Queen Mary's Grammar School is a selective state school on Sutton Road in Walsall, admitting boys to Years 7 to 11 on the shared West Midlands entrance test. This page covers Queen Mary's Grammar School entry at eleven by the GL Assessment test, for children now in Year 3 to Year 5, and not sixth form, fees or A levels.
What does the entrance test contain?
Two papers, both multiple choice, and neither of them a single-subject paper. Each is timetabled for something like fifty to sixty minutes, a figure that includes reading the instructions and working through examples, so the time left for answering is less than it appears.
Four areas are sampled across the two papers: English comprehension, verbal reasoning, mathematics, and non-verbal reasoning with spatial questions inside it. They do not count equally. English and verbal reasoning are worth half the total between them, mathematics a quarter, non-verbal reasoning a quarter.
Marks are recorded on a separate answer sheet rather than under the questions. A boy who drops one line out of step can think correctly the whole way through and score badly for it, which is why sitting a full paper with a real answer sheet is worth doing more than once.
What kind of school is Queen Mary's?
It is a selective state school on Sutton Road in Walsall which provides free education for pupils from the ages of eleven to eighteen, and it belongs to The Mercian Trust. Only boys are admitted to Years 7 to 11. Both boys and girls may enter in Year 12, so the sixth form is mixed.
Its motto, Quas dederis solas semper habebis opes, the school glosses as: it is what you give that you will keep as eternal riches.
From "What kind of school is Queen Mary's?"
The school was founded in 1554, after two Walsall townsmen, George and Nicholas Hawe, brought a petition to found a school before the Privy Council of Queen Mary I.
The four houses come out of that same history. Aragon, Darby, Gryphon and Petypher, the last named after the first known headmaster and Gryphon after the heraldic device of the founders. The values the school names are courage, respect, equality, discipline, integrity and teamwork.
How do you register, and what comes after?
The school does not run its own admissions test. It is part of the West Midlands Grammar Schools Partnership, which sets one entrance test for all of its schools. A child sits that test once, in September of Year 6, and the outcome goes to each partnership school the family has listed. The paper itself is set by GL Assessment, the assessment publisher the partnership uses, so the format is the same at every school in the group.
Before any of that, a parent has to register. It is done online during the summer term of Year 5, inside a window that closes quickly. No primary school does it on your behalf, and no reminder is guaranteed. Missing it costs the whole year, whatever your son might have scored.
Then comes the distinction that produces most of the disappointment. Qualifying on the test and being offered a place are separate decisions. The test establishes the standard. The school's own published arrangements decide, among the boys who qualified, which of them receive an offer.
Two forms, two organisations: the test registration goes to the partnership in Year 5. The application naming your preferred schools goes to your local council in the autumn of Year 6. One does not stand in for the other, and the deadlines are nowhere near each other.
Preparing for a paper that keeps moving
Follow the weighting and start with words. Half the result is comprehension and verbal reasoning together, and both are built slowly. Reading widely, meeting unfamiliar vocabulary in context, and talking about a text out loud will move a score further than any amount of drill.
Non-verbal reasoning repays early exposure and little else. Once a boy knows the question types he improves quickly, then flattens. Mathematics is mostly about working faster and handling problems with more than one step, since the content itself is already familiar from school.
What is genuinely specific to this test is the movement inside a single paper. Comprehension, then a word puzzle, then arithmetic, then a rotated shape, with the clock running throughout. Rehearse that transition rather than each subject in isolation.
Check this first: the figures parents most want are the ones we have left out, because qualifying scores, intake sizes, catchment descriptions and deadlines all change each cycle and get copied around long after they stop being true. Confirm them here:
Queen Mary's Grammar School official website and the partnership's own site. Check the school's official admissions page for this year's figures.
Pathway Eleven has no connection to Queen Mary's Grammar School, to the partnership or to any admissions authority. We cannot register a child, confirm eligibility, or say anything about catchment or your chances. Pathway Eleven is an independent service and is not affiliated with or endorsed by GL Assessment.
Common questions about Queen Mary's Grammar School entry
Is Queen Mary's Grammar School boys only?+
Only boys are admitted to Years 7 to 11, and both boys and girls may enter in Year 12. So it is single-sex for the five years that follow entry at eleven, and co-educational in the sixth form. Girls therefore apply here at sixteen rather than at eleven.
Does the school set its own entrance test?+
No. Entry runs through the shared West Midlands Grammar Schools entrance test, sat once in September of Year 6. One result covers every partnership school a family names, so there is nothing school-specific to revise for beyond the four areas the test samples.
What are the houses at Queen Mary's?+
Aragon, Darby, Gryphon and Petypher. Petypher takes its name from the first known headmaster and Gryphon from the heraldic device of the Hawe brothers, who petitioned for the school before the Privy Council of Queen Mary I. The school was founded in 1554.
Other schools in this consortium
Queen Mary's Grammar School is one of the partnership's Shropshire, Wolverhampton and Walsall schools. The shared entrance test covers all of them, so naming more than one costs a family nothing extra in preparation.
- Queen Mary's High School, girls, in Walsall.
- Wolverhampton Girls' High School, girls, in Wolverhampton.
- Haberdashers' Adams, mixed, in Newport, Shropshire.
- Newport Girls' High School, girls, in Newport, Shropshire.
Where to go next
- The West Midlands 11 plus entrance test, how the shared test works, school by school.
- 11 plus non-verbal reasoning, the quarter that improves fastest and then stops.
- 11 plus preparation in Year 5, the year the registration falls in, term by term.
- All 11 plus guides for parents, everything we have written, in one list.