How to register for the West Midlands 11 plus

There are two, and which one applies to you depends on the schools you are naming rather than on where you live. Getting this wrong is the most expensive mistake in the whole cycle, because neither route can be used after its own closing time.

The first is the shared consortium portal at westmidlandsgrammarschools.co.uk. It covers the selective schools in Birmingham, Walsall, Wolverhampton and Shropshire. The King Edward VI Foundation states that registration for its schools is made there, and that a parent is directed to the relevant website “based on your home address”, with no option of choosing where a child sits the test. Queen Mary's Grammar School, Newport Girls' High School and Haberdashers' Adams all publish the same portal and the same closing time.

The second is Warwickshire's own. The county asks a parent to create or log in to a “Parent Portal account” and submit the online registration form that appears underneath the child's details on that account, with an automatic confirmation email afterwards. It has its own closing date, four days later than the consortium's for the same cycle.

A family naming schools in both places does both. One registration does not cover the other, and no school will tell you that you have missed the second one.

These are the windows published for the cycle that ends in entry in September 2027. Both are now closed, and both are the pattern to expect for the years that follow.

What the third row means, and who it is for. Reasonable adjustments, sometimes called access arrangements, are changes to how a child sits the test rather than to the test itself: extra time, a modified or enlarged paper, coloured overlays, rest breaks, or sitting in a separate room. If your child has an Education, Health and Care Plan, is on the school's SEN register, has a diagnosed condition, or receives any support of this kind in class, this is the deadline that matters most to you and it is not the one most families are watching.

It closes early. The King Edward VI Foundation and Newport Girls' High School both published 4pm on Friday 12 June 2026 for the consortium route, a fortnight ahead of the 4pm, Friday 26 June 2026 close of registration itself, so a family that leaves registration to the last week has already missed it. Both dates were read on those two pages on 5 September 2026. Ask your child's school for the evidence you will be asked for well before the spring term ends, because a school cannot always assemble it inside a fortnight, and a request without evidence behind it is the one that fails.

Warwickshire handles the same thing differently: it asks for a specific testing arrangements form, returned by email “once you have completed your registration”, with medical evidence reviewed professionally. The county publishes no separate closing date for that form, so treat your registration date as the date the form is due with it.

Less than most parents expect, which is why the step is so easy to put off. From what the schools and the county publish, a registration needs your home address, because it decides which test centre a child is allocated to and which portal you are directed to in the first place; your child's date of birth, because the cycle is defined by it; a working email address, since results and arrangements come that way; and, on the Warwickshire route, a Parent Portal account, which takes longer to set up than the form itself.

Two things you do not need. You do not need to have chosen your schools, because the shared result reaches every partnership school you later name. And you do not need to pay: the King Edward VI Foundation states that the grammar schools fund the cost of the testing.

One thing to check while you are there. Our West Midlands dates page records, from the consortium's own registration and sourced on its own check date, that a family intending to apply outside the area it registers in has to tick the boxes consenting to the result being shared. Ticking them costs nothing; leaving them costs a school, and the section below sets out what the two councils publish about it word for word.

What you are registering for is one sitting of the shared entrance test: two multiple-choice papers, in four areas, sat in September of Year 6. The King Edward VI Foundation states that “the test is provided by GL Assessment”. Pathway Eleven is an independent service and is not affiliated with or endorsed by GL Assessment. The West Midlands 11 plus entrance test page sets out what the papers contain.

Fifteen months is long enough to build a habit and short enough to waste. Start your free week: a Starting Assessment first, then the daily plan that follows from it. Every question in the bank is reviewed and approved by a qualified teacher before it reaches a child.

Two of them, and neither is the kind of thing a parent notices while filling in an address. Both are published, both are consent rather than information, and both have a stated consequence for leaving them blank.

The first is data sharing between councils. Birmingham City Council states: “If your child is taking the selective test for grammar schools in Shropshire, Walsall, Warwickshire, or Wolverhampton local councils, you must tick the box(es) on the selective test registration form to consent to your data being shared with the relevant local council. If you do not do this, your child will not be offered a place at the non-Birmingham grammar school on 1 March 2027, even if they scored enough to be offered a place and you included the school as a preference on your secondary school application for September 2027.” The council is equally clear about repairing it later: “Late requests to share your data will not be considered until after offers are made on 1 March 2027.” Read that second sentence twice. A child can sit the test, reach the score and be named on the form, and still not be offered the place, because of an unticked box in the June before. Source: Birmingham City Council, grammar schools in Birmingham. Read 6 September 2026; the page records itself as last updated 18 June 2026.

