No. The West Midlands consortium publishes plainly that a child will not be allowed to sit the test more than once, so there is no resit and no second attempt in the same admissions round. Provision for absence, illness and religious observance is set by the test centre and differs by area.
Read this before anything else. Because there is only one sitting, the two things that decide most outcomes are preparation spread over years rather than weeks, and getting the registration in before the deadline. The registration window falls in the summer of Year 5 and the published dates for the current cycle are on the West Midlands dates page. A missed deadline cannot be undone by any amount of work.
Can a child sit the test twice in the same year?
No, and the wording is unambiguous. The King Edward VI Foundation, which arranges the shared entrance test on behalf of the Birmingham grammar schools, publishes: “Your child will not be allowed to sit the test more than once.”
That is a single sitting for the whole region, not one per school. The test is shared between the partnership schools of the West Midlands, so one result is used across every application a family makes within the partnership. No published source states how many of those schools there are, so this page does not print a number; this site carries a page for each of them. If you intend to apply outside Birmingham, our West Midlands dates page records, from the consortium's own registration and checked on 5 September 2026, that you consent to the result being shared by ticking the relevant boxes on the registration form. You do not sit a second paper for a second school.
There is also no facility to sit the test again because a family is unhappy with the score. Results are issued once, ahead of the local authority preference deadline, and the number a family receives is the number that is used.
Can a child take it again the following year?
The entrance test is for entry into Year 7, sat at the start of Year 6, so there is no next year within the normal admissions round. A child does not repeat Year 6 in order to sit again.
What does exist at some schools, and not at others, is admission into a later year group when a place happens to be available. That is called in-year or casual admission, and where a selective school offers it there is usually an assessment of some kind attached. It is not a retake of the entrance test and it is not published as a route anybody should plan for, because it depends entirely on whether a place exists.
This is genuinely a case of it depending on the school, and the only reliable answer is the school's own admissions page. Every partnership school has a page here that links to it, grouped by consortium: start from the West Midlands 11 plus entrance test page. Do not rely on a forum post about another family's outcome, because admissions criteria differ between schools and change between cycles.
What happens if a child is ill on test day?
Contact the test centre and the admissions authority immediately, and do it in writing as well as by telephone. This is the honest answer, and it is deliberately not more specific than the published material allows.
What the Foundation does publish is an arrangement for children who cannot sit on the scheduled Saturday for reasons of religious observance: an alternative test day is offered, and a supporting letter from a religious leader is required by a published deadline ahead of the test. That provision is stated on its test information page along with the deadline for the current cycle.
Provision for illness or unavoidable absence is not set out on that same page, which means it is handled by the test centre and the admissions authority rather than by a published general rule. Anyone telling you online what will happen is guessing. Ring, write, keep a copy, and ask what evidence is needed. Outside Birmingham the arrangements differ again, because Warwickshire, Walsall, Wolverhampton, Shropshire and Telford schools each publish their own admissions criteria and their own contact routes.
Do not wait. Whatever the outcome, the useful thing on the day is a written record made at the time: who you contacted, when, and what you were told. That is the evidence an appeal panel would later want, and it cannot be reconstructed in March.
Steady preparation is the part of this a family does control. Start a free week of Pathway Eleven: the Starting Assessment sets a starting point, and the daily plan carries the work all the way from Year 3 to the one sitting.
A full rehearsal paper, free by email
One sitting is a strong argument for rehearsing the thing more than once. Tell us where to send it and the pack goes over by email: papers in the West Midlands format, the answer sheets that go with them, and worked answers for afterwards, along with the occasional preparation email. The free practice papers page describes what is inside before you ask for it.
Sent. Look out for it in your inbox.
That has gone to the address you gave. The papers travel as a link, not an attachment, so open it beside whichever printer you use.
Give it a few minutes, then try the junk folder. If it is still missing, info@pathwayeleven.co.uk is answered by a person who will send it again.
We use the address for the papers and for the occasional preparation email described above, and for nothing beyond that. Unsubscribing is a single link in any of them, and the Privacy Notice records what is held and how to have it deleted.
What are the alternatives to a retake?
Four routes exist, and they are worth knowing about before results day rather than after it.
| Route | What it is | Where the rules live |
|---|---|---|
| Waiting list | Places released after national offer day as families accept other schools. What a place off the list required in any year is not something we can source, so read the school's own published figures rather than a figure from us. | The admissions authority for each school. |
| Appeal | An independent panel hears the case for admission. Statutory, and governed by the national appeals code rather than by the school. | The School Admission Appeals Code, and the school's own appeal timetable. |
| Independent school assessment | A separate entrance assessment set by the school itself, on its own timetable and in its own format. | Each independent school's admissions page. |
| Later entry, where offered | Admission into a later year group when a place exists, usually with an assessment attached. Not available everywhere. | The school's own in-year admissions page. |
The last of those four has a name parents search for and rarely see written down on a school page: a 12+ or 13+ late-transfer test, where a school or council runs one. We looked for a West Midlands grammar school publishing such a test on 6 September 2026 and did not find one, so treat the name as the thing to ask your preferred school about rather than as something on offer locally.
