PHSG still occupies today — was formally opened on 21 January 1877 by the Bishop of Exeter, Dr Frederick Temple, at a time when the North Hill location was still considered a relatively isolated part of the growing town. The original North Hill building was itself demolished in 1939 to make way for a new wing, and by the 1960s the school had expanded further into an adjacent building, known as “The Annexe,” originally built in 1876 as the South Devon and Cornwall Blind Institute.

PHSG’s four houses — Anthony, Kendall, Latimer and Temple — are named after figures from this founding period: Alice Anthony, one of the school’s first pupils; Miss Kendall, the school’s first headmistress; a founding businessman named Latimer, a regional press publisher; and Bishop Temple, who opened the St Lawrence Road building. The school’s Latin motto, Non scholae sed vitae discimus — “For life, not school, we learn,” attributed to Seneca — has guided the school’s stated philosophy since its foundation and still appears on official school materials today.

Like much of Plymouth, PHSG has its own Second World War story. During the war, the school building operated as a public British Restaurant food centre, reportedly serving around 600 meals a day to residents affected by rationing and the Plymouth Blitz. The school’s main hall sustained bomb damage in April 1941, and pupils were evacuated for a period to Fowey and Newquay in Cornwall before returning to Plymouth once conditions allowed.

PHSG converted from a community school to academy status in February 2021, joining the Thinking Schools Academy Trust (TSAT), a multi-academy trust that also sponsors a number of other schools across Kent and the South West. This is a meaningfully different governance model from DHSG, which converted separately and operates as its own single-academy trust; the two schools remain entirely distinct legal admission authorities even though they now share testing arrangements. PHSG’s current Headteacher, Mr Simon Underdown, took up the post in September 2019 after more than a decade as a senior leader at the school, having joined as a senior leader in 2008. Notable alumnae include the playwright Rebecca Lenkiewicz, the first woman to have a play premiere on the National Theatre’s main stage, and Olympic fencer Corinna Lawrence, who reached the last 32 in the individual épée event at the 2012 London Olympics. For families researching Plymouth’s other girls’ grammar school, see our companion guide to Devonport High School for Girls.

Do PHSG and DHSG Really Share a Combined 11+ Test and Allocation?

This is the single most important practical question for Plymouth families considering PHSG, and we have verified the answer directly against both schools’ own published sources rather than assuming it carries over automatically from one school’s guidance to the other.

The shared exam is confirmed directly on PHSG’s own website. PHSG’s 11+ Examination Process page states plainly that its test and DHSG’s test “are the same examinations, taken on the same days,” and that a family can register their daughter to sit the test at whichever of the two schools is more convenient, then “apply for a place at either (or both) grammar schools, regardless of where the student took the test.” In other words, the choice of test venue has no bearing on which school or schools a family may subsequently apply to.

The combined allocation mechanism is set out in DHSG’s official 11+ FAQ, which explicitly covers both schools. It explains that allocations across Plymouth’s two girls’ grammar schools are made for “the first 278 students who have put a grammar school as their first or second choice, and who have accepted a grammar school place” — a figure that exactly matches the sum of PHSG’s 120-place PAN and DHSG’s 158-place PAN. Within that combined pool, candidates are allocated according to their 11+ rank and their stated first-choice school: a girl ranked highly whose first choice is PHSG is allocated to PHSG, while second-choice preferences only become available once one of the two schools has filled all of its places, which the FAQ notes could happen at any point up to the 278th ranked candidate depending on the pattern of preferences that year.

It is worth being precise about what PHSG’s own published admission arrangements do and do not say. PHSG’s formal Admission Arrangements 2026/2027 and Secondary School Admission Criteria 2027/2028 documents set out the school’s own oversubscription criteria and 120-place PAN without spelling out the combined 278-place mechanic in the same words used on DHSG’s FAQ page — the joint mechanism is documented primarily on the DHSG side, where it applies equally to PHSG applicants once a girl has named a Plymouth girls’ grammar school as a preference. Families should treat the two schools’ websites as complementary rather than duplicating exactly the same information, and always check both official admissions pages directly, since arrangements of this kind can and do change between admissions cycles.

