13+ Entry to Leeds Independent Schools for 2027

13+ entry to a Leeds-area independent school is not a "late transfer test" for children who missed the 11+ — that is marketing language used by the tutoring companies that rank for this search, not a phrase any of the five schools that genuinely admit at Year 9 use about themselves. The Grammar School at Leeds (GSAL), Bradford Grammar School, Woodhouse Grove School, Silcoates School and Queen Elizabeth's School, Wakefield all run 13+ (Year 9) entry as an ordinary part of their annual admissions cycle, with no ISEB Common Pre-Test or Common Entrance paper anywhere in the process. What genuinely differs, school to school, is what the entrance assessment tests — every one of the five sets Maths and English at minimum, three add an interview, and only one adds reasoning or a third academic subject. Below is what each school's own admissions pages say, with 2026-27 fees and the dates that matter for September 2027 entry.

Is 13+ Entry in Leeds Really a "Late Transfer Test"?

Search for 13+ tutors in Leeds and the phrase "late transfer test" belongs almost entirely to tutoring companies, not to schools. Adnan Khan Tutoring's Leeds page, which currently ranks first for this search, frames 12+ and 13+ entry as "Late Transfer Test Preparation for Grammar School" for children who missed their original 11+ exam — language that implies a special, emergency admissions route. None of the five Leeds-area independent schools that genuinely admit at 13+ describe their own Year 9 entry that way.

At GSAL, Year 9 sits inside exactly the same admissions cycle as every other year group from Year 1 to Year 10: the application deadline is 30 November in the year prior to entry, assessments follow in January, and outcomes are sent within two weeks. There is nothing late about it — it is simply GSAL's ordinary annual round, run to the same calendar as a Year 3 or Year 7 application.

Bradford Grammar School, Woodhouse Grove School and Queen Elizabeth's School, Wakefield (QEGS) take a different approach again: all three treat Year 9 entry as a rolling admission rather than a scheduled event. Bradford Grammar's own admissions pages list Reception, Year 7 and Sixth Form as its "key entry points" and note that the school "also consider[s] applications for other year groups, subject to places being available." Woodhouse Grove separates its dedicated Year 7 process from "entries into other year groups…throughout the academic year." QEGS "welcomes applications year-round, subject to availability" once a family looks past Year 7. None of that is a late transfer scheme either — it is simply how each school fills spare places above its main Year 7 intake.

Equally telling is what none of the five schools' admissions or assessment pages mention: ISEB, the Common Pre-Test, or Common Entrance. Those make up the national system used by many boarding and prep-to-senior-school pipelines further south, and the framework most generic 13+ tutoring content is written against by default. In Leeds and West Yorkshire, every one of the five schools we checked sets and marks its own assessment in-house, on its own dates.

Which Leeds-Area Schools Actually Take Pupils at 13+, and What Do They Charge?

Five schools within reach of Leeds publish a genuine 13+ (Year 9) entry route. GSAL, in Headingley, is the largest and the only one running Year 9 on a fixed annual cycle rather than a rolling basis. Bradford Grammar School and Woodhouse Grove School (in Apperley Bridge, on the Leeds/Bradford border, with a boarding option) both treat Year 9 as an "other year groups, subject to availability" admission. Silcoates School, in Wakefield, publishes a dated Senior School assessment day each cycle. Queen Elizabeth's School, Wakefield (QEGS) accepts applications for Years 8-10 year-round. Fees below are each school's own published 2026-27 figures.

Woodhouse Grove is the only one of the five offering boarding, at £15,114 a term against £6,582 for a day place in Years 7-10. All five fee figures above include VAT where the school states it applies, and all are the school's own published 2026-27 rate rather than a third-party estimate.

What the 13+ Assessment Actually Tests — and Why It Isn't the Same Exam Everywhere

This is the fact most generic 13+ tutoring content gets wrong for Leeds families: it sells one curriculum — typically Maths, English and Non-Verbal/Verbal Reasoning — as if it applies everywhere. All five schools we checked publish what their Year 9 / 13+ assessment actually covers, and only one of the five tests reasoning, and only one tests a third academic subject.

Woodhouse Grove's assessment content is not published on a dedicated page the way GSAL's or QEGS's is — it sits inside an expandable answer on the school's general application page, under "Entries into other Year Groups or throughout the academic year." What it says is specific enough to plan around: after an initial visit, application form and a school report, candidates are "invited to a Taster Day which will include sitting our Entrance Exams in maths and English and an interview with one of our Deputy Heads," with the rest of the day spent with the appropriate year group. That puts Woodhouse Grove in the same Maths-and-English bracket as GSAL and Bradford Grammar, with an interview stage closer to GSAL's than to Bradford Grammar's exam-only process — but run by a Deputy Head rather than, as at GSAL, "members of our academic team." Woodhouse Grove's own page is also explicit that "the Admissions process stages vary at times depending on individual circumstances," so families should treat this as the published baseline rather than a fixed script, and confirm specifics with the Admissions Manager once a visit is booked.

GSAL's Years 8-10 route is worth flagging on its own, because it is easy to confuse with the school's much better-known Year 7 (11+) process. The two are separate assessments, set for different year groups, on different timelines — a Year 9 applicant does not sit the Year 7 paper, and the two results are not compared. Our main Leeds admissions guide covers GSAL's 11+ route and the wider Yorkshire grammar-school landscape in full; this page is scoped to 13+ only.

Deadlines and Assessment Dates for September 2027 Year 9 Entry

These dates move every admissions cycle, so treat anything older than the school's own current admissions page with caution. As of August 2026, the published dates for September 2027 entry are:

GSAL is the outlier worth planning around: because its Year 9 place is tied to the same 30 November cut-off as every other year group, missing it means either a late application (subject to space and at the school's discretion) or waiting a full year. The other four schools do not impose that constraint in the same way, which is precisely why their own pages describe the process as rolling rather than dated.

Bursaries, Scholarships and Assisted Places at 13+ — What's Actually on Offer

A parent assuming Year 7-level financial help carries over automatically to a Year 9 place will be misled at three of the five schools where we found a clear, published position.

Bradford Grammar School is the most explicit: its fees page states plainly that Assisted Places Awards — means-tested help available to families with a joint household income of £80,000 or less — are "not available" for "those students entering Year 8, Year 9 or Year 10." That financial help exists only for the Year 7 and Year 12 intakes. GSAL follows the same pattern from the other direction: its fees page states that means-tested bursaries are offered "for new pupils joining the school into Year 7 or Year 12" only, with no mention of Year 9. Silcoates restricts its academic, music and sport scholarships to "pupils entering the Senior School in Year 7" as well.

In practice, this means a 13+ (Year 9) place at GSAL, Bradford Grammar or Silcoates is very likely to be paid at the full published rate shown in the fee table above, with no means-tested route available at that entry point specifically. Families for whom cost is a deciding factor may find a Year 7 application — sitting the 11+ a year or two earlier — opens bursary or scholarship routes that a 13+ application to the same school does not.

Leading Tuition is rated 4.8/5 on Trustpilot by families across the UK. Every Leeds 13+ plan we build starts from what the target school's own admissions pages actually say, not from a generic "12+/13+" curriculum sold the same way in every city. See also our 13+ tuition service, our Maths tutoring for the subject every one of the five schools tests, and — for context on the national system that none of these five Leeds schools actually use — our guide to the Common Entrance exam.

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