The Kent Test: Format, Dates and How to Prepare

Parents searching for the Kent Test pass mark may still see 332 repeated as if it were fixed. That was the overall threshold for the 2025 test. For the 2026 test, Kent County Council set the grammar assessment threshold at 345 overall, with no individual score below 111. Reaching that threshold means a child is assessed as suitable for grammar education; it does not guarantee a place at any particular school.

The threshold is not a permanent number. Kent standardises scores after children have sat the papers and says the score for each paper and the aggregate score change yearly. The county threshold marks a child as suitable for grammar education; it does not admit anyone. Each school applies its own published admissions criteria, which can include different priority groups, score requirements and distance rules.

This guide brings together the test format, current results, school admissions criteria and the separate steps in the admissions process. The 2026 results are out. For September 2027 entry, the Kent secondary application deadline is Monday 2 November 2026. Formats and rules differ by area, so if you are applying outside Kent, treat this as a model rather than a rulebook.

What is the Kent Test, and what does passing it actually get you?

The Kent Test is Kent County Council’s Procedure for Entrance to Secondary Education (PESE) assessment. It produces three standardised scores (English, maths and reasoning) plus an aggregate, and it is used to decide whether a child is assessed as suitable for grammar education in Kent. Kent grammar schools are designed to provide for children in roughly the top 25 per cent of the ability range.

For children sitting the test in 2027 for September 2028 entry, Quest Assessments will deliver the Kent Test. Kent County Council says the test’s purpose, format and timing, and the admissions process, eligibility, support arrangements and Headteacher Assessments will stay the same. New familiarisation materials will be published when available; use Kent’s official Kent Test page for updates.

Two limits matter. First, the Kent Test is generally used for Kent grammar schools, while other selective areas have their own assessments. There is a specific exception in Medway: Chatham Grammar accepts a suitable result through either the Kent Test or Medway Test. Check each school's current admissions policy if you are applying across areas. Our overview of grammar schools and their entrance tests by area sets out how the regional systems differ.

Second, passing does not guarantee a place. A grammar assessment makes your child eligible to be considered at schools that require it. Each school applies its own ordered oversubscription criteria, which may give priority to groups such as looked-after children, siblings or applicants meeting a score rule. Distance can be a tie-breaker or a criterion within a category. Parents who read "pass" as "in" may be surprised on National Offer Day.

What are the key Kent Test dates?

For September 2027 entry, registration opened on 1 June and closed on 1 July 2026. Kent primary school pupils sat the test on 10 September; pupils who did not attend a Kent primary school sat on 12 or 13 September. Results were released on 15 October. Kent's current application page and determined scheme give Monday 2 November 2026, while the national School Admissions Code gives 31 October for secondary applications. These published sources differ; the Code does not state a weekend extension for this deadline. Submit by 31 October if you can, and check your home council's instructions. If you need to use Kent's later published date, submit promptly and ask Kent to confirm how your application will be treated. See Kent’s secondary school places page and its 2027-28 admissions scheme for the official dates.

Kent publishes the dates for each cycle on its Kent Test pages, so check those for the cycle you need.

Results arrive before the school application deadline, so use the time to read each school's current admissions policy and check the criteria that apply to your child. Confirm live dates on the Kent County Council Kent Test pages, because they change by cycle.

The lookup below lists these dates with a link to the council's registration page. Pick another area to compare.

How did registration work, and what if you missed 1 July?

Parents normally register through Kent County Council's online admissions system during the June window. Registration for September 2027 entry closed on 1 July 2026. Kent's current registration guidance now tells families who still need their child to take this cycle's test to email Kent Admissions with the child's name, date of birth, full address and current school, and wait for next steps. Contact the council directly; do not assume that a late request means a test place is confirmed. Kent's scheme also allows testing by Thursday 31 December 2026 for a child who was ill on the test dates with a doctor's certificate, or who moved into Kent after registration closed. A move needs proof of residency and a school application by Monday 7 December 2026.

