Getting into St Clement Danes School
The SW Herts Schools Consortium 11+, set by GL Assessment: what it involves and what to do next, for entry in September 2027.
Only about 24 of the 240 places go on the academic test and another 24 on musical aptitude. The music test is a 60 question aural paper, then a performance of up to three minutes for the highest scorers.
Every fact on this page is checked against the school’s published admissions information, and nothing is guessed. · View sources · Report an error
The test was sat on Saturday 5 September 2026. Results are due Thursday 15 October 2026.
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 St Clement Danes 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
St Clement Danes sits the SW Herts Schools Consortium, 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
240 places for September 2027. Reaching the required standard puts a child in the running; this order decides the rest.
Catchment: No catchment area. The looked after, sibling, staff, music and academic routes are open at any address. Distance places rank WD3 postcodes first, and for 2026 entry no place at all went to an address outside WD3.
7 ranked criteria decide the order.
▸The full criteria, in the school’s own words
- 1.Looked after children and previously looked after children (including those previously in state care outside England or Wales who ceased to be so through adoption, a child arrangements order or a special guardianship order).
- 2.Children whose brother or sister is in attendance at the school at the time of application.
- 3.Children of staff employed by the Trustees of Danes Educational Trust on behalf of St Clement Danes School (excluding Central Services staff), where the member of staff has two or more years' continuous service at the time of application or was recruited to fill a demonstrable skills shortage, and the child lives at the same permanent address.
- 4.Up to 10% of places (24 in practice at a PAN of 240) for students demonstrating musical aptitude, determined by test in the autumn term.
- 5.Up to 10% of places (24 in practice) for students demonstrating academic ability, determined by test in the autumn term, awarded in merit order.
- 6.Distance places allocated on proximity to the school, with priority given to WD3 postcodes only, measured by straight line using AddressBase Premium.
- 7.Any remaining places on proximity to the school, outside the WD3 postcode area. Children with an EHCP naming the school are admitted before the oversubscription criteria are applied and count towards the PAN. Criteria 1 to 5, and criterion 7, carry no address restriction of any kind: a child living anywhere may be admitted under them.
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, 3 schools
The same test also covers these schools:
A format-matched mock shows where they genuinely stand.