Getting into Heckmondwike Grammar School
The Heckmondwike 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 Midday 22 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 Heckmondwike 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
Heckmondwike 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.
The creative writing task is only marked if the English and Maths scores are good enough. Separately, a grade 2 or above music qualification is its own route to a place, capped at 5 per cent of offers.
How places are decided
210 places for September 2027. Reaching the required standard puts a child in the running; this order decides the rest.
Catchment: Yes. It covers WF16, WF15 6, WF15 7 and part of WF15 8, but the definitive version is the map on the school's website, so check a borderline address with the school. Children from outside can still be offered places on test performance.
Children with an EHCP naming the school who meet the standard for entry are admitted first, before the criteria are applied.
6 ranked criteria decide the order.
▸The full criteria, in the school’s own words
- 1.children of selective ability who are in public care, in or outside England, or have previously been in public care;
- 2.children of selective ability who are eligible for the Pupil Premium (proof required by 12 noon Friday 26 June 2026);
- 3.children of selective ability who reside in the catchment area, residence being the child’s permanent address on the date of sitting the entrance exam;
- 4.children of selective ability who already have siblings in the school, including the Sixth Form, where those siblings will remain on roll when the child is admitted;
- 5.children of selective ability with a parent employed by the school for two or more years at the time of the entrance examination, or recruited to a post with a recognised skill shortage;
- 6.children who have gained grade 2 or above in Music, capped so that no more than 5% of the total number of offers are made under this criterion, with the highest entrance-examination scorers taking those places. Once criteria 1 to 6 have been applied, the remaining places are offered on overall performance in the entrance examination.
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.
1,100 children sat for Heckmondwike Grammar in 2024, for 210 places, about 5.2:1. 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.
Test week: one calm timed run-through, then rest.