Highsted and Borden offer optional school assessments alongside the Kent Test. For the 2027 entry cycle, both required applicants to register separately for the optional assessment and to take the Kent Test. Their registration materials do not establish whether results are shared with primary schools, so ask each school how it will communicate the outcome.

For a future cycle, watch Kent's official registration page for the opening and closing dates. Tell your child's primary school when you register so it can arrange the test. If any access arrangement might be needed, start that conversation with the school well before the registration deadline, because supporting evidence has its own submission requirements.

• If you are considering Highsted or Borden, check their current pages and complete their separate test registrations as well.

What is actually in the Kent Test, and how long is each section?

The test is two multiple-choice papers plus a writing exercise. Paper 1 covers English and maths, at 30 minutes each. Within each of those 30 minutes sits a 5-minute practice exercise followed by a 25-minute test. The English section is a comprehension exercise plus literacy questions covering spelling, punctuation and grammar.

The reasoning paper takes about an hour including practice, and includes verbal reasoning (thinking using words and symbols), non-verbal reasoning (relationships between shapes and patterns) and spatial reasoning (manipulating shapes and space in your head). The KCC-linked GL familiarisation booklet for the 2026 sitting describes a 10-minute verbal-reasoning practice section followed by a 20-minute test. It describes non-verbal and spatial reasoning as smaller individually timed subtests, each with untimed practice and about 4 to 5 minutes for questions. The council has appointed Quest for the 2027 sitting, so check its new familiarisation materials when published.

If you practise reasoning questions, try the short timed sections described in the current familiarisation material as well as untimed examples. Practice can help a child learn the instructions and answer-sheet process, but it cannot predict a standardised test score. Our breakdowns of non-verbal reasoning question types and verbal reasoning question families describe example question types.

Both multiple-choice papers use a separate answer sheet and are marked by an automated marking machine. Transferring answers accurately to a separate sheet under time pressure is a skill in its own right, and it is worth rehearsing on full-length timed papers rather than discovering it on the day.

Why is the writing task 40 minutes if it usually is not marked?

The writing exercise runs for 40 minutes including 10 minutes of planning. KCC says it is not marked, but a local Headteacher Assessment Panel may consider it as part of the panel's review.

The panel considers a range of evidence, including school work and the writing task. The admissions guide says it considers the full range of work regardless of which test scores were below the threshold. The writing task is one part of that evidence, not a separate mark or a promise that a particular result will change an assessment.

The useful preparation is not elaborate. Teach your child to actually use the 10 minutes: pick one title quickly, sketch a shape (opening, complication, turn, ending), decide on one main character and stick to it. The planning period is part of the stated format. Practise following those instructions and discuss writing with the teacher rather than treating one story structure as a guaranteed way to improve the assessment.

What was the Kent Test threshold in 2026?

Kent calls this the grammar school threshold. The annual figure is set after children have taken the test, so a past threshold is not a target or guarantee for a future cohort. The published thresholds show why the often-repeated 332 is out of date for the latest results:

Test sat	September entry	Overall threshold	Minimum component score
2025	2026	332	108
2026	2027	345	111

Kent’s 2026 results page confirms the latest threshold. The 2025 figure is recorded in a Kent Council PESE 2025 threshold statement. Test years and entry years are different: pupils normally sit the test in the September before they enter Year 7.

Standardisation compares each child's performance with the cohort, with an adjustment for age. Both the total threshold and the minimum component score can change each year.

If the final assessment is High School (H), the child is not assessed as suitable for a Kent grammar place through the normal route. Parents can still name a grammar school on the SCAF and have a right to appeal after a refusal. A separate Headteacher Assessment may apply in some cases; the school, not the parent, makes that referral. That per-paper floor is why lopsided preparation is risky: a very strong mathematician with weak verbal reasoning can clear the aggregate and still fall below the minimum in one section.

Practice-paper results cannot be converted directly into Kent's age-standardised scores. Use practice to identify question types your child wants to review and to become familiar with the test format; do not treat a small raw-mark gap as a reliable forecast of the Kent assessment. The section-by-section progress tracker can help organise practice, but it does not predict the result or determine eligibility.