The broader Plymouth picture has also shifted recently on the boys’ side: from September 2026, Devonport High School for Boys also adopted Quest Assessments as its test provider (alongside its own separately set English writing paper), meaning all three of Plymouth’s grammar schools — PHSG, DHSG and DHSB — now sit a broadly aligned English-and-Maths format from the same provider, even though DHSB remains a fully separate admission authority with its own 180-place PAN and its own oversubscription criteria, and boys and girls are, of course, never competing for the same places. See our companion guide to Devonport High School for Boys for the boys’ school’s own admissions detail.

What Does the PHSG 11+ Entrance Test Cover?

PHSG’s entrance examination, set by Quest Assessments from the September 2026 testing round onwards, is built around exactly two subjects: English and Mathematics. There is no separate verbal reasoning or non-verbal/spatial reasoning paper, which marks PHSG out from many regional 11+ consortia elsewhere in England, such as the Lincolnshire Consortium or several London and home-counties groupings, which test only VR and NVR with no academic subject content at all.

English: A single paper of around 40 minutes and 60 questions, pitched broadly around Year 5 National Curriculum content. Reading comprehension and command of spelling, punctuation and grammar are both tested, with an emphasis on applying knowledge and reasoning about a passage rather than recalling material well beyond the primary curriculum.

Mathematics: A paper of the same length and question count — around 40 minutes and 60 questions — again built around Year 5 National Curriculum content, with sections testing both fluency (rapid, accurate arithmetic) and reasoning (multi-step problem-solving and application). Because this is a genuine mathematics paper rather than an abstract reasoning test, girls need solid command of the four operations, fractions, decimals, percentages, ratio and basic geometry, not just quick pattern-spotting.

PHSG does not publish a fixed, advance pass mark. Instead, and consistent with the combined-allocation process explained above, places are offered to the highest-scoring candidates within the shared pool of PHSG and DHSG applicants, ranked by score and stated school preference. A retrospective “cut-off score” is only calculated after each year’s allocation is complete, and that figure is then used for specific look-back provisions — covering looked-after children and Pupil Premium candidates — in future admissions rounds, rather than being set or published in advance of the test.

What Are the Key 2026/27 Dates for PHSG Admissions?

For girls seeking September 2027 entry to Year 7 at PHSG, the following 2026–2027 timetable applies:

Registering for the 11+ examination itself is a separate step from applying for a secondary school place. Families must both register their daughter for the PHSG (or DHSG) entrance test online between 27 April, 9am and 31 August 2026, noon, and separately submit a Common Application Form to Plymouth City Council, naming PHSG among their preferences, by the national closing date of 31 October 2026. Missing the CAF deadline means a girl will not be considered through the coordinated admissions process, even if she sat and performed well in the 11+ test. Official information is published on the Plymouth High School for Girls admissions pages and on Plymouth City Council’s 11+ admissions pages. For the national context, see our 11+ exam dates guide, and for how English 11+ testing varies from region to region, our GL Assessment vs CEM vs local school exams guide.

Does PHSG Have a Catchment Area, and How Does Oversubscription Work?

PHSG has no catchment area for Year 7 entry — any girl who qualifies through the 11+ examination may be considered for a place, regardless of where in Plymouth, Devon or Cornwall she lives. This is consistent with the pattern across all three of Plymouth’s grammar schools, none of which operates a defined geographic priority area at Year 7.

Under PHSG’s published Admission Arrangements 2026/2027, children with an Education, Health and Care Plan naming the school are admitted first, provided they meet the required standard. Where the school is oversubscribed among remaining qualifying candidates, places are then offered in the following order:

1. Looked-after and previously looked-after children who achieve the school’s adjusted cut-off score or above, ranked by highest 11+ score
2. Up to 12 places for candidates eligible for the Pupil Premium or “Ever 6” Free School Meals (children eligible for free school meals at any point in the previous six years), who achieve the relevant cut-off score, ranked by highest 11+ score
3. All other qualifying candidates, ranked by highest 11+ score

Where two or more candidates cannot be separated because they have identical aggregate scores, PHSG applies the following tie-break, in order: first, Free School Meal / Pupil Premium eligibility; second, straight-line distance from home to school, measured electronically; and finally, if a tie still remains, an independent random ballot supervised by a Plymouth City Council officer. Because there is no catchment area, distance functions purely as a tie-breaker for otherwise identical scores, not as a primary allocation criterion.

