150 places, a qualifying score of 220 and an Outstanding Ofsted rating — the complete guide to Spalding High School’s 11+ for September 2027 entry
Book a Free ConsultationSpalding High School (SHS) is a selective girls’ grammar school on Stonegate in Spalding, Lincolnshire (PE11 2PJ), holding an Outstanding Ofsted rating and offering 150 Year 7 places for September 2027 entry. As part of the Lincolnshire Consortium of Grammar Schools, applicants must achieve a combined standardised score of 220 across two GL Assessment 11 plus papers — Verbal Reasoning on Saturday 12 September 2026 and Non-Verbal and Spatial Reasoning on Saturday 19 September 2026 — with registration closing on 30 June 2026. This guide covers the school’s history and character, the exact test format, every 2026 key date, how oversubscribed places are allocated, how the school’s admissions rules genuinely differ from its sibling institution Spalding Grammar School, and how to prepare.
Spalding High School opened on 22 January 1920, originally based at Ayscoughfee Hall School in the town centre before moving to its current Stonegate site in the late 1950s. It is a selective, single-sex grammar school for girls in Years 7 to 11, with a co-educational sixth form for Years 12 and 13. The school has around 1,000 pupils on roll and is led by headteacher Michele Anderson. While most entrants live in South Lincolnshire, the school also admits some girls from Cambridgeshire, Peterborough and Norfolk — a reflection of Spalding’s position in the Fens close to the Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire and Norfolk borders.
Admission at age 11 is selective, organised jointly with the other Lincolnshire county grammar schools. Selection is by two written tests taken at Spalding High School itself as part of the shared consortium arrangement — not by interview, portfolio or teacher reference. Every applicant, regardless of where they live, must achieve the qualifying score to be considered for a place.
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| School Name | Spalding High School (SHS) |
| Location | Stonegate, Spalding, Lincolnshire, PE11 2PJ |
| Type | Girls’ selective grammar school (co-ed sixth form) |
| Founded | 1920 (moved to current site late 1950s) |
| Year 7 Places (PAN) | 150 |
| Total Pupils | Approximately 1,000 |
| Headteacher | Michele Anderson |
| Ofsted Rating | Outstanding (November 2023) |
| Consortium | Lincolnshire Consortium of Grammar Schools |
| Test Provider | GL Assessment |
| Qualifying Score | 220 combined (maximum 282) |
| VR Test Date 2026 | Saturday 12 September 2026 |
| NVR/SR Test Date 2026 | Saturday 19 September 2026 |
| Oversubscription (after looked-after) | Siblings, then straight-line distance — no catchment area |
| Registration Deadline 2026 | 30 June 2026 |
Spalding High School uses the same two-paper Lincolnshire Consortium 11 plus as its 13 fellow member schools. There is no maths paper and no English comprehension or creative writing component — the test measures reasoning ability exclusively, produced and marked by GL Assessment, the UK’s leading provider of selective school entrance assessments.
Paper 1 — Verbal Reasoning: taken on Saturday 12 September 2026 (Friday 11 September at some primary schools). Questions cover letter and number codes, hidden words, analogies, word-pair relationships, synonyms and antonyms, and identifying the odd word out — roughly 21 distinct GL Assessment VR question types in total. Paper 2 — Non-Verbal and Spatial Reasoning: taken one week later on Saturday 19 September 2026 (Friday 18 September at some primary schools), and strictly sectioned, meaning candidates complete each section in order as instructed and cannot move ahead or return to earlier sections. Question types include shape sequences, matrices, 2D nets folding into 3D shapes, visual codes and mirror images.
Scores are age-standardised, so a girl born in August is not disadvantaged relative to a September-born classmate; the raw score is adjusted for exact date of birth. The combined standardised total across both papers must reach 220 — out of a maximum possible combined score of 282 — for a Year 7 place to be offered, and this same threshold applies uniformly across all 14 Lincolnshire Consortium grammar schools, including Spalding Grammar School.