What is the head teacher assessment, and can parents request it?

This is the most widely misunderstood part of the Kent system, and getting it right can materially change what a family does in October.

The Headteacher Assessment is not an appeal that parents lodge. It is a referral made through the primary school. The panel considers evidence including school work and the writing task. Kent's admissions guide says it considers the full range of work regardless of which scores were below the threshold; it is not limited to children who missed by one or two marks.

The crucial distinction is that parents cannot appeal the Kent assessment decision itself. The later right of appeal is against refusal of a named school place, after National Offer Day. If the result letter has an unfamiliar code or no score, ask Kent Admissions or the primary school to explain it.

If your child's final result is not a grammar assessment, ask the primary school to explain whether Headteacher Assessment was considered and how it applied to your child. Do not assume the October result opens a new referral window. The later admission appeal concerns a refused school place.

How can a school's admissions criteria differ from the county threshold?

Because the county threshold answers a different question. It says a child is suitable for grammar education. It says nothing about whether a particular oversubscribed school has room.

The Skinners' School gives a current example of a school-specific score rule. Its 15 October 2026 information for September 2027 entry reports a 385 score for the relevant West Kent score-ranked category, compared with Kent's 345 assessment threshold. This is a criterion within the school's admissions policy, not a past lowest-offer score or a guarantee of a place.

That is not a single score-ranked list. The policy has separate categories, including pupil-premium places and West Kent Governors' places, with their own rules and ranking. Read the full admissions arrangements to see which category applies and what happens if a category has places left. A score of 385 does not guarantee an offer, and a lower qualifying score alone does not establish that every route is closed.

Check each school's current rules before ranking it on the SCAF. Past admissions outcomes describe one intake; they are not a prediction for this one. Rank schools in your genuine order of preference and include options whose published criteria you have checked.

What about out-of-county children, extra school tests and access arrangements?

Children who do not attend a Kent primary school sit on the weekend session rather than the weekday session used for children attending Kent primary schools. This distinction is based on school attendance, not residence. Check the council's current registration guidance for the date and venue; registration requirements and deadlines can change by cycle.

Some schools run additional assessments of their own on top of the county test, Highsted and Borden being the clearest example, with their separate registration and their separate results. Check each school's admissions page for extra tests before the summer, not in September.

If your child may need access arrangements, KCC says to discuss this with the primary school's SENCO before registering. The school must apply for any necessary arrangements, and KCC's 2026 guidance says requests will not be accepted after 1 July. The public guidance reviewed here does not set out a complete list of arrangements or a universal extra-time limit, so ask the school and council about the evidence and process for your child's circumstances. See KCC's Kent Test guidance for children with SEND.

How should you prepare, and what happens on results day?

Preparation can include reading the official familiarisation material, practising sample questions and learning how to mark answers on a separate answer sheet. These activities help children understand the format; practice scores do not establish readiness or predict a Kent standardised score. Our Kent-style practice papers and timed practice tests are optional practice resources, not official Kent Test papers or an assessment of admission eligibility. If you want a schedule, our year-by-year 11+ preparation plan is one possible way to organise practice.

For September 2027 entry, results were released on 15 October and the Kent secondary application deadline is 2 November 2026. Compare each score with the 2026 assessment threshold above, then check the admission policy and recent offer information for every school you are considering. Submit your school preferences to Kent by the deadline even if your child was not assessed as suitable for grammar education: Kent says an application to a grammar school will be refused on 1 March 2027 if the child was not assessed as suitable, and parents then have the right to appeal that refusal. There is no right of appeal against the assessment decision itself. If the outcome is narrowly negative, ask the primary school to explain the assessment process and keep relevant evidence for any later admission appeal.

One closing caution. Dates, thresholds and school admissions criteria can change between cycles. Check current information on the council's pages and each school's admissions policy before applying. The Kent Test threshold is one part of the process; the school named on an application applies its own published criteria.