Getting into Bishop Vesey's Grammar School
The Birmingham grammar schools' shared 11+, sat once for all of them: 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 26 June 2026, 4pm. 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 Bishop Vesey's 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, in one look
Bishop Vesey's Grammar sits the Birmingham Consortium (King Edward VI Foundation / Grammar Schools of Birmingham), 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
192 places for September 2027. Reaching the required standard puts a child in the running; this order decides the rest.
Catchment: No catchment area, but three distance zones. Zone 1 is up to 12 miles from the school in a straight line, Zone 2 is 12 to 20 miles, Zone 3 is beyond 20, all measured to the foot of the steps at the main entrance. Zone 1 is served first.
Eligibility first: a candidate must achieve the qualifying score in the selection test to be considered at all.
Children with an EHCP naming the school who meet the qualifying score are allocated a place outside the oversubscription criteria.
Beyond that, places are offered in this published order.
6 ranked criteria decide the order.
▸The full criteria, in the school’s own words
- 1.Looked After Children, Previously Looked After Children and Internationally Adopted Previously Looked After Children who achieve the qualifying score, by rank order of standardised score.
- 2.Children living in Zone 1 attracting the Pupil Premium who achieve the qualifying score, by rank order of standardised score, limited to no more than 38 children in this category; if the 38 Pupil Premium places are not filled from Zone 1 they are offered to Pupil Premium children from Zone 2, and then from Zone 3, by rank order of standardised score.
- 3.Other children who achieve the qualifying score living within Zone 1 (straight line up to 12 miles), by rank order of standardised score.
- 4.Other children who achieve the qualifying score living in Zone 2 (straight line between 12 and 20 miles), by rank order of standardised score.
- 5.If places remain, children resident in Zone 3 (straight line beyond 20 miles), by rank order of standardised score.
- 6.Tie-break where children are equal on standardised score: places go to those who live nearest the school, measured in a straight line from the home address to the foot of the steps leading to the main school entrance, using Birmingham Local Authority's computerised system Cartology.
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.
501 children sat a test at Bishop Vesey’s in 2024, but the school points out that this counts children applying to other schools who used it as a venue, and leaves out its own applicants who sat elsewhere.
Over 5 years we have figures for, 93 families appealed and 3 won, about 3%.
- 2018 entry: 14 heard, 0 upheld
- 2017 entry: 18 heard, 0 upheld
- 2016 entry: 17 heard, 0 upheld
- 2015 entry: 25 heard, 3 upheld
- 2014 entry: 19 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
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, 8 schools
The same test also covers these schools:
Common questions
No. They are two separate forms months apart. Test registration closes in late June with no late entry, and your council preference form closes on 31 October. Miss the first and your child cannot sit the test at all; miss the second and the score counts for nothing.
The Foundation publishes a qualifying score and a higher priority score, but only once each cycle's papers are marked, so there is no number to aim at in advance. Treat any figure you see quoted for an earlier year as history: qualifying is a floor that makes a child eligible, and the score that actually wins a place is whatever the last-ranked offer holder had, which differs school by school.
Yes. One sitting covers them, and you choose which to name on the council form afterwards. Two of the schools sit outside the King Edward VI Foundation and use a single threshold rather than the Foundation's qualifying-plus-priority pair, so read each school's own criteria before ranking your preferences.
Two papers of about an hour on the same day, each split into individually timed sections covering English comprehension, Verbal Reasoning, Maths and Non-Verbal or Spatial Reasoning. Everything is multiple choice, marked on a separate sheet, and scores are standardised for age.
The test is in mid-September, in a morning or afternoon session the Foundation allocates, and results come in mid-October, ahead of the 31 October council deadline.
Test week: one calm timed run-through, then rest.