Getting into Torquay Boys' Grammar School
The Torbay Grammar Schools Entrance Test 11+, set by GL Assessment: 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 on 4 September 2026. 2 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 Torquay Boys' 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
Torquay Boys' Grammar sits the Torbay Grammar Schools Entrance 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.
Registering him for the test is not the same as applying for a place: the council form is separate and comes later. And a boy tested late is not considered until every boy who sat on time has been given a place.
How places are decided
168 places for September 2027. Reaching the required standard puts a child in the running; this order decides the rest.
Catchment: No catchment area, and no feeder schools either. Where your son lives matters only as a tie-break between boys on identical test scores.
There is no ranked list of oversubscription criteria for entry, because places are allocated purely on selection-test rank.
Children with an EHCP naming the School are admitted first, outside this policy, which reduces the places available within the PAN.
3 ranked criteria decide the order.
▸The full criteria, in the school’s own words
- 1.Looked after and previously looked after candidates;
- 2.Candidates who are eligible for the Pupil Premium (a Supplementary Information Form must be submitted to be counted in this category);
- 3.All other candidates. Within those categories the tie breaker is straight-line distance between home address and the School, nearer having higher priority, and where distance is equal, random allocation in the presence of someone independent of the School. There is no Pupil Premium quota or reserved number of places.
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.
405 children sat for Torquay Boys' Grammar for 2025 entry, for 168 places, about 2.4:1. 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.
One sitting, 4 schools
The same test also covers these schools: We have pages for these so far:
Two weeks out is exactly when a timed mock helps.