Getting into Bacup & Rawtenstall Grammar School
The Bacup & Rawtenstall Grammar 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
3 weeks to test day (Saturday 26 September 2026).
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.
4 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 Bacup & Rawtenstall Grammar 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
Bacup & Rawtenstall Grammar sits the GL Assessment 11+.
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.
BRGS sets its own GL exam, sat at the school, in three papers: Verbal Reasoning, Maths and English. If your child misses the standard you can ask for a review within 5 days of the letter, and a child who succeeds is then ranked alongside those who passed.
How places are decided
180 places for September 2027. Reaching the required standard puts a child in the running; this order decides the rest.
Catchment: No catchment by address. Priority runs on which primary your child attends for the whole of Year 6: 18 named Area 1 primaries around Bacup and Rawtenstall come first, then 13 Area 2 primaries. Home address is only the final tie-break.
Children with an EHCP naming the school are admitted first, before the oversubscription criteria are applied.
6 ranked criteria decide the order. Tie-break: children living nearest the school by straight-line distance from the school's postal address to the home address; if distances are identical, random allocation run by Lancashire County Council's School Admissions Team with a school representative present.
▸The full criteria, in the school’s own words
- 1.Looked after children, or children previously looked after who immediately afterwards became subject to an adoption, child arrangements or special guardianship order, including children who were in state care outside England and left it through adoption.
- 2.Children attending Area 1 primary schools, ranked by overall entrance examination mark, with priority within this group for children who have a sibling in Years 7 to 11 at the school at the time of application and offer.
- 3.Children attending Area 2 primary schools, ranked by overall entrance examination mark, again with priority for children with a sibling in Years 7 to 11 at the school.
- 4.Children of staff employed at the school for two or more years at the time of application and offer, or where the member of staff was recruited to fill a post with a demonstrable skill shortage.
- 5.Children with a sibling in Years 7 to 11 at the school at the time of application and offer.
- 6.All other children, ranked by overall entrance examination mark. No place counts or quotas are attached to any individual criterion.
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.
478 children sat for Bacup & Rawtenstall Grammar for 2025 entry, for 180 places, about 2.7:1. Source
Over 5 years we have figures for, 90 families appealed and 1 won, about 1%.
- 2024 entry: 10 heard, 1 upheld
- 2023 entry: 10 heard, 0 upheld
- 2022 entry: 20 heard, 0 upheld
- 2021 entry: 20 heard, 0 upheld
- 2020 entry: 30 heard, 0 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
Three weeks out is exactly when a timed mock helps.