Getting into Upton Hall School FCJ
The Upton Hall School FCJ 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 Friday 10 July 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 Upton Hall School FCJ 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
Upton Hall School FCJ sits the GL Assessment 11+.
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.
Upton Hall sets and marks its own exam, so your daughter registers with the school direct. Two papers in one morning: Verbal Reasoning for 50 minutes, then English comprehension, spelling, punctuation and grammar for 45. There is no Maths paper, and each part carries its own minimum standard.
How places are decided
156 places for September 2027. Reaching the required standard puts a child in the running; this order decides the rest.
Catchment: No catchment area. The policy gives no geographic priority at all: distance counts only as a tie-break between girls on the same total exam score, measured as the shortest safe walking route.
6 ranked criteria decide the order.
▸The full criteria, in the school’s own words
- 1.applicants who are looked after, previously looked after, and those who appear to the admission authority to have been in state care as a result of being adopted, or who became subject to a child arrangement order or special guardianship order;
- 2.baptised Roman Catholic girls (including any girl baptised a Christian who can demonstrate she has subsequently been admitted to the Roman Catholic Church) who are eligible for free school meals at the time of application;
- 3.baptised Roman Catholic girls (same definition);
- 4.children of school staff where the member of staff has been employed by the school for two or more years;
- 5.girls not baptised into the Roman Catholic Church whose parents wish them to have a Roman Catholic education and who are eligible for free school meals at the time of application;
- 6.girls not baptised into the Roman Catholic Church whose parents wish them to have a Roman Catholic education. No criterion carries a fixed place count or quota. Within any oversubscribed category places go in order of merit on the examination score, and equal scores are separated by shortest available safe walking distance to the school as measured by the Local Authority computer mapping system.
Taken from the school’s own determined admission arrangements. The full document is linked under sources.
What the official figures show
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.
544 children sat for Upton Hall School FCJ in 2024, for 156 places, about 3.5:1. Source
Over 2 years we have figures for, 71 families appealed and 17 won, about 24%.
- 2023 entry: 40 heard, 10 upheld
- 2022 entry: 31 heard, 7 upheld
An appeal is a hearing where you explain to an independent panel why your child should have a place. How appeals work, and the figures for every school
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.
Two weeks out is exactly when a timed mock helps.