Families applying under the Pupil Premium, staff, or exceptional medical or social need criteria must also submit a Supplementary Information Form (SIF) directly to the school, in addition to the standard Common Application Form submitted to Plymouth City Council. The SIF and the full Admission Arrangements document are both available from PHSG’s own admissions pages.

What Are PHSG’s Recent GCSE and A-Level Results?

PHSG is one of the stronger-performing state schools in Plymouth and the wider South West. In its most recently published Summer 2025 GCSE results, 89.3% of pupils achieved five or more grade 9–5 passes, 74.8% achieved five or more grade 9–6 passes, and a quarter of pupils (25%) achieved five or more grades at 9–8, reflecting the strength of the school’s highest-attaining cohort. Subject-level performance was strongest in Religious Studies (60.0% of grades at 9–7), History (58.3%), English Language (55.9%) and Biology (51.3%), with the school’s weakest subject-level performance in German (27.5%).

At A-Level, PHSG’s Summer 2025 results show 51.8% of grades at A*–B, 74.2% at A*–C, and 99.1% at A*–E, with an average points score per entry of 35.09, broadly equivalent to a grade B average. Chemistry and Biology produced the school’s strongest concentration of top A* grades, while Psychology was the most popular A-Level subject by entries. PHSG holds a Good Ofsted rating, confirmed following an inspection in April 2024 — the school’s own website states directly that it is “currently rated as a Good School by Ofsted.” The school’s sixth form offers the International Baccalaureate (IB) as an alternative to A-Levels, a less common option among UK state grammar schools. For a broader sense of how PHSG’s results compare with other selective schools nationally, see our 2026 grammar school league tables guide.

How Should My Child Prepare for the PHSG 11+?

Because PHSG tests English and Mathematics rather than verbal or non-verbal reasoning, effective preparation looks quite different from the VR/NVR-only programmes recommended for many other English 11+ regions.

English rewards fast, accurate reading combined with a genuinely strong grasp of spelling, punctuation and grammar. The strongest foundation is wide, regular reading across fiction and non-fiction, paired with structured practice answering inferential and detail-based comprehension questions under timed conditions, since roughly 60 questions in around 40 minutes leaves little time to reread a passage repeatedly. Grammar and punctuation questions respond particularly well to targeted, repeated practice of common error types — apostrophes, homophones, sentence punctuation and grammatical agreement — rather than generic reading alone.

Mathematics preparation should be built on rock-solid Year 5 and Year 6 fluency: times tables, the four operations, fractions, decimals, percentages and basic geometry, practised until they are close to automatic, since PHSG’s paper rewards speed as much as accuracy. Multi-step word problems that require careful reading as much as calculation are also central to the reasoning content, so girls preparing for PHSG benefit from working through problem types that combine two or three mathematical steps in a single question, not just isolated arithmetic drills.

Because PHSG’s places are allocated by rank order across a combined field of PHSG and DHSG applicants rather than against a fixed pass mark, preparation should aim for a genuinely strong, well-rounded score rather than narrowly targeting a known threshold — every mark matters in a rank-ordered system covering 278 places across two schools. A personalised one-to-one approach is particularly valuable here, since a tutor can quickly identify whether a girl’s weaker area is English or Maths (or a specific sub-skill within either) and adjust the balance of a preparation programme accordingly, rather than applying a generic, evenly split study plan. At Leading Tuition, our specialist 11+ tutors support families across Plymouth, South Devon and South East Cornwall, including through online tuition for families outside the immediate city. Families weighing up PHSG alongside other South West grammar schools may also find our guide to Churston Ferrers Grammar School in Torbay a useful point of comparison, and our 11+ pass marks by region guide explains how rank-order allocation systems like PHSG’s differ from fixed qualifying-score consortia elsewhere in England.

Most families begin structured preparation in Year 4 or the early autumn term of Year 5, giving twelve to eighteen months to build genuine English and Maths fluency, address individual weaknesses, and move on to full timed practice papers well ahead of the July mock examination and the real test in September 2026. Families based further afield in Devon or Cornwall, or considering options beyond Plymouth’s state grammar schools, may find our guide to preparation resources for the wider Exeter and Devon region useful for planning tuition around travel and school commitments. For general background on how 11+ testing works across England’s different selective regions, see our guide to what the 11+ exam involves.