Is 332 a Kent Test pass? Not for 1,340 children in 2025

No, not on its own. The 2025 condition was a total of 332 or more, with no paper below 108. A child had to meet both halves . At least 1,340 children reached the total and were still assessed suitable for high school rather than grammar .

That is the answer, and the rest of this article earns it. The second half of the condition is the part parents almost never hear. A total is easy to talk about, it fits in a text message, and it is what gets repeated at the school gate. A floor underneath every individual paper is harder to talk about, and it is the floor that quietly settles a large number of Kent results every autumn.

What does Kent’s condition actually say?

The council states it in one sentence on its own results page. Read it whole: “To be given a grammar school assessment, children needed a total score of 332 or more, with no single score lower than 108. Test scores range from 69 to 141. The highest possible total score is 423.”

There are three papers behind that: English, maths and reasoning. Each one is standardised and adjusted for age, so a score on a paper describes a child’s position among the children who sat it rather than a percentage of questions answered correctly . The total is the three added together. The condition then asks two separate questions of those four numbers, and a child has to answer both.

The first question is about the total. The second question is only about the weakest single paper, and it does not care how strong the other two were. A child who scores 130, 130 and 100 has a total of 360, which is well clear, and fails the condition on the third number alone .

How many children reached the total and were still assessed for high school?

Every year Kent County Council publishes a report giving the number of children at each total score, in two sheets: one for children assessed suitable for grammar, one for children assessed suitable for high school . Adding the disclosed cells at or above the threshold on the high school sheet is where the figure in the title of this article comes from .

Total score	Children, disclosed	Suppressed cells
332 to 339	615	none
340 to 349	432	none
350 to 359	197	none
360 to 369	84	1
370 to 385	12	14
332 and above	1,340	15

Read the right-hand column before you read the middle one. The council replaces any cell holding five or fewer children with the words “5 or less”, following advice from the Information Commissioner’s Office . Fifteen of those suppressed cells sit at or above the threshold on this sheet. So the honest reading of the table is that the real number is higher than its own total by somewhere between fifteen and seventy-five children. None of those cells is a zero, and nothing here treats one as though it were.

The shape of the table is the part to notice. Most of these children were within one paper’s width of the threshold, and the counts thin out quickly as the total climbs. They do not stop, though. The disclosed cells reach 378, and suppressed cells appear as high as 385, which is a total almost any parent would read as a comfortable clear .

Set that beside the other sheet. At or above the threshold, the report discloses 8,196 children assessed suitable for grammar against 1,340 assessed suitable for high school, so about one in seven of the children it discloses at 332 or above did not come out of the process with a grammar assessment . Those are not near misses on the total. Every one of them had already cleared the number that gets quoted at the school gate.

Where does the arithmetic bite?

A child scores 118 in English, 118 in maths and 106 in reasoning. The 2025 condition was a total of 332 or more with no single score lower than 108. Does this child meet it?

The usual wrong route

Almost everybody adds first and stops. 118 + 118 + 106 = 342, which is ten clear of 332, so the answer looks like an obvious yes. The addition is right and the conclusion is wrong, because the condition has a second half that the total cannot rescue.

The method

1. Add the three scores: 118 + 118 + 106 = 342.
2. Compare with the first half of the condition. 342 is 10 above 332, so that half is satisfied.
3. Now find the lowest of the three scores. It is 106, on reasoning.
4. Compare with the second half. 106 is 2 below 108, so that half is not satisfied.
5. Both halves are required, so the condition is not met.

For contrast, a child scoring 108, 108 and 116 has a total of exactly 332 and a lowest paper of exactly 108, and meets both halves with nothing to spare. The second child has the smaller margin on the total and is, in fact, the one who gets a grammar assessment.

Answer: No. The total is met and the per-paper floor is not.In the paper: Under a minute, once the second half of the condition is in view.

Can a child below the total still be assessed for grammar?

The same report contains something that reads, at first, like a contradiction. The grammar-assessed sheet holds children whose totals sit below the threshold. The disclosed cells there run from 331 down to 319, and suppressed cells appear as low as 296 . If the threshold were a wall, none of those children would be on that sheet.