None of those is a second sitting of the entrance test. They are different doors into the same building, and the first two are decided by admissions rules rather than by another paper.
What does one sitting mean for preparation?
It changes the shape of a sensible plan in three ways.
Start early and go slowly. With no second chance, the risk to manage is a child peaking at the wrong time or arriving exhausted. Work spread from Year 3 or Year 4 is lower risk than an intense Year 5, and it produces a calmer child on the day, which matters more than most families expect.
Rehearse the conditions, not only the content. A single sitting means the first experience of switching between four timed sections should not be the real one. Full papers under real timings from Year 4 onwards remove that particular surprise cheaply. How often to sit one, and what to do with the result, is on 11 plus mock tests online.
Protect the day itself. Ordinary sleep, no new material in the final week, and a calm morning. A child who arrives rested does better than the same child arriving crammed, and there is no rerun available to correct for it. If nerves are the main risk in your house, 11 plus exam stress is the page to read.
Pathway Eleven is built for a preparation that has to be spread rather than crammed. The daily plan of revision, guided teaching and timed practice runs from Year 3 through to the sitting in the September a child enters Year 6, with every question reviewed and approved by a qualified teacher. Full mock rehearsals are part of full membership rather than the trial, and they unlock from Year 4. Because there is only one sitting, having rehearsed the conditions more than once is worth a great deal on the morning. One plan, £49 a month, covering every area the test samples; the first week is free.
The retake questions families ask us
Can a child retake the 11 plus in the West Midlands?+
No. The Foundation that arranges the shared entrance test publishes that a child will not be allowed to sit the test more than once. One sitting produces one result, and that result is used across every application a family makes within the partnership.
Can a child sit the test again the following year?+
There is no repeat sitting within the normal admissions round, because the test is for entry into Year 7 and is sat at the start of Year 6. Some schools admit into later year groups when a place exists, usually with an assessment attached, but that is not a retake and it depends on a vacancy arising.
What happens if my child is ill on the day of the 11 plus?+
Contact the test centre and the admissions authority immediately, by telephone and in writing, and keep a record of what you are told. The Foundation publishes an alternative test day for children who cannot sit on the Saturday for religious reasons, with a supporting letter required by a published deadline. Provision for illness is handled case by case rather than by a published general rule.
Does a child sit a separate test for each grammar school?+
No. The entrance test is shared between the partnership schools across the West Midlands, so one sitting covers applications to all of them. Our West Midlands dates page records, from the consortium's own registration and checked on 5 September 2026, that a family applying outside the area it registered in consents to the result being shared by ticking the relevant boxes on the registration form.
What can a family do if the result is disappointing?+
First, before any route: the score is one morning's position in a cohort, not a measurement of your child, and nothing about their future is settled by it. 11 plus exam stress covers what to say, and what not to say, in the first hour. Then, when you are ready, four routes stay open: the waiting list, which often moves after national offer day; a statutory appeal heard by an independent panel; a separate entrance assessment at an independent school; and, where a school offers it, admission into a later year group when a place exists. None of them is a second sitting of the entrance test.
Sources, and the day each one was read
Where this page states a rule, it quotes the body that published it and links the page the quotation came from, with the day it was read. Where nothing is published, the page says so instead of filling the gap.
- King Edward VI Foundation, Grammar Schools: Entrance Test Information. The published statement that a child will not be allowed to sit the test more than once, the shared-test arrangement across the region, and the alternative test day offered for reasons of religious observance with its supporting-letter deadline. Checked 5 September 2026.
- King Edward VI Foundation, Results and offers. When test scores are issued to families relative to the local authority preference deadline, and the statement that a child below the qualifying score will not be considered for a place. Checked 5 September 2026.
- West Midlands Grammar Schools, The entrance test. The shared regional test, its two papers and four areas, confirming that one sitting serves applications across the partnership. Checked 5 September 2026.
Next steps for your family
- Every date in the current cycle, from the registration window through to results day.
- The West Midlands 11 plus entrance test, the shared paper and a page for each school that uses it.
- What is a good 11 plus score?, the published thresholds and what they actually decide.
- Rehearsing a sitting there is only one of, how a mock works and how often to use one.
- 11 plus exam stress, protecting the child through a single high-stakes day.
- Appeals, waiting lists and the rest of the vocabulary, the admissions terms explained in plain English.
- 11 plus preparation: a guide for parents, the pillar guide and the case for starting early.
- What Pathway Eleven costs, before you commit to anything.
A daily plan that runs from Year 3 to the test, so the work is spread rather than crammed into a final summer.