The Walsall 11 plus is the shared West Midlands entrance test, used by Queen Mary's Grammar School for boys and Queen Mary's High School for girls. Parents register online during the summer term of Year 5, children sit two multiple-choice papers in September of Year 6, and each school then applies its own published admissions arrangements.
The two Queen Mary's schools, and who each one takes
Two, and they are a pair. Queen Mary's Grammar School admits boys to Years 7 to 11, and Queen Mary's High School admits girls. Both belong to The Mercian Trust, both sit on the same shared entrance test, and both open their sixth forms to boys and girls.
Neither school sets a paper of its own. Warwickshire County Council, describing the same assessment from the other end of the region, states that it is “a shared test between the Warwickshire, Birmingham, Walsall, Wolverhampton and Shropshire Grammar Schools”. That is why a Walsall family can put Wolverhampton Girls' High School, a Birmingham school or one of the Shropshire schools on the same preference list without their child sitting anything extra.
What the shared test does not do is make the schools interchangeable. Each publishes its own admissions arrangements, and Queen Mary's Grammar School's are unusually specific about pupil premium and about Walsall primary schools. That section is below.
This page carries a great deal more about the boys' school than about the girls' school, and the reason is what each one publishes rather than what we think of either. If you are reading for a daughter, the two things that matter most are already here: the consortium registration window and the September test date apply to her in exactly the same way, because the entrance test is the same test. Everything after that, the places, the categories and the tie-breaks, lives on Queen Mary's High School's own admissions pages, and that is the page to open rather than this one.
Three published descriptions of one paper
Two papers, both multiple choice, sat in one morning or one afternoon. The King Edward VI Foundation, which arranges the same shared test for the Birmingham schools, states that candidates sit two papers, each “approximately 60 minutes long (which includes time for instructions and example questions)”, and that “there are no sections of writing within the test”.
Four areas are sampled: English comprehension, verbal reasoning, mathematics, and non-verbal and spatial reasoning. The Foundation publishes the weighting as “50% for English/verbal reasoning, 25% for non-verbal reasoning and 25% for mathematics”, so half the result rests on reading and vocabulary. It also 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.
Warwickshire County Council describes the same test as containing “four sections: English, Verbal Reasoning, Non-Verbal Reasoning and Mathematics” in a multiple-choice format, with each of the two tests taking “around 60 minutes to complete”.
Queen Mary's Grammar School, the school whose whole timetable this page transcribes, publishes something shorter. Its September 2027 entry page states that “each test paper is approx. 50 minutes in length”, and it describes the assessment as covering “Verbal Reasoning, Non-Verbal Reasoning and Numerical Reasoning” rather than naming an English comprehension section. The West Midlands Grammar Schools consortium, for its part, publishes “two papers, each approximately 50-60 minutes long”.
Four bodies, one test, four descriptions of it. We have not reconciled them, because reconciling published figures is guessing, and the school with the shortest published figure is the one a Walsall boy is registered through. The letter that arrives before the sitting is the version that applies to your child.
Source: King Edward VI Foundation, entrance test information, Queen Mary's Grammar School, September 2027 entry, West Midlands Grammar Schools, the entrance test and Warwickshire County Council, its 11 plus test page. All checked 5 September 2026.
The West Midlands 11 plus entrance test page goes through the paper structure in more depth, and online 11 plus mock tests explains why switching between four areas under a clock is a skill of its own.
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When does registration close, and what closes with it?
Registration happens online during the summer term of Year 5, and Queen Mary's Grammar School publishes the whole cycle on its own September 2027 entry page. These are its dates, transcribed rather than summarised.
| Stage | Published date |
|---|---|
| Online registration portal opens | 5 May 2026 |
| Registration closes | 26 June 2026, 4pm |
| Entrance test | 12 September 2026, morning or afternoon session |
| Test results sent | No later than 16 October 2026 |
| Local authority application deadline | 31 October 2026 |
| National offer day | 1 March 2027, or the next working day |
The school states plainly that “it is not possible to register for the test after this time”. It is worth reading that sentence once slowly and then putting the closing time in a calendar, because it is the one step in the year that no amount of work by a child can substitute for. The consortium's own site now records the same registration as closed, with the deadline given as 4pm on 26 June 2026.
Nothing had been published for the cycle after this one anywhere we could read on 5 September 2026, so this page prints no expected date for it. How to register for the West Midlands 11 plus sets out the pattern, what is published and what is not.
