Getting into Rainham Mark Grammar School
The Medway Test, the one 11+ Medway Council runs for its six grammar schools: 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 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 Rainham Mark 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
Rainham Mark Grammar sits the Medway 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
235 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 assessed as selective by the Medway Test may apply, wherever they live, and distance is the last of six criteria, measured by the shortest available route.
Applied only to children assessed as selective by the Medway Test.
6 ranked criteria decide the order.
▸The full criteria, in the school’s own words
- 1.Children in Local Authority Care, Internationally Adopted Children and Children Previously in State Care Outside of England (looked after children, and children who immediately after being looked after became subject to an adoption, child arrangements or special guardianship order, including those who appear to Medway Council to have been in state care outside England and ceased to be so through adoption); a Supplementary Information Form must reach the school by 31 October in the year of application.
- 2.Children in receipt of Pupil Premium / Free School Meals, meaning registered for free school meals at any point in the last 6 years (Universal Infant Free School Meals do not count); a Supplementary Information Form must reach the school by 31 October in the year of application.
- 3.Current Family Association (siblings), a brother or sister already attending the school at the time of entry, including natural, adopted, step and foster siblings living as siblings in the same house; multiple-birth siblings are admitted even if that takes the school above PAN.
- 4.Health and Special Access Reasons, applied in line with the school's legal obligations under the Equality Act 2010 and supported by written evidence from a suitably qualified practitioner.
- 5.Children of Staff, where the parent has been employed at the school for three years or more continuously at the time of application and/or was recruited to fill a vacant post with a demonstrable skill shortage.
- 6.Nearness of the child's permanent home to the school, measured by the shortest available route using Medway Council's GIS; remaining ties are settled by drawing lots. No numeric quota or place count is attached to any criterion. Children with a statement of SEND or an EHCP naming the school are admitted before the criteria are applied, and the PAN is reduced accordingly.
For September 2025 entry the furthest place went to a child living 2.6 miles away, under the distance criterion. Every place above that was filled by the criteria higher up the list.
A guide to how far the school reached in one year, not a promise about 2027: it moves with the size and spread of each year’s applicants. Where this comes from
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 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: We have pages for these so far:
Common questions
Not one the council publishes as a number. The Medway Test produces a selective or non-selective decision, and only children assessed as of grammar ability are considered by the six schools. The schools themselves add no score of their own on top.
For 2027 entry, children at Medway schools sat on Tuesday 15 and Wednesday 16 September 2026, and children at schools outside Medway on Saturday 19 or Sunday 20 September 2026. Results came on Wednesday 14 October 2026, before the 31 October application deadline.
For 2027 entry it opened at 9am on Monday 18 May 2026 and closed at 5pm on Friday 12 June 2026. Registering for the test is separate from applying for a place, which you do on your home council's form by 31 October.
No. Medway and Kent run separate tests with separate registrations, and a Medway result does not carry across the boundary. Families living near the border often end up registering for both.
English, Maths and reasoning, standardised and combined into the selective decision. Because the outcome is a decision rather than a mark, preparation is best aimed at being comfortable across all three rather than chasing a number.
Test week: one calm timed run-through, then rest.