The Birmingham 11 plus result is a standardised age score, not a mark out of a total. It is built from four sections weighted 50% English and verbal reasoning, 25% non-verbal reasoning and 25% mathematics, each adjusted for age. For 2027 entry the qualifying score is 205 and the priority score is 224.
Everything below is Birmingham arithmetic, threshold by threshold and year by year; the admissions cycle surrounding these figures, and the broader version of the question for families outside the city, are handled elsewhere on the site. If you want the general principle rather than the local numbers, start with what counts as a good score before any city is named.
Who this page is for. Parents whose child is going into Year 4 or Year 5 and who want to understand the scoring years before it matters, rather than reading it for the first time on a results letter. The figures below come from the cycle currently published, which is entry in September 2027. Your child's cycle will have its own numbers, published on the same pages, and the shape of the year will look the same.
Who sets the Birmingham 11 plus score?
The King Edward VI Foundation arranges the entrance test on behalf of the eight grammar schools in Birmingham: Bishop Vesey's Grammar School for Boys, King Edward VI Aston School, King Edward VI Camp Hill School for Boys, King Edward VI Camp Hill School for Girls, King Edward VI Five Ways School, King Edward VI Handsworth School for Girls, King Edward VI Handsworth Grammar School for Boys, and Sutton Coldfield Grammar School for Girls.
The Foundation states that the test is provided by GL Assessment, and that it is shared with the other grammar schools in the West Midlands, so a child sits one test to be eligible to apply to any of the nineteen grammar schools in the region. If you intend to apply outside Birmingham you have to tick the relevant boxes on the registration form to consent to your child's result being shared.
Pathway Eleven has no connection to the Foundation or to any admissions office. Everything on this page is a reading of published material, with the source linked beside it, so that you can check it yourself. Pathway Eleven is an independent service and is not affiliated with or endorsed by GL Assessment.
This page takes the scoring on its own. For the rest of what those eight schools share, the registration a parent completes in Year 5 and what happens in the hall on the day, read the Birmingham 11 plus in full: schools, registration and test day.
What is a standardised age score?
A standardised age score is not a mark. It is a position, expressed as a number, and the number has been adjusted for age. The publisher behind the paper defines the term itself. GL Assessment, which provides the test, describes a standard age score in its own guide to standardised tests as a score where “the average score is 100” and which “takes into account the pupil's age in years and months”, so that a pupil is compared with a national sample of pupils of the same age. GL Assessment's support documentation for its standardised assessments adds that “standard scores have a mean (average) of 100 and a standard deviation of 15”.
The Foundation applies that idea section by section. Its published wording is that “the scores for each section are standardised to take into account differences in age, meaning younger children are not disadvantaged compared to children in the same cohort who could be almost a year older”. That is the entire mechanism a parent needs: your child is being compared with children of the same age in months, not with the year group as a lump.
What this does not mean. Age standardisation is not a bonus for being young and it is not a penalty for being old. It removes an advantage that would otherwise exist. A summer-born child still has to answer the questions; the adjustment only stops eleven months of extra growing up from counting as ability.
How are the four sections weighted?
The Foundation publishes the weighting plainly: “the weightings for the test results are 50% for English/verbal reasoning, 25% for non-verbal reasoning and 25% for mathematics.” The test itself is two papers, each approximately sixty minutes long including instructions and example questions, and each paper is divided into smaller individually timed sections covering all four areas.
| Section | Share of the result | What that means in practice |
|---|---|---|
| English comprehension and verbal reasoning | 50% | Worth as much as the other two areas put together. A weakness here costs twice what the same weakness costs in mathematics. |
| Non-verbal and spatial reasoning | 25% | The area children improve on fastest once they have met it, and then flatten out. |
| Mathematics | 25% | The area school already covers most thoroughly, so the usual gap is pace rather than content. |
Source: King Edward VI Foundation, Grammar Schools – Entrance Test Information. Checked 31 August 2026.
Want all four areas moving daily, weighted the way the test is? Start a free week of Pathway Eleven.
Can you convert a raw mark into a standardised score?
Parents look for one, and several sites offer one. We are not going to, and the reason is a single published sentence. On its results page the Foundation states: “We do not provide raw scores and we do not provide information that details how many available marks there are in each section or in the test as a whole.”
Read that again, because it settles the question. Nobody outside the admissions office knows how many marks each section carries. Nobody outside it has the standardisation tables that turn a mark into a score for a child of a given age in months. A tool that asks for a mock score and a date of birth and returns “your estimated standardised score is 219” has invented both halves of that sum, and it will be believed, because it looks like arithmetic.
What can be done honestly is the opposite direction: take the score a family already has, or a target they are aiming at, and set it against the thresholds and cut-offs that are published. That is the rest of this page.
