All schools · Trafford
The Trafford 11+, in plain English
Five Trafford grammar schools share one entrance test, so a child sits it once and can be considered by all five. Two more selective schools in the borough are not in that group and run their own exams on a different day, which is why some families end up sitting two.
One sitting, 5 schools
The consortium test is two multiple-choice papers of about an hour each, sat on the same morning with a short break between. Each paper mixes verbal reasoning, non-verbal reasoning and maths, and English is tested inside the verbal reasoning rather than as a separate paper. There is no writing task. For September 2027 entry it is sat on Monday 14 September 2026, and registration closed on 19 Jun 2026. Between them the five schools admit about 906 children a year.
Each school sets its own qualifying score and its own priority order, so the same result can mean an offer at one and a waiting list at another. The school pages carry those numbers where the school publishes them.
What changes for 2028 entry
The consortium has announced that from 2028 entry, meaning the test sat in September 2027, it moves from GL Assessment to FSCE. The FSCE papers are English and maths drawn from the Key Stage 2 curriculum, with the verbal and non-verbal reasoning papers retired. From 2029 entry the test also moves earlier, into the summer term of Year 5. If your child sits in September 2026, none of that affects you: that cycle is unchanged and still GL.
For a Year 4 family the practical read is that reasoning drills matter less than they used to, and steady work on the Key Stage 2 English and maths curriculum matters more.
The two that are not in the consortium
Loreto Grammar and St Ambrose College are selective Catholic schools in Trafford that set their own entrance examinations. Both sit theirs on Friday 18 September 2026, a different day from the consortium test, so a child can take both. Their admissions categories are led by faith, so a strong mark alone decides less here than it does at the five consortium schools.
The year, in order
- Spring and early summer of Year 5: registration opens for the consortium test, and separately for each non-consortium school.
- Summer holidays: the useful window. Little and often beats a fortnight of cramming in late August.
- September 2026: the tests are sat, the consortium first and the two Catholic schools a few days later.
- Mid-October: results arrive, before the council deadline, so you rank your preferences already knowing the score.
- 31 October: the council application (CAF) closes. Naming a school on it is what actually applies for a place; registering for a test does not.
- 1 March: National Offer Day, through your local authority.
The kindest preparation is early and unhurried.
A format-matched mock returns a standardised score, so you can see where your child stands against the marks these schools publish rather than guessing.
The consortium’s own familiarisation guide and its member schools’ admissions pages, plus the consortium’s July 2026 announcement of the provider change. Each school page lists the exact documents it was checked against.