Getting into Chatham Grammar (formerly Chatham Grammar School for Girls)
The Medway Test, the one 11+ Medway Council runs for its six grammar schools: 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 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 Chatham Grammar (formerly Chatham Grammar for Girls) 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
Chatham Grammar (formerly Chatham Grammar for Girls) sits the Medway 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.
Either county result works here: a child assessed as grammar through the Kent Test or the Medway Test is eligible, which matters if you live near the border.
How places are decided
150 places for September 2027. Reaching the required standard puts a child in the running; this order decides the rest.
Catchment: No catchment area, no postcode list and no radius. Where you live comes in only as the third criterion, measured by the shortest available safe walking route from home to the Academy, nearest first.
The policy first admits, automatically and outside the ranked list, children in care and children who were in care but ceased to be so through adoption, a residence order or a special guardianship order, and children with an EHCP naming Chatham Grammar (after the Academy has been consulted and agreed).
Only children already assessed as selective through the Kent and/or Medway Test are eligible at all.
3 ranked criteria decide the order.
▸The full criteria, in the school’s own words
- 1.Current family association, meaning a sibling attending Chatham Grammar at the time of application who will still be attending when the applicant is admitted, the applicant also having been deemed selective.
- 2.Children deemed selective of staff at Chatham Grammar, where the member of staff has been employed for one year or more at the time the application is made, and/or was recruited to fill a vacant post for which there is a demonstrable skill shortage.
- 3.Nearness of the student's home, measured by the shortest available safe walking route using Medway Council's Geographical Information System, with those living closer given higher priority. Tiebreak: where two or more students have equal eligibility for the last place, names are issued a number and drawn randomly. 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.
One sitting, 6 schools
The same test also covers these schools: We have pages for these so far:
Common questions
Not one the council publishes as a number. The Medway Test produces a selective or non-selective decision, and only children assessed as of grammar ability are considered by the six schools. The schools themselves add no score of their own on top.
For 2027 entry, children at Medway schools sat on Tuesday 15 and Wednesday 16 September 2026, and children at schools outside Medway on Saturday 19 or Sunday 20 September 2026. Results came on Wednesday 14 October 2026, before the 31 October application deadline.
For 2027 entry it opened at 9am on Monday 18 May 2026 and closed at 5pm on Friday 12 June 2026. Registering for the test is separate from applying for a place, which you do on your home council's form by 31 October.
No. Medway and Kent run separate tests with separate registrations, and a Medway result does not carry across the boundary. Families living near the border often end up registering for both.
English, Maths and reasoning, standardised and combined into the selective decision. Because the outcome is a decision rather than a mark, preparation is best aimed at being comfortable across all three rather than chasing a number.
Test week: one calm timed run-through, then rest.