Getting into Bournemouth School
The Dorset/BCP Grammar 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 12:00 midday, Friday 4 September 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 Bournemouth 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
Bournemouth sits the Dorset/BCP Grammar 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.
There is a second round of testing in the spring, for boys who both registered with the school and applied through their local authority by 1 February 2027. Boys tested after that date who are found eligible join the waiting list behind the boys from the first round.
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: A priority area rather than a catchment: BH1 to BH11 in full, plus the sectors BH12 5, BH23 1, BH23 2 and BH23 3. Boys inside it rank ahead of boys outside, but boys outside are still considered, in test score order.
Eligible students whose EHCP names the school are admitted first.
5 ranked criteria decide the order.
▸The full criteria, in the school’s own words
- 1.eligible boys who are looked after children, previously looked after children or internationally adopted previously looked after children, in order of entrance test scores with the highest scores given higher priority;
- 2.of the remaining eligible boys, those who are eligible for the Pupil Premium Grant, in test score order;
- 3.of the remaining eligible boys, those who live within the priority area, in test score order;
- 4.eligible boys who are the sons of current members of staff where the member of staff has been employed at the school for two or more years at the time the application is made, in test score order;
- 5.the remaining eligible boys, meaning those who live outside the priority area and are ineligible for the Pupil Premium Grant, in test score order. No place counts or quotas are attached to any criterion. Tie-break where two or more boys share the same test score and initial ranking is the home address nearest to the school by straight-line distance on the local authority's Geographical Information System; where distances are equal, places are allocated by drawing lots, supervised by someone independent of the school. Boys of a multiple birth spanning the admission number threshold are all admitted if all are of the required standard. (Taken from the determined 2027 policy PDF, which is single-source: see oddities.)
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.
395 children sat for Bournemouth for 2025 entry, for 180 places, about 2.2:1. Source
Over 5 years we have figures for, 100 families appealed and 25 won, about 25%.
- 2022 entry: 11 heard, 1 upheld
- 2021 entry: 20 heard, 2 upheld
- 2020 entry: 21 heard, 6 upheld
- 2019 entry: 19 heard, 6 upheld
- 2018 entry: 29 heard, 10 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, 4 schools
The same test also covers these schools:
Three weeks out is exactly when a timed mock helps.