Grammar schools are the only state-funded schools in England permitted to select their entire intake by academic ability. There are 163 of them operating across 36 local authorities, educating roughly 167,000 pupils. They charge no tuition fees. Entry is determined by a single high-stakes exam – the 11-plus – sat by children aged 10 or 11. The system is polarising: supporters call it a ladder of opportunity; critics call it a mechanism that entrenches inequality. Both positions contain truth.
A System Frozen in Time
The modern grammar school traces to the 1944 Education Act, which created England’s tripartite system: grammar schools for the academically able, secondary moderns for the rest, and technical schools that largely never materialised. Between the mid-1960s and late 1970s, most grammar schools were closed or converted to comprehensives. Kent, Buckinghamshire, and Lincolnshire resisted and retained selection.
The remaining 163 survived on a technicality: a 1998 statutory instrument froze the list of selective schools without formally abolishing them. No new grammar school has opened since. Theresa May attempted to lift the ban in 2016; the policy collapsed after her 2017 election defeat. As of early 2026, Labour’s schools white paper makes no provision for new grammars. Reform UK has signalled intent to reverse the ban should it gain power, but no legislative vehicle exists.
Where They Are – and Where They Are Not
Kent is the largest fully selective county, with approximately 38 grammars and no secondaries that are entirely non-selective. Buckinghamshire operates a similar county-wide system. Lincolnshire, Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, and Devon each retain several. Greater London contributes grammars in Barnet, Kingston, and Sutton. The Midlands has concentrations in Warwickshire, Shropshire, and parts of Birmingham. The North West has them in Trafford, Calderdale, and parts of Cheshire.
There are none in North East England, Scotland, or Wales. Northern Ireland maintains 67 grammar schools under its own selective system. If you live outside a selective area, competition for out-of-area places is intense.
The 11-Plus: No National Exam
There is no single national 11-plus. GL Assessment is used across much of Kent, Buckinghamshire, and the North West. CEM, developed at Durham University, is deployed in Birmingham, Wiltshire, Berkshire, Shropshire, and Dorset. The CSSE handles Essex. Sutton schools use a two-stage process: a Selective Eligibility Test followed by school-specific papers.
The standard 11-plus tests four areas. English covers comprehension, grammar, punctuation, spelling, and vocabulary. Mathematics reaches across the Key Stage 2 curriculum. Verbal reasoning involves language-based logic – analogies, code-breaking, word patterns. Non-verbal reasoning tests pattern recognition with shapes, sequences, and spatial logic. A typical GL paper contains approximately 260 questions across four papers. Pass marks are not fixed nationally; they are set per region and typically admit the top 23 to 30 percent of candidates. Children who fail cannot resit for the same school in the same year.
What the Performance Data Actually Reveals
Grammar schools dominate league tables. Under Attainment 8 – averaging performance across eight GCSE subjects – grammar schools score 74.1, compared to 44.2 in highly selective areas and 48.9 elsewhere. Queen Elizabeth’s School in Barnet ranks 7th nationally. Wilson’s School in Sutton places 10th. Ripon Grammar School has been named top-performing state school in the North for eleven consecutive years.
But a 2023 study by Durham University’s Evidence Centre for Education, with University College London, analysed nearly 500,000 pupil records and found no clear evidence that selective systems improve overall outcomes. Pupils who did not gain a grammar school place performed slightly worse at GCSE than their comprehensive counterparts. Overall, pupils in selective areas had a lower chance of achieving top grades. The researchers attributed this to stress, competitiveness, and the concentration of disadvantaged pupils in non-selective schools.
When prior attainment is factored in, grammar school pupils achieve approximately one-third of a grade higher across eight GCSE subjects than comparable comprehensive peers. The headline numbers are driven by selection, not the education that follows.
The Social Mobility Question
The UCL Social Research Institute found that candidates from families in the top 10 percent of socioeconomic status were 50 percent more likely to gain entry. The reason: private tutoring. The 11-plus has spawned a substantial commercial industry. Preparation typically begins in Year 4. Tutoring costs range from modest online subscriptions to hundreds of pounds for一对一 coaching. Families with resources can drill children in test technique that bears limited resemblance to the curriculum they have studied.
Professor Lindsey Macmillan at UCL has presented evidence that comprehensive students in selective areas are less likely to attend university and less likely to earn as much in adulthood. The 11-plus does not measure commitment or classroom performance. It measures performance on a specific type of test on a specific day – and that day falls at an age when cognitive development varies enormously between children of the same year.
How to Apply
Applications go through your local authority. Parents register children for the 11-plus during Year 5, with exams sat in September or October of Year 6. Results arrive before the secondary school application deadline. In fully selective counties like Kent, the grammar school test is the secondary allocation mechanism. In mixed-provision areas, parents apply alongside other secondaries through the standard co-ordinated admissions process.
A small number of grammar schools – Ripon Grammar and Reading School among them – also function as state boarding schools and accept applicants from further afield. If your child does not pass, options include secondary moderns, comprehensives, academies, and faith schools. The result is final for that year. There is no appeal on academic grounds.
Grammar schools produce strong results for those who enter, but the system as a whole does not demonstrably raise standards – and it may widen the gap it claims to close.
