Parents ask me this one a lot, usually with a slightly worried tone. Are we allowed to apply to more than one grammar school? And if we are, how many is too many? It feels like the kind of thing with a hidden rule you're about to fall foul of.
The short version is reassuring. There's no national cap on how many grammar schools your child can apply to. But the practical limits are real, and they catch families out. Let me walk through how it actually works.
There's no single number, and that's the first thing to understand
People expect a tidy answer like "three" or "five". It doesn't exist. The 11+ isn't run by one national body. Each county or consortium sets its own test, its own dates, and its own admissions rules. So the question isn't really how many schools you're permitted to apply to. It's how many tests your child can realistically sit. And how many schools you can list when the council application form comes round.
Those are two separate things, and conflating them is where the confusion starts. Sitting the test gets your child a score. The application form is what actually puts them in the running for a place. You need both, and they run on different timetables.
How the test side works
A child can sit the 11+ in more than one region, as long as the test dates don't clash. Families who live near a county border do this all the time. A child in the north of Reading might sit the Berkshire grammar tests and also register for Buckinghamshire, because both are within striking distance. A family near the Kent and Bexley boundary often sits both, since the schools are close together and the tests fall on different weekends.
The thing that stops you isn't a rule. It's the calendar. Most regions hold their 11+ in September of Year 6, and several test on the same handful of Saturdays. If two areas test on the same morning, your child can only be in one place. So before you build a plan around sitting in three counties, map the actual dates. Some years they spread out nicely. Other years two of them land on top of each other and the decision gets made for you.
Within a single region, things are often simpler than they look. Kent runs one test, the PESE, and that single score is used by most of the county's grammar schools. Sit it once and you've effectively applied to all of them. Buckinghamshire works the same way with its Secondary Transfer Test. Gloucestershire, Warwickshire and Lincolnshire each run a consortium test where one sitting covers a group of schools. So in a lot of areas, one exam already opens the door to several schools without your child sitting anything extra.
The regions that genuinely require separate tests tend to be the super-selectives. Schools like Reading School, Kendrick, the Tiffin schools and the Birmingham foundation grammars often set their own exams on their own dates. If those are on your list, each one is a separate sitting, and that's where the calendar pressure really bites.
Watch for the shared versus separate test distinction
This is the bit worth getting straight early. Before you assume a school needs its own exam, check whether it accepts a consortium or county score. Plenty of families put their child through more tests than they needed to. They simply didn't realise three of their target schools all used the same paper.
The pattern, roughly, is that catchment-based county systems pool one test across many schools, while standalone super-selectives guard their own. But there are hybrids. Reading and Kendrick, for instance, share a first-stage test before splitting into their own second stages. So read each school's admissions page rather than guessing. A wasted Saturday of testing is a tired child and a stressful morning you didn't need.
How many schools can you actually list on the form?
Here's the part that surprises people. Whatever tests your child sits, the place itself comes through your local council's secondary application form, the one due by 31 October. That form lets you list a set number of schools in order of preference. The number is usually six, though some councils allow three or four. Those preferences can mix grammar schools and non-selective ones. They can sit in different boroughs.
So you might sit three separate 11+ tests but only have six slots on the form to name your choices. Or you might sit one county test and use several of those slots on grammar schools that all accept the single score. The test gets you the qualifying result. The form is where you actually stake your claim, and it's ranked.
Ranking matters more than parents expect. The system honours your order. If your child qualifies for your second and fourth choices but not your first, they're offered the second, not the fourth. Put a realistic option in your lower slots so you're not left with nothing. Have you thought about what sits at the bottom of your list as a genuine safety net?
So what's a sensible number?
If I had to give a rule of thumb, here it is. Sit the tests that cover the schools you'd genuinely accept a place at, and no more. For most families that's one county or consortium test plus maybe one or two super-selectives if you're within reach and the dates allow. Sitting five different exams across four counties is possible on paper. In practice it means a child doing 11+ papers on consecutive weekends through September, which is a lot to ask of a ten-year-old.
More tests don't multiply your odds in any clean way either. A super-selective with two thousand applicants for a hundred and eighty places is hard whether it's your second sitting or your fifth. Spreading wide can make sense near a border where two strong options are both reachable. Casting the net across half of southern England rarely does.
The honest goal isn't maximum applications. It's the right shortlist of schools your child could actually attend, with tests and forms organised so nothing clashes and nothing gets missed.
Frequently asked questions
Can my child apply to grammar schools in two different counties? Yes. There's no rule against sitting the 11+ in more than one area, and border families do it regularly. The only hard limit is the test dates. If two counties examine on the same day, your child can sit only one of them.
Does sitting one county's test apply to all its grammar schools? Often, yes. Kent, Buckinghamshire and several consortium areas use a single test score across a group of schools. Super-selectives like Reading School or the Tiffin schools usually set their own separate exams. Check each school's admissions policy before assuming.
How many schools can I put on the council application form? Most councils let you list six preferences in ranked order, though some allow three or four. You can mix grammar and non-grammar schools across different boroughs. The form is due by 31 October, separate from registering for the tests.
Should I apply to as many grammar schools as possible? Not for its own sake. Extra tests mean more pressure on your child and don't reliably improve the odds at competitive schools. Apply to the schools you'd actually accept a place at, and make sure your lower preferences include a realistic backup.
Trying to work out which schools are a sensible target before you commit your child to a string of test dates? It helps to know where they actually stand. readyfor11.co.uk gives you a free, honest benchmark across the skills the 11+ measures. No subscription, no sales pitch, so you can build your shortlist on evidence rather than hope.