Getting into Colyton Grammar School
The Colyton Grammar 11+, set by Quest Assessments: 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 31st July 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 Colyton 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
Colyton Grammar sits the Quest Assessments 11+.
Quest Assessments writes 11+ papers for a number of schools and councils, and each one picks its own mix of subjects, so the papers differ from place to place. What stays the same is the approach. Questions are built on the Key Stage 2 curriculum, answers are recorded on an OMR sheet by drawing a line through the chosen box, and marks are standardised according to age in years and months. That last point has a consequence worth knowing: there is no fixed number of correct answers that qualifies, because the mark needed shifts with how old a child is on the day. Quest publishes free familiarisation booklets, and working through one is worth doing if only so the answer sheet itself is not a surprise.
Quest papers are built on the Key Stage 2 curriculum and marked from an answer sheet, with scores standardised by age in years and months, so there is no fixed number of correct answers that qualifies. Two things follow. Work the underlying curriculum rather than chasing a target mark, and make sure the answer sheet itself is not a surprise on the day: download Quest’s own free familiarisation booklet. PlusProgress practice covers the curriculum ground adaptively and reports progress as a standardised age score, so the number at home means the same thing as the number the school sends.
The test includes extended writing as well as English and Maths, and no Verbal or Non-Verbal Reasoning at all. The school also funds free online familiarisation and Key Stage 2 work for any child in Years 3 to 6 eligible for free school meals, whether or not they apply here.
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: No catchment area. Any child may apply, places go in rank order of test score, and distance is used only to separate children tied for the last place.
Children achieving an eligible score who have an EHCP naming the school are admitted first.
3 ranked criteria decide the order. Tie-break for the last available place is proximity to the school, measured as a straight line from the main School Reception front door to the applicant's home address using Devon's Geographical Information System; for applicants living equidistant from the school, an independent person supervises random allocation.
▸The full criteria, in the school’s own words
- 1.Looked After Children and previously Looked After Children, including those children who have ceased to be in state care as a result of being adopted.
- 2.Children on the eligible list who are entitled to Pupil Premium, including the Service Premium, with evidence of eligibility required; the policy lists the qualifying categories as (a) children currently registered as eligible for free school meals and children registered as eligible at any point in the last six years, and (b) children whose parents or guardians are serving in the regular UK armed forces, children of regular armed forces personnel who served in the past 3 years, and children in receipt of a pension under the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme or the War Pensions Scheme because a parent or guardian died on active service.
- 3.Rank order based on the total score achieved in the tests of children on the eligible list. No place counts or quotas are attached to any 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.
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.
538 children sat for Colyton Grammar for 2026 entry, for 160 places, about 3.4:1. Source
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.
Common questions
Maths and English questions which the school says rely solely on knowledge and understanding from the Key Stage 2 National Curriculum. The whole thing runs to roughly two and a half hours including breaks, and it is sat at the school.
Not a fixed one, and the school explains why. Marks are standardised according to age in years and months, so the number of correct answers needed varies with how old your child is on the day. There is no fixed raw mark total for qualification. What decides places is rank order among everyone who reaches the required standard.
No. The school does not publish past papers and says familiarisation materials are not commercially available, so it provides its own. It also asks families not to discuss or publish the content of the test with anyone, including tutors. What the school does publish, after offers go out in March, is an anonymised list of that year’s standardised scores.
The school’s own answer is no. It states there is no advantage beyond the familiarisation materials it provides, and that coaching can create confusion and anxiety. The papers are built on Key Stage 2, which every primary school teaches, so steady curriculum work is the preparation that counts.
No. There are 160 places. If more than 160 children reach the required standard, places are awarded by rank order of test score and then by the admissions criteria in the school’s policy.
Test week: one calm timed run-through, then rest.