Grammar Schools Near Oxford: The Complete 11+ Guide for Oxfordshire Parents (2027 & 2028 Entry)

The 11+ is a selective entrance exam sat at the start of Year 6, used to decide entry into Year 7 at grammar schools and many independent schools. Depending on the school, it tests some combination of four areas: verbal reasoning, non-verbal (or spatial) reasoning, maths and English. The reasoning papers matter enormously — and they're barely taught in primary school, which is why targeted preparation makes such a difference.

Results are age-standardised: your child's raw marks are adjusted for their age in the year group, then mapped onto a scale where 100 is average and most schemes top out around 140–141. An August-born child is not disadvantaged against a September-born classmate.

England has around 160 state grammar schools, concentrated in a handful of counties — which brings us to the awkward bit for Oxford families.

No — Oxfordshire has no state grammar schools. The county went fully comprehensive decades ago. There is no Oxfordshire 11+, no county test, and no selective state secondary anywhere from Banbury to Henley.

That leaves Oxfordshire families who want academically selective education with three realistic routes:

• The Buckinghamshire grammar schools — 13 state grammars, several within commuting range of Oxford, Thame, Wheatley and Bicester.
• The Reading grammar schools — Reading School (boys) and Kendrick School (girls), realistic mainly for families in south Oxfordshire.
• Oxford's independent senior schools — Magdalen College School, Oxford High, Headington Rye, Abingdon and others, all with selective 11+ entry and means-tested bursaries.

Let's take each in turn.

Buckinghamshire runs a county-wide 11+ known as the Secondary Transfer Test, administered by Buckinghamshire Council with papers supplied by GL Assessment. One test covers all 13 Bucks grammar schools. Children at Buckinghamshire state primaries are entered automatically; everyone else — including every Oxfordshire child — must be registered by their parents in May–June of Year 5.

The test is sat over two multiple-choice papers covering verbal reasoning, English comprehension, maths and non-verbal & spatial reasoning. A standardised score of 121 or abovecounts as “qualified” — a bar that roughly a third of entrants have cleared in recent years.

Reading has two prestigious state grammars — Reading School (boys, with some boarding places) and Kendrick School (girls). Both use entrance tests from Future Stories Community Enterprise (FSCE) and both are heavily oversubscribed.

For September 2027 entry:

• Kendrick School — registration ran 1 May to 1 July 2026; the test is on Friday 18 September 2026, with results before the 31 October application deadline.
• Reading School — registration closed 17 May 2026. Its main sitting was brought forward to mid-July 2026, with a separate sitting for out-of-catchment day applicants on 25 September 2026; results are published from mid-October.

An honest note for Oxford families: both schools give priority to their local designated areas, feeder schools and Reading postcodes. Out-of-catchment applicants are tested and ranked, but sit lower in the oversubscription criteria — so for a family in Oxford city these schools are a long shot as day options. They're most realistic for south Oxfordshire families (Didcot, Wallingford, Henley side), or via Reading School's small boarding intake.

For many Oxford families, the most practical selective route isn't a grammar school at all — it's the city's independent day schools. Two things make this route different: registration for 2027 entry is still open (most deadlines fall between October and November 2026, with assessments from late November to January), and every school below offers means-tested bursaries — at some schools up to 100% of fees — alongside academic scholarships.

The tests come at the very start of Year 6 — September — which catches many families out. In practice that means Year 5 is the preparation year, and the summer between Year 5 and Year 6 is the final straight, not the starting line.

My rule of thumb after a decade of 11+ work:

• Year 4: gentle groundwork — reading habit, vocabulary, mental maths. Nothing that feels like exam prep.
• Year 5: the core year — systematic coverage of every verbal and non-verbal reasoning question type, 11+ maths and English, building to timed practice by summer.
• Early Year 6 (grammar route): full mock papers under exam conditions in the final weeks before the September test.
• Autumn Year 6 (independent route): preparation can run through the autumn term, since assessments fall in November–January.

Starting in Year 6 for the grammar tests is possible but compressed — it usually means more hours, more pressure and less margin for wobbles. If that's where you are, be strategic rather than panicked.

The 11+ rewards familiarity and technique more than raw cleverness. Bright children fail it every year simply because they'd never met the question types under time pressure. What works:

1. 1Start with the official familiarisation materials. Buckinghamshire Council and GL Assessment publish free familiarisation booklets; FSCE and the independent schools publish sample papers. Your child should never be surprised by a format on test day.
2. 2Little and often beats weekend marathons. 15–20 minutes of focused reasoning practice most days outperforms a two-hour Sunday slog — attention and retention both collapse in long sessions at this age.
3. 3Build vocabulary deliberately. Verbal reasoning is substantially a vocabulary test in disguise. Daily reading plus a notebook of new words (with meanings used in sentences) is the highest-value habit an 11+ family can adopt.
4. 4Teach every question type explicitly. Analogies, codes, hidden words, shape sequences, rotations, nets — each has a learnable method. Guessing strategies come last, methods come first.
5. 5Add timed practice from spring of Year 5, mocks from summer. Accuracy first, then speed, then stamina. Full mock papers under realistic conditions make September feel familiar instead of frightening.
6. 6Protect confidence throughout. An anxious child underperforms their ability. Keep sessions calm, celebrate method over marks, and never let 11+ prep swallow childhood — steady beats intense.

This is exactly the structure I use in one-to-one 11+ lessons across Oxford — a free diagnostic first, then a week-by-week plan covering every question type, with mock papers and honest feedback on whether the target schools are realistic. Strong KS2 foundations in maths and English do half the job before “11+ prep” even begins.

Two truths that Oxford parents deserve to hear straight:

1. Qualifying is not the same as getting a place. Scoring 121 in the Bucks test makes your child eligible; places are then allocated using each school's oversubscription criteria, which put catchment children first at most schools. An out-of-catchment Oxford child generally needs a comfortable score and some luck with numbers in that year's cohort. Check each school's catchment map and last year's allocation data before you set your heart on it.

2. The 11+ is optional — a strong plan B changes everything. Oxfordshire has excellent comprehensives, and a child with solid KS2 foundations thrives in them. Families who treat the 11+ as one option among several make calmer decisions — and calm children test better. List your state preferences on the CAF by 31 October regardless of the 11+ outcome; naming a grammar school costs nothing, but failing to name realistic local schools can cost a lot.