Getting into Watford Grammar School for Boys
The SW Herts Schools Consortium 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
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 Watford Grammar for Boys 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
Watford Grammar for Boys 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
224 places for September 2027. Reaching the required standard puts a child in the running; this order decides the rest.
Catchment: An admission area listed by postcode sector, not district: WD17 to WD19 and WD23 to WD25 around Watford, then parts of WD3 to WD7, HA3, HA5, HA6 and HA7. Outside it a place is unlikely.
Boys with an EHCP naming the school are admitted first and count towards the PAN.
The 224 places are then split into 146 community places (65%) and up to 78 specialist places (35%).
8 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 in state care outside England who ceased to be so through adoption, a child arrangements order or a special guardianship order).
- 2.Boys whose normal home address is nearest to the school and who would not be allocated a place under any other criterion except criterion 6 (up to 22 places, 10% of total admissions).
- 3.Boys with a parent who is a permanent full-time or part-time member of school staff, with two or more years' service at the time of application or recruited to a demonstrable skill shortage, and with parental responsibility.
- 4.Boys with a brother enrolled at the school, excluding brothers who first entered in the sixth form.
- 5.Boys with a sister enrolled at Watford Grammar School for Girls, excluding sisters who first entered in the sixth form.
- 6.Remaining community places in increasing distance order, straight line from the normal home address. Specialist places:
- 7.Boys selected on aptitude for music in merit order (up to 22 places, 10% of total admissions).
- 8.Boys selected by academic ability in merit order (up to 56 places, 25% of total admissions). Specialist places are split by area: 47 (60%) reserved for the Watford area, of which 13 music and 34 academic, and 31 (40%) for the rest of the admission area, of which 9 music and 22 academic, with unfilled places moving to the other area. A boy entitled under more than one of criteria 3 to 8 is placed under the lowest-numbered of them, and unfilled specialist places become community places but not the other way round. Qualification under criteria 1, 3 and 4 does not require an address inside the admission area.
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.
198 children sat for Watford Grammar for Boys for 2021 entry, for 224 places, about 0.9:1. 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, 3 schools
The same test also covers these schools:
A format-matched mock shows where he genuinely stands.