For September 2027 Year 7 entry at Spalding High School:
Parents apply for Lincolnshire schools online, by phone (01522 782030) or with a paper form through the county council’s coordinated admissions scheme, then separately submit the CAF confirming school preferences by 31 October 2026. Twins and other siblings from a multiple birth are admitted above the published number if at least one qualifies, unless doing so would prejudice the school’s educational provision.
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Our specialist tutors build a targeted programme around the Lincolnshire Consortium’s GL Assessment Verbal Reasoning and Non-Verbal & Spatial Reasoning papers, working from a diagnostic assessment through to full timed mock exams ahead of the September 2026 test dates.
Rated 4.8/5 on Trustpilot. Families across Spalding and South Lincolnshire, and nationally online, have prepared with us for consortium entry.
Book a Free Consultation Message us on WhatsAppWhen more girls achieve the qualifying score of 220 than there are 150 places, Spalding High School applies the following oversubscription criteria in order:
If distance still cannot separate applicants at the margin, an independent person draws a lottery. Crucially, Lincolnshire County Council’s published arrangements state explicitly that no catchment or priority area is defined for Spalding High School — distance is used only as a late tiebreaker within the third category, not as an eligibility filter that favours local families outright.
Spalding is home to two separate Lincolnshire Consortium grammar schools that are easy to confuse: Spalding High School (girls, founded 1920, Outstanding Ofsted) and Spalding Grammar School (boys, founded 1588, Good Ofsted). Both share the identical GL Assessment 11 plus test, the same 220 qualifying score and the same 150-place PAN — but they are entirely separate institutions, each requiring its own listing on the Common Application Form, and their admissions procedures diverge in one important respect.
Spalding Grammar School’s oversubscription criteria prioritise looked-after children, then boys living within a designated transport area covering Spalding and the feeder parishes of South Lincolnshire — a defined geographic priority zone, with no sibling criterion listed in its published arrangements. Spalding High School’s criteria, by contrast, prioritise looked-after children, then siblings already at or joining the school, and only then straight-line distance as a tiebreaker — with no defined catchment or priority area at all. In practice, this means a family with an older daughter already at Spalding High has a stronger claim to a place than a family living just outside Spalding Grammar’s transport area would have for a place at the boys’ school, since Spalding Grammar has no equivalent sibling rule published. Families weighing both schools for a mixed-sex household should read each school’s current arrangements separately rather than assuming the rules mirror one another.
Spalding High School holds an Outstanding Ofsted rating, most recently confirmed following a November 2023 inspection, after an earlier Outstanding judgement in February 2020 — two consecutive top-band inspections spanning almost a decade. The school has achieved Sports College status since 2003, reflecting a long-standing emphasis on PE and extracurricular sport alongside its academic programme.
Pastoral life at the school is organised around a house system of five houses, each named after a notable woman: Curie (after physicist Marie Curie), Johnson (after aviator Amy Johnson), Nightingale (after Florence Nightingale), Pankhurst (after suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst) and Sharman (after astronaut Helen Sharman) — a naming convention that signals the school’s emphasis on female role models across science, exploration and public life. With around 1,000 pupils across Years 7 to 13, the school is a medium-sized grammar school, large enough to offer a broad curriculum and extracurricular programme while remaining small enough for close pastoral oversight.
The sixth form at Spalding High School is co-educational, drawing girls from the main school alongside boys and girls joining from other local schools, including Spalding Grammar. Entry to Year 12 requires students to meet the general academic entry requirement set out in the school’s sixth form prospectus, which specifies minimum GCSE grades for each A-Level subject combination. This mixed sixth form gives Spalding High girls the opportunity to study alongside a wider cohort for their final two years, while retaining the girls-only structure that defines Years 7 to 11.
Preparation for the Spalding High School 11 plus follows the same two-strand approach needed for any Lincolnshire Consortium school: Verbal Reasoning and Non-Verbal and Spatial Reasoning. For VR, build vocabulary through wide, varied reading, then work systematically through all 21 GL Assessment question types, moving from untimed accuracy to full-speed timed practice. For NVR/SR, practise each question type in isolation before attempting complete timed papers under the sectioned format — many girls find spatial reasoning (cube folding, 3D rotation, net-to-shape matching) the hardest skill to build, but it responds well to structured, repeated practice.
