Children due to start secondary school in September 2024 can register for the Kent Test from June 2023.
Assessment is normally done through testing during the autumn term.
The tests are planned for September 2021. We will keep this page up to date with current information should any late adjustments need to be made to the Kent Test as a result of the Coronavirus pandemic. Any reference to ‘Kent Test’ or ‘registration’ does not guarantee when or if testing will take place.
The Kent Test is due to take place on:
Your child must not attend the assessment if they are in a period of self isolation or exhibit COVID-19 symptoms on the day of the test. If you provide evidence, details of alternative arrangements will be confirmed shortly after their originally scheduled test date.
September 2024 admissions
If you have missed the deadline, please email kent.admissions@kent.gov.uk with the following details:
Read KCC's admissions privacy notice.
If your child has SEND
If your child has special educational needs or a disability that may affect the way they access the test, you need to discuss this with your current school's special educational needs coordinator (SENCO) as soon as possible. Any proposal for alternative access requirements must made by the school by 12 July 2021.
When you register your child for the Kent Test online, you will need to confirm if you have discussed a request for access arrangements with your child’s school.
Test Paper
The tests are multiple-choice with a separate answer sheet. They are marked by an automated marking machine.
The first test will be an English and maths paper and will take 1 hour. Each section will involve a 5 minute practice exercise followed by a 25 minute test. The English section will involve a comprehension exercise as well as some additional questions drawn from a set designed to test literacy skills.
The second test will be a reasoning paper. It will take about 1 hour, including the practice sections and questions. It will contain a verbal reasoning section and a non-verbal reasoning section of roughly the same length. The non-verbal reasoning will be split into short sections, administered and timed individually.
There will also be a writing exercise which will not be marked but may be used by a local headteacher panel as part of the headteacher assessment stage of the process. 40 minutes will be allowed for the writing task, including 10 minutes planning time.
This document explains the Kent Test papers for children who will take them, and parts of it will not be fully accessible to users of some assistive technologies.
Any child with a severe visual impairment who cannot access test papers can instead be assessed by a head-teacher panel, which will look at their classwork and academic achievement. If you need to know more about the content of our familiarisation paper or how we assess students with visual impairments, please email kent.admissions@kent.gov.uk.
Please find a range of free familiarisation materials:
https://11plus.gl-assessment.co.uk/free-materials/
Your child will get 3 standardised scores, one for English, one for maths and one for reasoning, and a total (aggregate) score.
Standardisation is a statistical process which compares your child's performance with the average performance of other children in each test. A slight adjustment is made to take account of each child's age so that the youngest are not at a disadvantage.
The grammar school threshold for the 2021 tests will not be published until the results have been sent out.
To be given a grammar school assessment, children needed a total score of 332 or more, with no single score lower than 108. Test scores range from 69 to 141. The highest possible total score is 423.
If you did not register online and we do not have a valid email address for you, the Kent Test result can only be sent by letter.
If possible, we will post your child’s result to you on results day by first class post. You can ask your child’s primary school for their test scores the day after results go out.