Getting into Marling 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 Marling 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
Marling 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.
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 priority postcodes and no radius. Boys living outside Gloucestershire may apply on the same terms. Distance is used only to separate boys the ranking has left level.
Only candidates who have met the qualifying standard are considered at all, and a boy with an EHCP naming Marling who has met the qualifying standard is admitted with the admission number reduced accordingly.
Where qualifying applications exceed places, the criteria are applied in this order.
3 ranked criteria decide the order. The same order (a, b, c and the two tie-breaks) governs the waiting list, which is held until 31 December of Year 7.
▸The full criteria, in the school’s own words
- 1.Any looked after child, or child previously looked after who immediately afterwards became subject to an adoption, child arrangements or special guardianship order, including those who appear to the admission authority to have been in state care outside England and ceased to be so as a result of being adopted, who have met the qualifying standard.
- 2.Any candidate attracting Pupil Premium funding, meaning registered for free school meals at any point in the six years prior to the test day, who has met the qualifying standard; no cap or quota is stated on this category.
- 3.All other candidates who have met the qualifying standard, in test rank order. Where candidates are equally ranked, two further criteria are applied in order: first, candidates who attended a primary school within the Cotswold Beacon Academy Trust from the time of registering for the Entrance Test until at least the December break of Year 6; then the strongest geographical claim, measured in a straight line from the Ordnance Survey address point of the candidate's main residence to that of the school using Gloucestershire County Council's measuring system, closer being higher.
Any remaining tie is settled by random allocation supervised by someone independent of the school.
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.
1,113 children sat for Marling for September 2025 entry, for 150 places, about 7.4:1. Source
Across the whole area, 2,670 children sat the Gloucestershire consortium test in September 2024. They were not all applying here: that number covers every school that shares the test. Source
Government preference data shows about one first preference per place, which makes Marling look easy to get into. It is not. 1,113 boys shared a test result with the school for 2025 entry, for roughly 150 places, because families only express a preference after their child has already qualified.
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.