The two published thresholds: 205 and 224
For 2027 entry the Foundation publishes two numbers, and they do different jobs.
| Threshold | Score | What it does | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Qualifying score | 205 | Applies to all of the Birmingham grammar schools. Below it, a child is not considered for a place, and the Foundation advises not listing the school on the preference form. | Results and offers |
| Priority score | 224 | Applies to the King Edward VI grammar schools. It moves an application into a higher admissions category at several of them, typically alongside living inside the catchment area. | Results and offers |
Both numbers are set for each admissions cycle. Do not carry them forward to your child's year without checking the published figure for that year.
Neither figure means much on the October morning it is read against without the calendar around it, and that calendar is a separate guide: when the score arrives and what happens next covers the results letter, the council preference form, waiting lists and the appeal route.
What score has actually been needed?
The qualifying score gets a child considered. It does not get them a place. Each school then applies its own published admissions criteria, and the Foundation publishes the score at which the last offer was made on national offer day in March, for each school and each category.
The table below shows the latest year only, one row per school: the category for applicants who are not in the looked-after or Pupil Premium categories and, where a school has one, who are not being counted as inside the catchment area. It is the category most families fall into, and it is the highest bar at every school.
The earlier years are not repeated here. The year-by-year history, alongside the other admissions categories, the waiting-list scores and the appeal outcomes, is kept on the West Midlands 11 plus results tracker, one figure with one source and one check date per school: what Bishop Vesey's has needed year by year and what Five Ways has needed year by year are the two that move most. This page explains what the score is and how it is built; the tracker publishes what the figures have been.
| School | 2026 entry |
|---|---|
| Bishop Vesey's Grammar School (boys) | 229 |
| King Edward VI Aston School (boys) | 217, 9442 metres |
| King Edward VI Camp Hill School for Boys | 254, 6831 metres |
| King Edward VI Camp Hill School for Girls | 255, 6343 metres |
| King Edward VI Five Ways School (co-ed) | No offers made from this category in March |
| King Edward VI Handsworth Grammar School for Boys | 216, 13733 metres |
| King Edward VI Handsworth School for Girls | 219, 8195 metres |
| Sutton Coldfield Grammar School for Girls | 227 |
Where a figure is followed by a distance, applicants on that score were separated by how far they lived from the school, and the distance shown is that of the last child offered. Where a cell says no offers were made from the category, the school had already filled its places from a higher category before reaching it. The Foundation publishes the full breakdown, including the looked-after, Pupil Premium and catchment categories, which are generally lower: read it on the Results and offers page before drawing any conclusion about your own family, because which category you fall into changes the number that applies to you.
Do not treat these as target scores. They are a record of what happened in one particular year, with one particular cohort and one particular set of applications. They move by several points from year to year, they collapse entirely when a school fills from its catchment category, and they are published after the fact. They are useful for understanding the shape of the competition and useless as a prediction.
Three worked examples, using only published figures
These walk a score through the published thresholds and the published cut-offs. No estimation is involved: every number in them is a published figure with its source, either from the table above or, where an earlier year is quoted, from the West Midlands 11 plus results tracker.
| Score | Against the thresholds | What the published history shows |
|---|---|---|
| 203 | Below the qualifying score of 205. | The Foundation states that a child who does not achieve the qualifying score or above will not be considered for a place, and advises not listing the school on the preference form. Two points is a whole decision, which is why the number gets the attention it does. |
| 216 | Above 205, below the priority score of 224. | Eligible everywhere, competitive in some places and not in others. In the general category, 216 was the score of the last March offer at Handsworth Grammar School for Boys for 2026 entry and at Handsworth School for Girls for 2025 entry. In the same years it was far below the general-category figure at Camp Hill for Boys, which was 254 for 2026 entry. |
| 230 | Above both, so in priority-score territory. | Above the general-category figure at five of the eight schools for 2026 entry, and below it at Camp Hill for Boys and Camp Hill for Girls, where the figures were 254 and 255. At schools with a catchment category, a score above 224 may put the application in a category that is decided by distance rather than by score at all. |
The pattern to take away is that the score is one of two things being weighed, and the other is which admissions category your family falls into. A parent who knows only the score knows half the picture.
What all this says about preparing in Year 4 and Year 5
The weighting is the most useful thing on this page for a family whose child has years to go, and it is the thing least often acted on. Half the result rests on English comprehension and verbal reasoning. Most preparation energy goes the other way, because non-verbal reasoning looks alien and therefore feels urgent, while reading feels like something already happening in the background.
It is the wrong instinct. Non-verbal reasoning improves quickly once a child has met the question types and then flattens; meeting it early does most of the available work. Vocabulary and comprehension move slowly, keep moving for years, and carry twice the weight. A child who reads widely from Year 4 arrives with an advantage that cannot be bought back in a single summer.
