Lincolnshire is one of the most grammar-heavy counties in England. There are roughly fifteen state grammar schools spread across the county, from Boston and Spalding in the south to Gainsborough and Caistor in the north. If you live in Grantham, Sleaford, Lincoln, Boston, Spalding or anywhere in between and you're thinking about grammar school, the good news is that the system here is more joined-up than most. One test gets your child considered by almost all of them.
But there's a twist that catches a lot of parents out, and it's worth understanding before you spend a single evening on practice papers. The Lincolnshire test isn't what most people imagine an 11+ to be.
The Lincolnshire Consortium of Grammar Schools
Most of the county's grammar schools work together under one banner: the Lincolnshire Consortium of Grammar Schools, usually shortened to LCGS. Around fifteen schools sit inside it, including Carre's Grammar School and Kesteven and Sleaford High in Sleaford, The King's School and Kesteven and Grantham Girls' in Grantham, Boston Grammar and Boston High, Spalding Grammar and Spalding High, Bourne Grammar, Skegness Grammar, and Queen Elizabeth's Grammar in Alford. There are a few others dotted across the east of the county too.
The point of the consortium is simple. Your child sits one test, and that single result can be used to apply to any of the member schools. You don't drag them round the county sitting a different paper for each school. Register once, sit once, and the score travels.
There's one big exception. Caistor Grammar School isn't part of the consortium and runs its own separate entrance exam with its own registration. If Caistor is on your list, you'll need to deal with it separately and check its dates directly. For everyone else, the consortium test is the one that matters.
What the Lincolnshire 11+ actually tests
Here's the part that surprises people. The Lincolnshire consortium test only covers verbal reasoning and non-verbal reasoning. There's no separate maths paper and no English comprehension or writing paper. Two reasoning tests, and that's it.
Compare that to Kent or Buckinghamshire, where children sit maths and English alongside the reasoning sections, and you can see why a family moving into Lincolnshire might prepare for the wrong thing entirely. If your child is strong at maths but you've done nothing on verbal reasoning, you've been polishing a skill the test doesn't directly measure.
GL Assessment writes the papers, and they're multiple choice. Children mark their answers by shading boxes on a separate answer sheet, the kind that gets read by a machine. That format takes a bit of getting used to. A child who knows the answer can still lose marks by filling the sheet in clumsily or losing their place, so practising on the real answer-sheet style is time well spent.
Verbal reasoning covers things like word relationships, codes, letter sequences, and logic puzzles built around language. Non-verbal reasoning works with shapes, patterns and rotations. Neither maps neatly onto what schools teach day to day, which is exactly why preparation helps. You're teaching question types your child has probably never seen in a normal classroom.
The qualifying score and what it really means
The Lincolnshire consortium uses a qualifying score of 220. That number is built from your child's standardised scores across the two reasoning tests, and it's set to identify roughly the top quarter of the age group as suitable for a grammar place.
The scores are standardised, which means they're adjusted for age. A child born in late August is, on average, eleven months younger than a child born the previous September sitting the same paper. The age adjustment exists to stop the youngest children being penalised simply for being younger. It doesn't fully erase the gap, but it's there for a reason.
Now the bit parents most often misread. Hitting 220 means your child has qualified for grammar education in Lincolnshire. It does not mean they've got a place at a particular school. Qualifying and being offered a place are two different things. Each school has its own oversubscription criteria, and when more qualified children apply than there are seats, distance from the school, catchment, siblings and other factors decide who gets in. So a child can sail past 220 and still miss out on their first choice if that school is heavily oversubscribed and they live further away than the cut-off allows.
Deadlines you can't afford to miss
There are two separate things to keep track of, and confusing them is the classic Lincolnshire mistake.
The first is registering for the test itself, which you do through the consortium. Registration generally closes in the spring or summer before the September test, and a couple of schools run earlier deadlines than the rest, with Spalding tending to close registration sooner. Because the exact dates shift year to year, check the LCGS website the moment grammar school enters your thinking rather than trusting a date you half-remember from a friend.
The second is the actual application for a secondary school place, which goes through Lincolnshire County Council's normal admissions process. That opens in September of Year 6 and closes on 31 October, the same national deadline used everywhere. Registering for the test does not apply for a place. You have to do both. Miss the council deadline and you drop into the late-applications pile, where the strong schools have usually already filled up.
The test sits in September of Year 6, near the start of the autumn term, so the summer before is your last real run at preparation.
How to prepare for the Lincolnshire test
Because the test is reasoning-only, your prep should be reasoning-heavy. That doesn't mean you ignore maths and English at home, of course. A child who reads widely picks up vocabulary that feeds straight into verbal reasoning, and number confidence helps with the logic puzzles. But the bulk of focused practice should sit on the two things the test actually measures.
Start early and keep sessions short. Twenty to thirty minutes of reasoning practice a few times a week, built up gradually from Year 5, beats cramming in the summer holidays. Get your child used to the multiple-choice answer sheet specifically, because the format itself trips children up more than the questions do. And introduce gentle timing only once they're comfortable with the question types, never before.
If you want to know where your child actually stands without paying for a tutor first, that's exactly why I built ReadyFor11. It gives you an honest read on readiness across the reasoning skills Lincolnshire tests, so you can see the gaps before September rather than on results day. Want to check where your child is right now? Take a look at readyfor11.co.uk.
Frequently asked questions
Does the Lincolnshire 11+ include maths and English?
No. The consortium test only covers verbal reasoning and non-verbal reasoning. There's no separate maths or English paper, which surprises a lot of parents moving from other counties. Caistor Grammar runs its own separate exam, so check its requirements if it's on your list.
What score does my child need to pass the Lincolnshire 11+?
The qualifying score is 220 across the standardised reasoning results, set to identify roughly the top quarter of the age group. Reaching 220 means your child has qualified, but it doesn't guarantee a place at any single school, since popular schools then use distance and catchment to allocate seats.
When do children sit the Lincolnshire grammar test?
The test takes place in September of Year 6, near the start of the autumn term. Registration through the consortium closes earlier, usually in the spring or summer beforehand, with Spalding often closing sooner than the others.
Can one test result apply to several Lincolnshire grammar schools?
Yes. That's the whole point of the consortium. Your child sits one test and the result can be used to apply to any of the fifteen or so member schools. Caistor sits outside the consortium and needs its own application.
If you're at the start of this and not sure whether your child is ready, get an honest benchmark before you commit to anything. ReadyFor11 is free to try at readyfor11.co.uk.