Getting into Bishop Wordsworth's School
The Bishop Wordsworth's 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 Friday 3 July 2026. 3 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 Wordsworth's 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
Bishop Wordsworth's 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.
Only the 480 boys living nearest the school sit the test at all, so distance bites before he takes a paper. The papers are GL: one Verbal skills paper, one Maths and Non-Verbal Reasoning paper. Boys eligible for Pupil Premium qualify at a standard 10% lower.
How places are decided
160 places for September 2027. Reaching the required standard puts a child in the running; this order decides the rest.
Catchment: There is a designated area, but the policy never describes it in words: it points to a map on the school website. Living inside it is a priority for a place, not a condition of applying, and it is only one of six criteria.
Annex D applies where the number of applicants who have achieved the qualifying standard exceeds the number of places, in the order a to f.
6 ranked criteria decide the order.
▸The full criteria, in the school’s own words
- 1.A looked after child, or a child who was previously looked after but immediately after being looked after became subject to adoption, child arrangements or special guardianship order, including those who appear to the School to have been in state care outside England and ceased to be in state care as a result of being adopted.
- 2.Applicants who, at the time of the entry exam, are eligible for Pupil Premium; documentary evidence is required, and Pupil Premium here means registered for free school meals at any point in the six years before the closing date for registration for the entry exam.
- 3.Applicants whose permanent home is in the School's designated area (map available on the School's website) at the time of application, or who have evidence that they will be permanently relocated to live in the designated area.
- 4.Applicants who, at the time the application is made, reside with at least one parent or step-parent who is a contracted member of staff at the School and has been so for at least two years.
- 5.Applicants who, at the time of the examination, have been recorded as qualifying for the Service Premium in their school, or who have been a Service Child in any of the previous three years, or who receive a child pension from the Ministry of Defence under the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme or the War Pension Scheme; documentary evidence is required.
- 6.Other applicants who have met the entry requirements. Within any criterion, priority goes to the shortest straight-line distance from the applicant's permanent home to the School's Exeter Street gate, using Local Authority distances measured on Ordnance Survey eastings and northings; an exact tie that cannot all be admitted is settled by the casting of lots supervised by a person wholly independent of the School. The determined policy attaches no place counts or quotas to any criterion, but the School's own 11+ Information Leaflet for September 2027 entry (dated 27.01.2026) does reserve places for one group: “For candidates who qualify for Pupil Premium, the qualifying standard will be set at 10% lower than the standard qualifying standard, and 10 places are reserved for these applicants. If fewer than 10 applicants meet the reduced qualifying standard, any unfilled places will be reallocated to applicants who meet the standard qualifying standard.” The reserved-places wording appears only in the leaflet, not in the determined policy.
Taken from the school’s own determined admission arrangements. The full document is linked under sources.
How many children actually sit
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.
408 children sat for Bishop Wordsworth's in 2024, for 160 places, about 2.5:1. Source
Three weeks out is exactly when a timed mock helps.