Getting into Ermysted's Grammar School
The Ermysted's Grammar 11+, set by FSCE: 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 pm (noon) on Monday, 31 August 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 Ermysted's 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
Ermysted's Grammar sits the FSCE 11+.
FSCE (Future Stories Community Enterprise) is a not-for-profit test provider set up by Reading School, and a growing number of grammar schools now use it. Its papers stay close to the Key Stage 2 curriculum: English and Maths, not abstract reasoning puzzles. That makes it a fairer test, because what counts is what children have actually learned at school. FSCE publishes no past papers, so there is nothing to drill from, but you can still prepare properly. Steady work on KS2 English and Maths is what pays off, and that is exactly the ground PlusProgress practice covers.
FSCE publishes no past papers, which unsettles parents used to drilling them, but it also means there is nothing to drill and steady curriculum work is the whole strategy. The papers stay close to Key Stage 2 English and Maths, which is exactly the ground PlusProgress practice covers, adapting difficulty as your child improves rather than repeating what they can already do.
Two papers, both English and Maths: one multiple choice, the other short written answers. Scores are only released to parents of boys who did not reach the required standard, so if he passes you will not be told his mark.
How places are decided
128 places for September 2027. Reaching the required standard puts a child in the running; this order decides the rest.
Catchment: Yes. The catchment is the areas served by the primary schools in Skipton, Beamsley, Bradley, Burnsall, Carleton, Cracoe, Embsay, Gargrave, Grassington, Kettlewell, Kirkby-in-Malhamdale, Thornton-in-Craven and Threshfield. Catchment boys rank ahead of the rest.
Children with an EHCP naming the school are admitted first, and the policy notes this reduces the number of places available.
3 ranked criteria decide the order.
▸The full criteria, in the school’s own words
- 1.children who have achieved the required standard and are a looked-after child, or were previously looked after and immediately afterwards became subject to an adoption, child arrangements or special guardianship order, including those who appear to have been in state care outside England and ceased to be so as a result of being adopted;
- 2.children who have achieved the required standard and whose home address lies within the catchment area at the time of application;
- 3.children who have achieved the required standard and whose home address lies outside the catchment area at the time of application. Within both the second and third groups, preference is applied in this internal order: first to children registered as in receipt of the pupil premium at the time of application, then to children who will have a sibling at the school in September of the year of entry, then to children who live closest to the school. Distance is straight-line by electronic mapping from a fixed point within the dwelling to the nearest entrance to the school grounds. If applicants are equidistant and places cannot accommodate them all, the remaining places are allocated at random in the presence of an independent witness. For Year 7 first-round applicants, time of application means the date of registering to sit the entrance test. No quotas or capped place counts attach 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.
276 children sat for Ermysted's Grammar for September 2025 entry, for 128 places, about 2.2:1. 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.
Three weeks out is exactly when a timed mock helps.