Getting into Altrincham Grammar School for Boys
The Trafford Consortium 11+, set by GL Assessment: what it involves and what to do next, for entry in September 2027.
Every fact on this page is checked against the school’s published admissions information, and nothing is guessed. · View sources · Report an error
Registration for the September 2026 test closed on 19 Jun 2026. If you missed it, contact the school; its published policy is that later registrations aren’t tested until after 1 March 2027. Otherwise: 1 weeks to test day.
What to do and when
Sitting the year after (2028 entry)? These are 2027-entry dates, and yours are not published yet: there is nothing you need to do this far out. Sign up for reminders and tick the 2028-entry box, and we’ll email only when your cycle’s dates are out and it is actually time to act.
5 dates as a calendar file, for Apple Calendar, Google Calendar or Outlook. Share the link with anyone who needs them.
Life’s busy, so we’ll email you a nudge before each Altrincham Grammar for Boys deadline above. Nothing else: no newsletter, no marketing, and the reminders stop for good after National Offer Day (1 Mar 2027) unless you sign up again for another school.
The test, in one look
Altrincham Grammar for Boys sits the Trafford Grammar Schools Consortium, set by GL Assessment.
GL Assessment sets the 11+ for most grammar schools in England, including this one. Papers are multiple-choice, and scores are age-standardised: children born at different points in the school year are marked against slightly different scales, so a summer-born child isn’t disadvantaged. Because GL is the most widely used format, familiarisation materials and practice papers in the same style are easy to come by.
Because GL is multiple-choice and age-standardised, the two things that move a score are accuracy under time pressure and covering every question type rather than the comfortable ones. PlusProgress practice is adaptive across English, Maths, Verbal and Non-Verbal Reasoning, so it keeps finding the types your child is weakest on instead of rewarding what they already do well, and mock papers follow the format this school sets. Progress is reported as a standardised age score, the same scale the school will use.
The score, honestly
Around 334 qualifies, but with ~6 applicants per place and priority given to the local area (WA13, WA14, WA15, M33, parts of M23), qualifying alone isn’t enough from further out. The lowest out-of-area offer in 2026 was about 373. Priority order after qualifying: looked-after children → EHCP naming the school → priority-area pupil premium → priority-area siblings → priority-area distance → everyone else by score.
Enter your postcode and we’ll tell you whether you’re in the priority area, and what that means for the score.
Checks your district against the priority postcodes published in THIS school's admission arrangements, which differ between the five consortium schools. The boundary also follows the Trafford LA line, so confirm a borderline address with the school.
How places are decided
202 places for September 2027. Reaching the required standard puts a child in the running; this order decides the rest.
Qualify (~334) → LAC/previously LAC → SEN/EHCP naming → priority-area pupil premium → priority-area siblings → priority-area distance → out-of-area by rank/distance.
For September 2026 entry the last place went to a candidate scoring 373 or above, under the category 5 criterion. Every place above that was filled by the criteria higher up the list.
A guide to how far the school reached in one year, not a promise about 2027: it moves with the size and spread of each year’s applicants. Where this comes from
What an EHCP is: an Education, Health and Care Plan, a legal document from your council for a child with special educational needs. Where a plan names a school, that school has to offer a place, so those places are taken out of the number above before anyone else is ranked. It is not a route most families can apply through.
Taken from the school’s own determined admission arrangements. The full document is linked under sources.
What the official figures show
Schools and councils publish some of this and not all of it. The numbers below came from Freedom of Information requests, which anyone can make, and each one links to the reply it came from.
The published qualifying score is 334. That is the mark a child has to reach to be considered at all. It is not the mark that gets a place.
- For 2025 entry, the last place on the out of area route went to a child scoring 377, 43 marks above the qualifying score. Source
One year, not a promise about the next. The bar moves with how many children apply and how they score.
Across the whole area, 3,945 children sat the Trafford consortium test for 2025 entry. They were not all applying here: that number covers every school that shares the test. Source
How pupils here do at GCSE
This is based on how pupils at this school go on to perform in their GCSEs, five years after the 11+. Attainment 8 is their average result across eight subjects. Read it as a description of outcomes rather than of teaching: a selective school admits children who were already scoring well at ten, so a high position here reflects who the school takes in as much as what it does with them.
Scores from Compare school and college performance data in England, Department for Education, 2024/25, under the Open Government Licence v3.0. The Department publishes the scores and does not publish a ranking: the position above is ours, calculated over state-funded schools with a published score. See the full table.
One sitting, 5 schools
The same consortium test also covers these Trafford grammars, worth knowing before you fill in your council application form:
Common questions
No. Comprehension, vocabulary, spelling and grammar are tested within the Verbal Reasoning content, and there is no writing task.
The consortium sitting covers five Trafford grammars at once. Loreto and St Ambrose aren’t in the consortium and run their own tests on different days (in 2026, Loreto’s is the same week), so a child can attempt both.
No. The consortium’s familiarisation guide has all working done in the test booklet, and no phones, smart watches or other devices are allowed in the exam room. The Maths content runs to the start of Year 6 and is designed to be done without one.
No. Around 334 qualifies, but places then go by the priority order. In practice, out-of-area applicants needed roughly 373 in 2026.
The window closed at noon on 19 June 2026, and the school’s published policy is that later registrations aren’t tested until after National Offer Day (1 March 2027). Contact the school directly to ask about your situation, but don’t count on a sitting before offers.
Test week: one calm timed run-through, then rest.
PlusProgress mocks match the Trafford Consortium format (two mixed multiple-choice papers) and return a standardised score, so you can see where he stands against that 334.