Getting into Denmark Road High School
The Gloucestershire grammar schools' entrance test, one sitting shared by all seven: 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 noon, Friday 26 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 Denmark Road High 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
Denmark Road High sits the Gloucestershire G7 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.
Denmark Road runs two thresholds. Alongside the qualifying standard there is a lower Priority Standard, set each year, and it helps only girls living in GL1, GL2, GL3 or GL4. Anywhere else, your daughter needs the full qualifying standard.
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, and applications are accepted from outside Gloucestershire. Living in GL1 to GL4 matters only inside two criteria: it opens the lower Priority Standard, and it puts a Pupil Premium girl ahead of one living elsewhere.
Only children who meet the Qualifying Standard are eligible at all, except under criterion (v), where a child living in GL1 to GL4 may instead meet the lower Priority Standard.
Where applications exceed places, priority is given as follows.
7 ranked criteria decide the order.
▸The full criteria, in the school’s own words
- 1.Looked after and previously looked after children who achieve the Qualifying Standard.
- 2.Applicants registered for Pupil Premium who achieve the Qualifying Standard and live in postcodes GL1, GL2, GL3 or GL4, ranked by test score; the maximum admitted under this category is the number equivalent to the national pupil premium percentage of the school's PAN.
- 3.If category (ii) does not fill that percentage, Pupil Premium applicants who achieve the qualifying score but live outside GL1 to GL4, until the percentage is met, ranked by test score if there are more than the percentage allows; any Pupil Premium applicants not offered here fall back to criteria iv, vi and vii.
- 4.Applicants meeting the Qualifying Standard with a parent or carer employed by the school on a permanent contract for two or more years, or recruited to a post with a demonstrable skill shortage.
- 5.Applicants who have met the Qualifying Standard, or who have achieved the lower Priority Standard and live within postcodes GL1, GL2, GL3, GL4; within this category siblings at the school come first, then ranking by Admission test score.
- 6.Applicants who have met the Qualifying Standard and have a sibling at the school, ranked by test score.
- 7.All other applicants who have achieved the Qualifying Standard, in rank order of Admission test score.
Ties within any criterion are broken by supervised random allocation.
Taken from the school’s own determined admission arrangements. The full document is linked under sources.
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, 6 schools
The same test also covers these schools:
Common questions
There is no pass mark, and there never has been. Each school sets its qualifying standard after the test, against that year's cohort, so nobody can tell you the number in advance. Be careful with the figures that circulate locally: each is a real sentence from one school's policy applied to the wrong thing, whether that is an in-year standard for older year groups or a rule that applies only to disadvantaged applicants at one school.
No. Registration goes to the grammar schools and closed at noon in late June; the council application is a separate form with a 31 October deadline. Both are needed, and the consortium is explicit that a qualifying score does not guarantee entry to your preferred school.
No. One test, sat on the same day by candidates for all seven schools, from a single registration. You elect which of the seven receive your child's result.
Two papers of about 45 to 50 minutes, sat on the same day with a short break, with extra time allowed for instructions and worked examples. Answers go on separate sheets that are marked electronically by an independent company appointed by the schools.
Mid-October. The consortium does not publish an exact date and the schools' own pages say only mid-October, so treat any specific day you see quoted with care. Results always land before the 31 October council deadline.
Test week: one calm timed run-through, then rest.