Didn't Pass the 11+? Selection Reviews, Headteacher Assessments and the Late-Transfer Routes for 2027 Entry

Written for the 2026 test round, September 2027 entry. Results land within a week: Buckinghamshire Friday 9 October 2026, Essex CSSE Monday 12 October, Medway Wednesday 14 October, Kent Thursday 15 October. If the score is under the line, you have about three weeks in which anything can still change, because the application form closes on Saturday 31 October. After that, nothing moves until offer day, Monday 1 March 2027.

This guide covers the pre-offer routes only. Formal appeals are separate and begin after 1 March. If you are still working out what the score itself means, start with our guide to 11+ results and what happens next.

What can still change the answer before offer day

Parents assume every selective area runs a second look. It does not.

Buckinghamshire: the Selection Review

This is the one place a parent can, unprompted, ask for the result to be set aside. The qualifying Secondary Transfer Test Score is 121. Below it, you request a review on the council's form, then get a link to a second form for the case and evidence.

The deadline is hard: results are issued on 9 October 2026 and the case in full is due by 30 October. Not the request - the case. Reviews are heard November to January by two grammar heads and one primary head, and outcomes come on 12 February 2027, before places are allocated. A child deemed qualified is qualified for any Bucks grammar, not only the one you named.

What a case can and cannot contain

A strong case pairs evidence that your child works at the expected level with an exceptional reason why the test did not show it. The council is blunt about the odds: successful reviews have historically been for children scoring 110 to 120, and lower scores are rarely successful. A 118 with a documented hospital appointment in test week is a real case. A 98 is not.

The route nobody mentions: near-miss places at 115-120

Several Bucks grammars, as their own admission authorities, hold back places for near-miss children on Pupil Premium. Aylesbury Grammar School's 2027 policy gives up to six places to looked-after boys, or catchment boys on Pupil Premium, scoring 115 to 120 - six marks under the usual 121. The Royal Grammar School, High Wycombe has a comparable category. Entitlement must be evidenced as at 31 October 2026.

Kent: the Head Teacher Assessment, and why you cannot ask for it

Kent's standard has two parts: a total across the three standardised scores and a floor under each - 332 or more overall with no single score below 106, out of a maximum 423, every score age-adjusted first. Our Kent 11+ guide has the test format.

Here is the part parents get wrong: you cannot apply for a Head Teacher Assessment. Primary heads receive the outcomes in early October and may refer a child who missed the standard to a local panel of headteachers, which sees a portfolio of school work, the writing task from test day - never marked, but kept for this - and the head's report. It is done confidentially, before any parent is told a score, so the email on 15 October 2026 already reflects it.

The test selects roughly the top 20% of the county cohort and panels lift the final figure to about 25%, so this is a meaningful share of places, not a rarity. If you think your child underperformed, the conversation is with your primary head, in the fortnight after the test.

Essex, Medway and everywhere else: there is no review

The Essex CSSE consortium is explicit: no special consideration is given to a child's circumstances when papers are marked, scores will not be adjusted, and its schools have a joint policy not to re-mark. Circumstances go to an appeal panel instead, after 1 March 2027.

Two CSSE facts are worth acting on now. No offer is made in the normal round under a total standardised score of 303. And a guidance sheet of historical entry scores is published on 12 October 2026, with CSSE's own advice that it may be worth applying even if your child scored below the lowest previous score. Our CSSE scores by town and the full CSSE guide show how they behave.

Medway sets its threshold only after marking - 482 for 2025 entry, 492 for 2024 - and removed its Review from 2024. Sutton, Trafford, Birmingham, Lincolnshire and Gloucestershire have no equivalent.

Do you still list the grammar school? Yes

Every admission authority in England operates equal preference. Each school considers every application naming it against its own criteria, wherever you put it on the form, and is not told where it sat. Your ranking decides only which offer you get if two schools would both take your child. So with four preferences and a Bucks score of 118:

• 1. The grammar - considered with whatever status your child has after 12 February 2027.
• 2. The comprehensive you would be happy with - considered on distance as if it were first.
• 3. A second comprehensive, further away.
• 4. The school you would get anyway.

Naming the grammar first costs nothing at preference two: if the review fails, preference one cannot be met and the system moves down. Buckinghamshire tells parents to name their preferred grammars, review or no review. The closing date is Saturday 31 October 2026, so treat Friday 30 October as the deadline and check your council's cut-off time.

Late transfer: the 12+ and 13+ routes

There is no second sitting of the Year 6 test, but entry is not only at Year 7. Buckinghamshire runs a central late transfer test for Years 7 and 8 pupils wanting places in Years 8 and 9: register with evidence between Monday 5 and Friday 23 October 2026, test Saturday 6 February 2027, results late March. You name up to three of the nine schools, and the qualifying score is again 121.

Then the honest part, which the council prints itself: places are extremely limited, most pupils do not get one, and for September 2026 entry none were offered for Year 8 or Year 9 in the first round. Qualifying puts your child on a waiting list for a place that may not exist, though it holds to the end of Year 9.

Elsewhere there is no coordinated scheme: schools test in-year applicants on their own terms, and only when a place comes free. Assume any grammar you ask is full in every year group, because most are.

Offer day, 1 March 2027: accept first, then work the list

Accept the school you are offered. Accepting does not weaken an appeal, remove you from a waiting list or commit you to September; refusing only risks having no place at all. Then join the waiting list, in writing, for every school you would still prefer. Under the School Admissions Code a list must run to at least 31 December of the year of admission - 31 December 2027 here - and be re-ranked each time a child is added, so joining in May is no worse than in March. Grammar lists move, with places surfacing into late August.

What Year 6 should actually do now

Stop the 11+ papers. No review or appeal is improved by one, and a child who has spent a year on non-verbal reasoning has earned a term without it.

Two things are worth the time to July, and neither is selective. Key Stage 2 SATs run from Monday 10 to Thursday 13 May 2027, and secondary schools lean on those scaled scores for initial Year 7 setting, often before a teacher has met your child. And there is a real gap between 11+ maths and Year 7 maths: fractions, decimals and percentages as one system, ratio, early algebra. The 11+ rewards speed; Year 7 rewards method and written explanation, and a child who spent a year being fast can land in a lower set for never showing working. Why Key Stage 3 maths matters more than parents think covers the sequence, and our Year 7 settling-in guide the rest.

The other job is not academic. A child told for a year that a school was the goal has just been told they missed it. Be clear the test measured one morning, not them.

FAQ

Will a tutor help our Selection Review or appeal?

No, and any tutor who says otherwise is selling you something. The Bucks panel is not given examples of school work, let alone practice papers, and an appeal panel weighs school evidence and the school's case for refusing.

My child is summer-born. Doesn't the test allow for that?

Partly. Every 11+ score is age-standardised, so an August-born child is not measured against a September-born child on raw marks. What it cannot do is compensate for maturity or concentration in a strange hall, so "summer-born" alone is not exceptional-circumstance evidence.

Our younger child sits next year. Does an unsuccessful review count against them?

No. Each child is assessed on their own test and evidence, and siblings are handled through a school's oversubscription criteria, not the selection process. Sibling priority only matters once your younger child has qualified.

Sources: Buckinghamshire Council - Selection Review, Secondary Transfer Test results and late transfer pages (results 9 October 2026; score 121; case by 30 October; outcome 12 February 2027; successes at 110-120; late transfer dates and first-round allocations). Aylesbury Grammar School Admissions Policy 2027. CSSE Information Guide 2027 Entry. Kent Test guidance via Kent primary schools; proportions from Comprehensive Future. Medway Council. School Admissions Code 2021.