Because Spalding High School shares its test with 13 other Lincolnshire schools, preparation transfers directly: a girl preparing for Spalding High is simultaneously preparing for Spalding Grammar (if applying as a sibling household), Bourne Grammar, Kesteven and Grantham Girls’ School and every other consortium member. Families should begin preparation in Year 5 where possible, giving 12 to 18 months before the September 2026 test, and treat the Lincolnshire 11+ hub as the starting point for understanding the wider consortium timetable. Our 11+ tuition programmes begin with a diagnostic assessment to identify a child’s VR and NVR starting point, and our tutors reference the official Lincolnshire County Council admission arrangements and the school’s own admissions page throughout, so families always work from the current published rules rather than assumptions carried over from a previous year or a different consortium school. For a fuller view of exam-date planning across independent and grammar schools, see our 11+ exam dates guide.
Yes. Spalding High School is a selective girls' grammar school. For September 2027 Year 7 entry, applicants must achieve a combined standardised score of 220 or more across the two Lincolnshire Consortium GL Assessment papers (maximum combined score 282) — the same threshold used by all 14 consortium grammar schools, including sibling school Spalding Grammar. The school's published admission number (PAN) is 150 places. Scores are age-standardised so summer-born girls are not disadvantaged relative to September-born peers.
Spalding High School has 150 Year 7 places for September 2027 entry. If more than 150 girls achieve the qualifying score of 220, the county's oversubscription policy applies in this order: first, looked-after and previously looked-after children; second, girls with a sibling already attending or joining the school; third, straight-line distance from home to school, measured to three decimal places. There is no defined catchment or priority area — distance only matters as a tiebreaker within the third category, not as an eligibility rule.
Spalding High School uses the Lincolnshire Consortium's two-paper GL Assessment: Paper 1, Verbal Reasoning, on Saturday 12 September 2026; Paper 2, Non-Verbal and Spatial Reasoning, on Saturday 19 September 2026. There is no maths or English paper. Registration forms are sent to Lincolnshire feeder primary schools in January (Year 5), with the consortium-wide deadline falling on 30 June 2026. Results are sent to parents at the beginning of October (9 October 2026), and the Common Application Form deadline is 31 October 2026, ahead of National Offer Day on 1 March 2027.
Spalding High School (girls, founded 1920, Outstanding Ofsted) and Spalding Grammar School (boys, founded 1588, Good Ofsted) are two separate consortium grammar schools in the same town, each with its own CAF entry, though both share the same GL Assessment test, the same 220 qualifying score and the same 150-place PAN. The key procedural difference is oversubscription: Spalding High prioritises siblings before using distance as a tiebreaker and has no defined catchment area, while Spalding Grammar prioritises boys living within a designated transport area covering Spalding and its South Lincolnshire feeder parishes, with no sibling criterion listed.
Spalding High School holds an Outstanding Ofsted rating, most recently confirmed in a November 2023 inspection after an earlier Outstanding judgement in February 2020. The school, on Stonegate in Spalding (PE11 2PJ), has around 1,000 pupils and is led by headteacher Michele Anderson. Pupils belong to one of five houses named after notable women — Curie, Johnson, Nightingale, Pankhurst and Sharman — and the school has held Sports College status since 2003. The sixth form is co-educational, and the main school also admits some girls from Cambridgeshire, Peterborough and Norfolk alongside its Lincolnshire intake.
Leading Tuition provides specialist one-to-one preparation for the Lincolnshire Consortium 11+ used by Spalding High School. Our tutors focus on the two tested areas — Verbal Reasoning and Non-Verbal and Spatial Reasoning — building fluency in all GL Assessment question types under timed conditions ahead of the September 2026 test dates. We work with families across Spalding, South Lincolnshire and nationally through online tuition. Rated 4.8/5 on Trustpilot. Book a free consultation at leadingtuition.co.uk/consultation or message us on WhatsApp.
Leading Tuition provides specialist Lincolnshire Consortium 11+ coaching for Spalding High School applicants. Rated 4.8/5 on Trustpilot.
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