Getting into Ashlawn School
The West Midlands Grammar Schools Entrance Test, shared across five areas: what it involves and what to do next, for entry in September 2027.
Ashlawn is bilateral, so only up to 31 of its 256 places go on the 11+ score. It also runs its own Modern Language aptitude test, which the other Warwickshire schools do not, for up to 25 further places. You register for that one with the school from 16 June 2026.
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 Tuesday 30 June 2026. 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 Ashlawn 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
Ashlawn sits the Warwickshire 11+ Test (West Midlands Grammar Schools Entrance Test), 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.
How places are decided
256 places for September 2027. Reaching the required standard puts a child in the running; this order decides the rest.
Catchment: Yes, and three areas do different jobs. Up to 15 selective places go to the Eastern Area of Warwickshire (Rugby plus named parishes), up to 16 to children inside a 10.004 mile circle centred on the Rugby Water Tower, and a separate priority area covers the sibling and non-selective places.
Children with an EHCP naming Ashlawn School are offered a place first, which reduces the places available.
2 ranked criteria decide the order.
▸The full criteria, in the school’s own words
- 1.Looked-after and previously looked-after children.
- 2.Up to 31 selective places to students who have reached the Automatic Qualifying Score in the 11+ selective test, split as follows, (a) up to 15 to pupils living in the Eastern Area of Warwickshire, taking first those eligible for the Pupil Premium who achieve the AQS or above, then other Eastern Area pupils achieving the AQS or above; (b) up to 16 to children achieving the AQS or above who live in the priority circle centred on the Rugby Water Tower, taking first those eligible for Pupil Premium, then other applicants, then pupils the Committee of Reference has judged to have met the minimum academic standard and placed on the waiting (reserve) list; (c) if those places are not filled from those areas they go to pupils living outside the priority area who achieve the AQS or above; (d) if there are fewer qualifying applicants than selective places, the remainder are offered as non-selective places. 3. Up to 25 places to students who have met the required standard in the Modern Language Aptitude Test, in order of score; if fewer than 25 meet the standard, the rest fall through to the next category. 4. Remaining places in this order, (a) same-year siblings of a child admitted to a selective or aptitude place in the same application cycle; (b) children living within the Ashlawn priority area with a sibling at the academy at the time of admission; (c) children living outside the priority area with a sibling at the academy; (d) children living within the priority area. 5. Children of a permanent TLET member of staff (two years’ service, majority of time worked at the school) who will have a sibling on roll. 6. Children of a permanent TLET member of staff employed for more than two academic years at the time of application. 7. Other children living outside the priority areas who will have a sibling at the academy. 8. Finally, any remaining places to other children.
Within every criterion places go by shortest straight-line distance from home address point to the academy centroid, with a computerised random allocation where distances tie.
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 appeal 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.
Over one year we have figures for, 43 families appealed and 6 won, about 14%.
- 2019 entry (appeals heard summer 2019): 43 heard, 6 upheld
An appeal is a hearing where you explain to an independent panel why your child should have a place. How appeals work, and the figures for every school
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, 6 schools
The same test also covers these schools: We have pages for these so far:
Common questions
No, and the two deadlines are four months apart. Registration closed at the end of June; the school application is not due until 31 October. Missing the June one cannot be fixed in October, and it is the commonest way a family loses a place.
There is no pass mark to aim at, and there never is one before the test. Each school sets its Automatic Qualifying Score after the papers are marked, against that year's cohort. Any number circulating beforehand belongs to a previous year.
Yes: proof of address, due by 31 December. Failing to supply it makes an otherwise on-time application late, which is a costly way to lose a place you had won.
Two papers of about an hour each, covering English, Verbal Reasoning, Non-Verbal Reasoning and Maths across the four sections. Of each hour, roughly a quarter is spoken instructions and practice questions, so the testing time is shorter than the sitting time.
The same test is operated across the Warwickshire, Birmingham, Walsall, Wolverhampton and Shropshire grammar schools, so a family near a boundary may be able to use one sitting for schools in more than one area. Check each school's own arrangements before relying on it.
Test week: one calm timed run-through, then rest.