The likeliest explanation is that the Kent Test is not only a test. The council’s own page on preparing for it describes a writing exercise, says the exercise is not marked, and adds that it “may be used by a local headteacher panel as part of the headteacher assessment stage of the process” . That sentence establishes only that a stage exists after the marking and that headteachers run it; the council does not say how many children on the grammar sheet arrived that way.

Kent County Council has described what that stage looks at, in answer to a freedom of information request. Through primary school referrals, the council wrote, the process “looks in finer detail at children whose scores are close to the threshold, children whose scores may not be representative and children who cannot be assessed through testing”. It added that the process considers a child’s suitability for a grammar school education irrespective of how many grammar places exist in an area, that panels are not given a quota to fill, and that a grammar assessment does not guarantee a grammar place .

One limit, stated rather than glossed over. The council does not publish which children on that sheet arrived there through a headteacher panel, and its results page does not mention the route at all. What can be said is that below-threshold totals on the grammar sheet are consistent with the headteacher assessment stage the council describes elsewhere on its own site. This article claims nothing stronger than that, because the council has not said anything stronger.

Two practical things matter more to a parent than the mechanism does. The referral comes from the child’s primary school rather than from you, so the conversation to have is with the school, and have it early. And an assessment for high school does not end the matter by itself: the council says you can still name a Kent grammar school, that the application will be refused when places are offered, and that you then have a right of appeal to explain why you think the school is a suitable option for your child. If you are at that stage, what actually happens on results day sets out the sequence and the deadlines .

What should you do next for your child?

The consequence is not subtle. A Kent Test total is the sum of three numbers, and the weakest of the three can decide the outcome on its own. Work that lifts an already strong subject adds to the total and does nothing at all for the floor. Work that lifts the weakest paper does both, which is the whole argument for spreading preparation evenly rather than following the subject your child enjoys.

We have watched this play out in the wrong order more than once. A child who likes maths will happily practise maths, and the reasoning paper sits there quietly deciding the result. Sitting all three papers in one go, in the format the county actually sets, is the only way to produce the number that matters here, which is not the total but the lowest of the three.

With that in mind, do three things. Find the weakest paper before you find the target total. Give it more of the week than it is currently getting. And re-test all three together often enough that you are looking at a lowest score rather than a memory of one.

If the scale itself is the unfamiliar part, the standardised age scores explainer and calculator shows how a raw mark and a birthday combine into a band, and how standardised age scores work covers the same ground in prose. For the difference between a qualifying standard and the score a school actually reached in a given year, read what a pass mark really means, which is a distinction Kent makes sharper than most counties, and where a Kent Test total sits in the wider range turns this same report into a curve.

For the format, the dates and the papers themselves, the Kent Test explained is the place to start, and if you are still deciding which test your child will sit at all, which 11+ test applies to you sorts that out first. Because the reasoning paper is so often the weakest of the three, the verbal reasoning question types is where we would put the first hour. And if your child is younger than Year 5, when to start preparing is a better question than which score to aim at.

Once results are out, the number that decides an offer belongs to the school rather than to the county. The Judd School and Dartford Grammar School both publish their own admissions detail, and each of our school pages carries the date we last checked it against the school’s own site. Where a school does not publish a figure, we say that it is not published rather than filling the gap with an estimate.

Common questions

Is 332 a pass in the Kent Test?

Not on its own. Kent County Council’s published condition for the 2025 test was a total of 332 or more with no single score lower than 108, and both halves have to be met. The council’s own scores report shows at least 1,340 children at or above 332 who were assessed suitable for high school rather than grammar .

Can a child below the total still be assessed suitable for grammar?

Yes. Kent County Council names a headteacher assessment stage in the Kent Test process, and describes it as looking in finer detail at children whose scores are close to the threshold, whose scores may not be representative, or who cannot be assessed through testing. Referral comes from the child’s primary school, not from the parent .

Does a grammar assessment mean my child has a place?

No. Kent County Council states plainly that being grammar assessed in the Kent Test does not guarantee a place at a Kent grammar school. The assessment decides eligibility; each school’s own oversubscription criteria decide who is offered a place .

Why is the figure of 1,340 called a floor rather than a count?

Because Kent County Council suppresses any cell containing five or fewer children, on advice from the Information Commissioner’s Office. Fifteen suppressed cells sit at or above 332 in the high-assessed row, so the real number is higher by somewhere between fifteen and seventy-five children. A suppressed cell is never zero .