Warwickshire publishes the same rule from its own end. The county states: “However, if your child has taken another [11 plus] test in a different authority other than Warwickshire, Birmingham, Walsall, Wolverhampton or Shropshire then the score from that [11 plus] test cannot be transferred and considered in relation to an application for any of Warwickshire's grammar schools.” That is the boundary of the shared arrangement: five authorities in, everything else out. Inside it, the county states: “Your results can still be shared between all authorities if you tick the relevant box on the registration form.” Source: Warwickshire County Council, its 11 plus test page. Read 6 September 2026.

The second box is pupil premium, and it sits on the same form with the same finality. Birmingham City Council states: “Parents of children registered for Pupil Premium (free school meals) must tick the relevant box online when registering their child for the test. You cannot apply under Pupil Premium if you forget to tick this box when completing your selective test application.” If your family has been eligible for free school meals, this is a box to find before you start rather than one to look for while you are typing. Source: Birmingham City Council, grammar schools in Birmingham. Read 6 September 2026; the page records itself as last updated 18 June 2026.

Nothing can be done, and the bodies involved say so in unusually blunt language. Queen Mary's Grammar School states that “it is not possible to register for the test after this time”. The consortium's own site simply reads that the registration for September 2027 entry is closed. Warwickshire's announcement says that “any registrations submitted after this date will not be classed as being 'on time'”.

No amount of preparation recovers from it. That is worth saying plainly on a site that sells preparation: the registration deadline is the one date in the year where the work a child has done makes no difference at all, and it falls fifteen months before they would start Year 7, while the whole thing still feels distant.

Almost nowhere. On 5 September 2026, neither the consortium nor any of the councils had published a registration window for entry in September 2028. We are not going to print an expected date, because a plausible date that turns out to be wrong is worse than no date at all.

One school has published, and it is the one to watch. Haberdashers' Adams gives a September 2028 entry timetable alongside its current one: registration from “beginning of May to end of June 2027”, a test in “September 2027”, and an open week in the week of 15 March 2027. That matches the pattern every area has followed, and it is the earliest honest signal available.

So the shape to plan around, if your child is in Year 4 now, is this: the portals open in the first week of May of Year 5, they close at 4pm in the last week of June, the test falls in the September that starts Year 6, results follow in mid-October, and the council preference form closes on 31 October. Everything in that sequence is a consequence of the registration date.

This page will age. The pattern is stable and the specific dates are not, so treat everything above as the shape rather than as your dates, and check the following in the March or April before your child's Year 5 summer term.

• The consortium's published window, at westmidlandsgrammarschools.co.uk, including the closing time and not only the closing day.
• Warwickshire's own window, if you are naming a county school, because it has closed later than the consortium's and is announced separately.
• The reasonable adjustments deadline, which has fallen about a fortnight before registration closes.
• The test date or dates, which have not been the same across the region: the Birmingham and Walsall schools published one Saturday, the two Newport schools published a Monday, and Warwickshire published two days.
• Your own council's preference form dates, which are published separately again, and in Walsall carry a 10pm closing time.

Our West Midlands 11 plus dates page is where the current cycle's published dates live, each one linked to the body that published it, and the area pages for Birmingham, Walsall, Wolverhampton, Warwickshire and Shropshire and Telford carry the same dates in their local form.

Every registration page cited above, with its read date

Nine addresses, each opened and read in full on 5 September 2026. Where two of them publish the same date, both are listed rather than one standing for the other.

Two further addresses were opened on 6 September 2026 for the consent rules below and are listed with that date. The consortium site was re-read the same day and carried only its closed notice.

• West Midlands Grammar Schools, the shared portal, its closing time and its current status.
• King Edward VI Foundation, admissions timetable, the opening date, the reasonable adjustments deadline and the closing time.
• King Edward VI Foundation, entrance test information, registration by home address, test centres and the publisher of the test.
• Warwickshire County Council, registering for the test, the Parent Portal and the testing arrangements form.
• Warwickshire County Council, grammar schools and the 11 plus test, the county window.
• Warwickshire County Council, registration announcement for 2027 entry, the closing time and what counts as on time.
• Queen Mary's Grammar School, September 2027 entry, the portal dates and the statement about late registration.
• Newport Girls' High School, entrance test, the same window and the adjustments deadline.
• Haberdashers' Adams, joining in Year 7, the only published window for entry in September 2028.
• Birmingham City Council, grammar schools in Birmingham, the data-sharing tick box, the consequence of leaving it, the late-request rule and the pupil premium box. Read 6 September 2026.
• Warwickshire County Council, its 11 plus test page, the score-transferability rule and the result-sharing box. Read 6 September 2026.