Private Tuition in Kent

Leading Tuition tutors families across Kent and Medway, from primary through GCSE, A-level and university admissions preparation for September 2027 entry and beyond. Kent and Medway run separate selective systems: Kent County Council states plainly that “Medway Council has its own Medway Test and London Borough of Bexley has its own Bexley selection test” — so which test applies depends on the council, not simply the county.

Both councils name GL Assessment as their test provider, but the two tests use different papers, dates and pass marks, set out in full below — including what each council says about how its papers are marked.

Kent Test or Medway Test? Two Councils, Two Selection Systems

A family researching "the Kent 11+" from a Chatham or Gillingham postcode is often researching the wrong system without realising it. Kent County Council and Medway Council are separate local authorities, and each runs its own selection test, its own registration window and its own pass mark. Nothing about a Medway postcode makes the Kent Test relevant, and nothing about a Kent postcode makes the Medway Test relevant — except the one named exception below.

One school sits outside that split. Medway Council names a single exception: Chatham Grammar “allow children who are assessed as suitable for grammar school through the Medway Test or Kent Test”. No other Medway grammar school we checked offers that flexibility, so a family should not assume it applies elsewhere.

Kent's own guidance is also explicit that grammar places in the county are not unlimited by definition: “grammar schools in Kent provide for children in about the top 25% of the ability range”. Medway's own threshold moves the same way: the minimum weighted score needed to be assessed as suitable for grammar school was 481 for 2026 admissions, against 482 for 2025 admissions and 492 for 2024 admissions, according to Medway Council's own published figures — a gentle downward drift, not a fixed bar.

The Kent 11+ Route, Briefly — Full Detail Lives on Our Kent Pages

The Kent Test itself — the exact score needed this cycle once Kent publishes it, catchment and distance criteria for individual schools, and how appeals work — already has a home on this site, and repeating it here would only create two pages saying the same thing less well. Our Kent 11+ tuition page covers the test format and the county's grammar schools in depth, and three guides on our blog go further still: Best Grammar Schools in Kent, Kent Grammar Schools Guide 2026 and Kent 11+ Format Guide 2026. This page exists to put that detail in the context of a family's whole education across Kent and Medway, not to repeat it.

What is worth restating briefly, because it decides whether the rest of this page is even relevant to a reader, is the shape of the Kent Test itself: an English and maths paper of about an hour, a reasoning paper of about an hour covering both verbal and non-verbal reasoning, and an unmarked 40-minute writing exercise that a headteacher panel may still consult at the borderline, all set out on Kent County Council's own Prepare for the Kent Test page.

GCSE Results Across Kent and Medway — What the Figures Actually Show

Kent and Medway's grammar schools post GCSE results well above the national state-funded average, but that comparison only describes the selective segment of either area. We did not research non-selective (secondary modern) results for this page, and a parent should not read what follows as a claim about Kent or Medway as a whole.

Nationally, pupils at the end of Key Stage 4 in state-funded schools in 2024/25 averaged an Attainment 8 score of 46.1, with 45.4% achieving grade 5 or above in both English and maths, according to the Department for Education's own Key Stage 4 performance release. Against that baseline, three named Kent grammar schools' 2025 results, published on the DfE's own Compare School and College Performance service: Dartford Grammar School recorded an Attainment 8 score of 79.9, with 98.9% of pupils achieving grade 5 or above in English and maths; The Judd School recorded 78.4, with 98.4%; and Tonbridge Grammar School recorded 77.2, with 98.3%. One caveat applies equally in Kent and Medway: the DfE states plainly that “it is not possible to calculate Progress 8 for academic years 2024/25 and 2025/26”, because the relevant cohorts sat no Key Stage 2 assessments during the pandemic, and there is no replacement measure for those two years. Any source still quoting a Kent or Medway school's Progress 8 score for a recent cohort is quoting a figure the DfE does not currently publish.

Sixth-form provision differs by school rather than by county. Each of the schools above, along with Kent and Medway's other grammars, publishes its own A-level subject list and results directly on its own website, and a family should check the specific school they are considering rather than infer results from a neighbouring one. A school with a strong Attainment 8 score at GCSE is not automatically the strongest choice for a particular A-level combination, and the two decisions — where a child sits their GCSEs and where they sit their A-levels — are not always made about the same school, since some families move between a grammar and a sixth-form college, or between two grammar schools, at 16.

EBacc entry is a related but separate measure from Attainment 8, and it varies more between schools than Attainment 8 does. Against the national state-funded average of 40.5% for 2024/25, Dartford Grammar School entered 98.9% of its pupils for the full EBacc and Tonbridge Grammar School entered 97.2%, while The Judd School entered 67.7% — still well above the national figure, but a substantially different proportion from the other two. A parent choosing between schools on the strength of Attainment 8 alone would miss that difference entirely, which is why we treat the DfE's underlying measures as more useful than a single headline score.

Sixth Form Into Oxbridge, Medicine and Competitive University Courses

A grammar sixth form is only the first half of a family's route through Kent or Medway's selective system. Many students go on to apply for Oxford, Cambridge, medicine and other competitive university courses, and that is a distinct preparation problem from GCSE or the 11+ itself — one that none of the organic results we reviewed for this page, and none of our own existing Kent pages, currently address.

Our specialist tutors support Kent and Medway sixth-formers with Oxbridge admissions preparation, covering personal statements, admissions tests and interview technique; with medicine application preparation, including UCAT and MMI interview coaching; and with personal statement support for competitive courses generally. We do not offer university-level tuition itself: our work is preparing a student to secure a place, not teaching the degree that follows.

Primary, GCSE and A-Level Support Across Kent and Medway

Not every family in Kent or Medway is chasing a grammar place, and the 11+ moment is only one year inside a much longer education. Leading Tuition works with families at every stage: primary tuition to build the reading, writing and maths foundations that matter whichever route a child takes; SATs tuition for Key Stage 2; GCSE tuition across the exam boards Kent and Medway schools actually use; and A-level tuition through to the sixth-form exams that decide a university place.

The same principle that governs our 11+ work applies here: we build a programme around the school and exam board a child is actually sitting, rather than a generic county-wide syllabus. A family moving from a Kent primary into a Medway secondary school, or the other way round, is not unusual given how close the two authorities sit to one another, and we adjust the plan to the school a child is actually at rather than assuming one system throughout.

What Kent and Medway Families Already Have on This Site

These are the Kent-specific pages we already publish. Each one owns the detail for its own school or subject; this hub is the front door to all of them.

• Kent 11+ Tuition — the Kent Test in full: format, providers and county-wide detail.
• Weald of Kent Grammar School 11+ Preparation
• Tonbridge Grammar School 11+ Preparation
• Dartford Grammar School 11+ Tuition
• Dartford Grammar School for Girls 11+
• Gravesend Grammar School 11+ Guide
• Ashford School 11+ Tuition — an independent school, and not part of the Kent Test.
• Best Grammar Schools in Kent
• Kent Grammar Schools Guide 2026
• Kent 11+ Format Guide 2026

We do not yet publish a dedicated Medway Test guide of our own; for now, Medway Council's own Medway Test pages are the authoritative source, and our tutors work with Medway families on exactly the same basis as Kent ones. Families closer to London should also see our Bexley tuition hub, covering Bexley's own separate selection test.

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