The 11+ in Buckinghamshire

Who is registered automatically, and who is not

If your child attends a state-funded Buckinghamshire primary school, they are registered for the Secondary Transfer Test automatically. You do not need to do anything to enter them, and they sit the test in their own school.

If your child attends a Partner school, an independent school, or any school outside Buckinghamshire — and the council is explicit that this includes state-funded schools in Milton Keynes — you have to register them yourself. Those children are invited to sit the test at a grammar school or a central test venue instead.

• Families who move into Buckinghamshire by 18 June 2027 are offered late testing for their child, provided they can produce evidence of the move.
• Automatic registration is not the same as a decision. A child is entered whether or not the family has thought about grammar school, and opting out is a conversation to have with the primary school.

What is in the papers

The test is produced by GL Assessment. There are two papers, both multiple choice, with a short break between them.

One paper covers verbal skills — comprehension, technical English and verbal reasoning. The other covers mathematics and non-verbal skills, including spatial reasoning.

Each paper

About 45 minutes of testing, or about 60 minutes including the introduction and the worked examples.

Practice test

Two multiple-choice practice papers sat under test conditions, about 40 minutes each. They are not marked and they are not sent home. Their purpose is to teach the format and the separate answer sheet, not to predict anything.

Where

Children at Buckinghamshire state primaries and Partner schools sit the test in their own school during the school day. Everyone else is invited to a grammar school or a central venue.

The score that matters is 121

A child needs a standardised score of at least 121 to be eligible for consideration at a Buckinghamshire grammar school. Standardisation adjusts for age, so a child born in August is not measured against a September-born child as though they were the same age.

Eligibility is not an offer. It means the grammar schools you have named can consider your child; whether a place follows depends on each school's oversubscription criteria.

• A child scoring below 121 can still reach a grammar school by three routes: a successful Selection Review, a successful admission appeal, or qualifying under the Pupil Premium arrangements.
• The council publishes the Selection Review process and its deadlines in its grammar schools guide. Those deadlines fall quickly after results, so it is worth knowing the process before results day rather than after it.

If you are reading this for the next round

For entry in September 2028, Buckinghamshire has published the shape of the year but not yet the exact dates.

Registration

May to June 2027

Practice test and transfer test

Early September 2027

Results

Mid-October 2027

Secondary application deadline

31 October 2027

Things that catch families out

• Registering for the test is not applying for a school. A grammar school can only consider your child if you have named it on your home authority's common application form by 31 October.
• Automatic registration only covers state-funded Buckinghamshire primaries. Milton Keynes is not included, and that surprises people every year.
• The test is sat at the very start of Year 6, which means the preparation happens in Year 5 and the decision happens earlier still.
• Buckinghamshire Council has not published a results date or a threshold for the 2028 round yet. Anything you read giving exact 2028 dates today is a guess.