Source: Queen Mary's Grammar School, September 2027 entry. Checked 5 September 2026.
Nothing on this page moves the June deadline, and nothing on it makes a section shorter. What is left is the year in between. Take a free week of Pathway Eleven, which begins with a Starting Assessment and turns it into a daily plan. Every question in the bank is reviewed and approved by a qualified teacher before it reaches a child. Full mock rehearsals are part of full membership rather than the trial, and they unlock from Year 4.
Access arrangements close a fortnight before registration does
Access arrangements, which the consortium timetable calls reasonable adjustments, are the practical changes that let a child sit the same paper on fair terms: additional time, an enlarged or otherwise modified paper, a coloured overlay, planned rest breaks, or a separate room away from the noise of a hall.
They exist for children who are already supported in some way. An education, health and care plan, a place on the school's SEN register, a diagnosed condition affecting reading, handwriting, concentration, hearing or sight, or an arrangement the school already makes in its own assessments all point the same way. The evidence has to come from the school, because it is the school that can say what a child normally receives, so the conversation starts with the class teacher or the SENCo and not with a form.
Then the timing. The consortium portal that Walsall families register on published a deadline of 4pm on Friday 12 June 2026 for reasonable adjustments, against 4pm on Friday 26 June 2026 for registration itself. The adjustments door therefore shuts fourteen days before the one everybody talks about. A parent who registers on 25 June, comfortably inside the deadline they were told about, has already missed the deadline that would have mattered most to their child. If any of the descriptions above sound like your family, raise it in the spring term.
Source: King Edward VI Foundation, admissions timetable, which publishes both dates for the shared portal. Checked 5 September 2026.
How does Queen Mary's decide who gets a place?
The school publishes 180 places for boys entering Year 7 in September 2027, and allocates them by test score inside a published order of categories. Looked-after and previously looked-after children who reach the qualifying score come first, by rank order of standardised score. Next come children eligible for pupil premium at the time of the test who reach the qualifying score, again by rank order, but “limited to no more than 30% of students in this category (currently 54 places)”. Remaining places go to other qualifying candidates by rank order.
Inside the pupil premium category the school publishes a tie-break of its own, which is worth knowing if you live in the borough: priority goes “for those students attending a State-funded Primary School in Walsall at the time of the Test”.
The qualifying score is set after the test, not before it. Queen Mary's states that the score “is determined by the School's Governors after the Test results are available”, and that the figure shown on its page is “an approximate minimum qualifying score and is subject to analysis and Governors' confirmation in November 2026”. The school itself calls the figure approximate until its Governors confirm it in November 2026, so treat any firm number for an unconfirmed cycle, from anywhere, as provisional.
Birmingham publishes its thresholds differently: a fixed qualifying score and a separate priority score, both explained on our page about Birmingham 11 plus standardised scores. Two schools on one test, two different ways of using the number, which is exactly why a preference order needs the arrangements read rather than assumed.
How do you apply for the place itself?
Through Walsall Council, not through the schools. The council publishes an application portal open “11 September until 31 October 2026” for entry in September 2027, a national closing date of “31 October 2026 (10pm)” for an on-time application, and national offer day on 1 March 2027, when families are told by email which school has been offered.
Two details catch people out. The first is the 10pm cut-off: the closing time is not midnight. The second is that the council lists both Queen Mary's Grammar School and Queen Mary's High School among the schools that need a supplementary form alongside the online application, so the council form on its own is not the whole job.
Registering for the entrance test in June and applying for a school place in October are two separate acts, sent to two different organisations, four months apart. Our page on West Midlands 11 plus results covers the weeks between the score arriving and the form closing.
Source: Walsall Council, apply for a secondary school place. Checked 5 September 2026.
What is not published, and what we have left out?
Queen Mary's High School keeps its admissions detail behind sub-pages and downloadable documents. On 5 September 2026 its admissions landing page offered links to Year 7 entry for September 2026 and September 2027, an admissions timeline and a prospectus, but no dates that could be read as text. We have therefore transcribed nothing for it. Its brother school publishes the shared timetable, and assuming the two match is inference rather than evidence.
Nothing on this page is a prediction. Qualifying scores, place numbers, priority categories and deadlines are set for each cycle and republished each year, so a figure copied onto any third-party page, this one included, goes out of date quickly. That is the reason every number above carries the date it was read and a link to the page it was read on.
Check this first: every figure above was read on the school or council page it links to on 5 September 2026. Before you act on any of it, open that page and read it for the year your child sits.
