Registration
Registration for the Kent Test for children due to start secondary school in September 2024 will open on Thursday 1 June 2023. Please visit this page nearer the time when it will be updated with the latest information and dates.
Assessment is normally done through testing during the autumn term. This year, the tests took place on 7/8 September 2023 for pupils in Kent primary schools, and on the weekend of Saturday 9 September for other pupils. Any reference to ‘Kent Test’ or ‘registration’ does not guarantee when or if testing will take place.
Who can take the Kent Test
Children currently in Year 6 who were born between 1 September 2012 and 31 August 2013 can take the 2023 Kent Test. If your child is outside this age range but is expected to transfer to secondary school in September 2024, please email kent.admissions@kent.gov.uk.
Things to consider before you register
- The test is only valid for Kent grammar schools. Medway Council has its own Medway Test and London Borough of Bexley has its own Bexley selection test.
- Being grammar assessed in the Kent Test does not guarantee your child a place in a Kent grammar school.
- Make sure you know where the Kent grammar schools (PDF, 118.9 KB) are, and what the admissions criteria are for the school(s) you are interested in. You can also search for Kent grammar schools in our Kent schools search.
- Many children will find the test difficult. Grammar schools in Kent provide for children in about the top 25% of the ability range. You may want to discuss your child’s academic achievement with their primary school before you decide whether to register them for the Kent Test.
If you live outside Kent
You can register your child for testing, but please only do so if you intend to apply for a place at a Kent grammar school. Every year, time and resources are wasted when children who are registered to take the test do not turn up.
Some of Kent’s grammar schools – particularly those which are most likely to offer places to children from outside Kent – give priority to those with the highest scores
Tests
The tests are multiple-choice with a separate answer sheet. They are marked by an automated marking machine.
The first test will be an English and maths paper and will take 1 hour. Each section will involve a 5 minute practice exercise followed by a 25 minute test. The English section will involve a comprehension exercise as well as some additional questions drawn from a set designed to test literacy skills.
The second test will be a reasoning paper. It will take about 1 hour, including the practice sections and questions. It will contain a verbal reasoning section and a non-verbal reasoning section of roughly the same length. The non-verbal reasoning will be split into short sections, administered and timed individually.
There will also be a writing exercise which will not be marked but may be used by a local headteacher panel as part of the headteacher assessment stage of the process. 40 minutes will be allowed for the writing task, including 10 minutes planning time.
Familiarisation paper
This document explains the Kent Test papers for children who will take them, and parts of it will not be fully accessible to users of some assistive technologies.
Any child with a severe visual impairment who cannot access test papers can instead be assessed by a head-teacher panel, which will look at their classwork and academic achievement. If you need to know more about the content of our familiarisation paper or how we assess students with visual impairments, please email kent.admissions@kent.gov.uk.
Result Day
If you provided an email address when you registered, your Kent Test result will be emailed to you after 4pm on Tuesday 18 October 2022 (the delivery time will depend on your email service provider). We can only send this to the email address used to register your child.
If you did not provide an email address, we will post your child’s result to you on results day by first class post. You can ask your child’s primary school for their test scores the day after results go out.