Mathematics sits between the two. School covers most of the content, so the gap is usually pace and multi-step problems rather than knowledge, and secure recall of number facts buys more marks per hour of practice than anything else in that quarter of the result.
Pathway Eleven is an online 11 plus preparation service that gives each child a personalised daily plan of revision, guided teaching, timed practice and full mock papers, with every question reviewed and approved by a qualified teacher. A Starting Assessment finds the level first, so the plan gives more attention to whichever area is weakest rather than spreading time evenly out of habit. One monthly price covers all of it, and the first week is free.
Common questions about Birmingham 11 plus scores
What is a standardised age score in the Birmingham 11 plus?+
It is a score adjusted for how old the child was on the day, so that a child born in August is not compared unfairly with a classmate born the previous September. The King Edward VI Foundation states that the scores for each section are standardised to take into account differences in age, meaning younger children are not disadvantaged compared to children in the same cohort who could be almost a year older.
Can you convert a raw mark into a Birmingham 11 plus standardised score?+
No, and nobody outside the admissions office can. The Foundation publishes that it does not provide raw scores and does not provide information that details how many available marks there are in each section or in the test as a whole. Without the number of marks available and the standardisation tables, any conversion would be guesswork dressed up as arithmetic.
What is the qualifying score for Birmingham grammar schools?+
For 2027 entry the Foundation has published a qualifying score of 205 for all of the Birmingham grammar schools. A child who does not reach it is not considered for a place, and the Foundation advises that you should not list the school on the preference form. The figure is set for each cycle, so check the published number for the year your child sits.
What is the priority score, and how is it different?+
For 2027 entry the priority score for the King Edward VI grammar schools is 224. It sits above the qualifying score of 205 and puts an application into a higher admissions category at several of the schools. Qualifying makes a child eligible to be considered; the priority score changes which queue they are considered in.
How are the four subjects weighted in the Birmingham 11 plus?+
The Foundation publishes the weightings as 50% for English and verbal reasoning, 25% for non-verbal reasoning and 25% for mathematics. English and verbal reasoning together therefore carry as much as mathematics and non-verbal reasoning combined, which is worth knowing years before anyone sits anything.
Does the qualifying score mean a place is offered?+
No. Reaching the qualifying score makes a child eligible to be considered. Offers are then made against each school's own published admissions criteria, which is why the published cut-off scores for a school are usually well above 205 and differ between schools and between categories.
Why do the published cut-off scores differ so much between schools?+
Because each school prioritises applications differently. Several schools fill most of their places from applicants who reached the priority score and live inside the catchment area, so in some years no offers were made at all from the general category, and in others the score needed there was far above the priority score.
Where should a family in Year 4 or Year 5 put its effort?+
Into reading and vocabulary, because the published weighting puts half the result on English and verbal reasoning and both of those move slowly. Non-verbal reasoning responds quickly to being met early, and mathematics is the area school already covers most thoroughly, so it usually needs pace rather than new content.
Which schools use this standardised score?
The eight Birmingham schools below publish their own cut-off history, and the eleven others use the same standardised score in the same way. There is a page for each.
Shropshire, Wolverhampton and Walsall
Birmingham
- Bishop Vesey's Grammar School
- King Edward VI Aston School
- King Edward VI Camp Hill School for Boys
- King Edward VI Camp Hill School for Girls
- King Edward VI Five Ways School
- King Edward VI Handsworth Grammar School for Boys
- King Edward VI Handsworth School for Girls
- Sutton Coldfield Grammar School for Girls
The West Midlands 11 plus entrance test page explains the papers themselves, and links every school in one place.
Where to go next
- The West Midlands 11 plus results tracker, the same cut-off history for every school in the region, with the candidate score distribution beside it.
- West Midlands 11 plus dates and deadlines, the registration, test, results and offer dates for the current cycle, each one sourced.
- The West Midlands 11 plus entrance test, what the two papers contain and how the year is shaped.
- What is the 11 plus?, the test explained from scratch, including how standardised scores work in general.
- 11 plus preparation in Year 4 and in Year 5, term-by-term plans for the two years that decide most of the outcome.
- Verbal reasoning, the half of the weighting that most families under-prepare.
- What is a good 11 plus score?, the shorter answer to the question this page reads as.
- 11 plus mock exams in Birmingham, who runs them, and when one is worth sitting.
- How to choose an 11 plus tutor in Birmingham, the jobs a tutor does, and what to ask first.
A Starting Assessment, then daily work weighted towards whichever area your child needs most.
Every figure on this page was checked against the schools' own published pages on 31 August 2026, and the offer scores were re-checked on 7 September 2026.