Queen Mary's Grammar School, Queen Mary's High School and the consortium'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 Queen Mary's High School, to The Mercian Trust, to the consortium or to Walsall Council. We cannot register a child, confirm eligibility, or say anything about catchment or your chances.
Walsall parents ask these
Which schools does the Walsall 11 plus cover?+
Queen Mary's Grammar School, which admits boys, and Queen Mary's High School, which admits girls. Both are in The Mercian Trust and both use the shared West Midlands entrance test. The registration, the marking and the result are shared. The sitting is not: the Newport schools published a different day, and Warwickshire runs a separate registration with a closing time of its own.
When does registration close for the Walsall 11 plus?+
For entry in September 2027, Queen Mary's Grammar School published a portal opening on 5 May 2026 and closing at 4pm on 26 June 2026, and states that it is not possible to register for the test after that time. The window for the following year had not been published when this page was checked on 5 September 2026.
What is the qualifying score at Queen Mary's Grammar School?+
The school states that the qualifying score is determined by its Governors after the test results are available, and describes the figure on its page as an approximate minimum subject to analysis and Governors' confirmation in November 2026. Until that confirmation, any firm figure for the cycle is provisional wherever it is published.
How many places are there at Queen Mary's Grammar School?+
The school publishes 180 places for boys entering Year 7 in September 2027. They are allocated by rank order of standardised score inside published categories, with looked-after children first, then pupil premium candidates, whom the school limits to no more than 30% of students in this category (currently 54 places), then other qualifying candidates.
Do I apply to the school or to Walsall Council?+
To the council, and by 10pm on 31 October 2026 for entry in September 2027. Walsall Council also lists both Queen Mary's schools among those needing a supplementary form alongside the online application, so the council form on its own is not the whole job. Registering for the test in June is a separate step.
Why are no dates shown for Queen Mary's High School?+
Because none could be read on 5 September 2026. The school keeps its admissions detail behind sub-pages and downloadable documents, so nothing has been transcribed for it here. Its brother school publishes the shared timetable, but assuming the two match would be inference rather than evidence.
Five pages worth reading after this one
Walsall is a two-school borough with one enormous published detail in it, the pupil premium category and the Walsall primary tie-break inside it, and a family that reads the arrangements rather than a summary of them will make a better preference order than one that does not. It is also worth saying, on a page that spends this long on categories and rank order, that most children who sit this test will not be offered a selective place. That is a statement about how many places exist, not about a child who did not get one. West Midlands 11 plus results covers what October actually looks like, and how much 11 plus practice a day is there for the months when a family needs a brake rather than an accelerator.
- The West Midlands 11 plus entrance test, what the two papers are made of and which schools read the result.
- How to register for the West Midlands 11 plus, what the consortium form asks for, and the consent boxes inside it.
- West Midlands 11 plus results, results day, the preference form, waiting lists and appeals.
- How much 11 plus practice a day, the shape of a session and the signs that it has become too much.
- The Birmingham 11 plus, the eight city schools a Walsall family can also name.
- The Wolverhampton 11 plus, the neighbouring authority on the same test.
- West Midlands 11 plus dates and deadlines, all five areas on one page, with the sitting day given school by school.
- 11 plus preparation in Year 5, how the year in which registration closes is usually spent.
- All 11 plus guides for parents, every guide on the site, listed together.
The free week begins with a Starting Assessment and builds a daily plan out of the result, so the practice starts where the gaps are. Full mock rehearsals are part of full membership rather than the trial, and they unlock from Year 4.
Four publishers, and the day each page was read
Every date, figure and policy on this page was read on the publishing body's own page on 5 September 2026.
- Queen Mary's Grammar School, September 2027 entry, the registration window, test date, results date, places and admission categories.
- Walsall Council, apply for a secondary school place, the application window, the 10pm closing time and the supplementary forms.
- King Edward VI Foundation, entrance test information, the papers, the timings and the weighting of the shared test.
- Warwickshire County Council, its 11 plus test page, a fourth published description of the same paper.
- West Midlands Grammar Schools, the shared portal and the closed-window notice for this cycle.
- West Midlands Grammar Schools, the entrance test, the consortium's own “approximately 50-60 minutes” description of a paper.
- King Edward VI Foundation, admissions timetable, the reasonable adjustments deadline of 4pm on 12 June 2026 for the shared portal.
- Queen Mary's High School, checked and found to publish its admissions detail behind sub-pages and documents rather than as readable text.