If you live in Kent and you're thinking about a grammar-school place, the test you need to know about is the Kent Test — Kent County Council's selective-school exam, officially the Procedure for Entry to Secondary Education (PESE), sat in early September of Year 6. It's the single gateway to Kent's grammar schools, and getting the format, dates and scoring right is half the battle. Here is the plain-English version, verified for the 2026 cycle.
The one-line answer parents search for
Yes — the Kent Test is a GL Assessment exam, not CEM. This matters because a lot of older advice online still references CEM-style preparation. CEM's separate paper 11+ was discontinued around 2022–2023, and Kent has used GL for years. GL means predictable, named question types and multiple-choice answer sheets, which is genuinely good news: it is a syllabus you can drill. For a wider view of how GL differs from other boards, see our GL 11+ papers guide.
What the Kent Test covers
Children sit two papers across one morning, each multiple-choice and tightly timed at roughly a minute a question. There is also a short writing exercise that most children never have their marks counted from — it is held in reserve for borderline decisions.
- Paper 1 (about 60 minutes) — English (comprehension, spelling, punctuation) combined with arithmetic and short maths problems, run as separately timed sub-sections.
- Paper 2 (about 60 minutes) — Verbal Reasoning and Non-Verbal Reasoning, blended into one paper with sub-timed sections.
- Writing exercise (about 40 minutes) — a short piece of writing, only opened and marked if a child goes to a head-teacher assessment panel.
The reasoning content is where many families lose easy marks, because Verbal and Non-Verbal Reasoning fall outside the normal Key Stage 2 classroom. GL Verbal Reasoning draws on a fixed bank of about 21 question types — codes, letter sequences, hidden words, closest-meaning and opposite pairs, compound words, move-a-letter, number series and simple logic. Non-Verbal Reasoning covers series, matrices, analogies, odd-one-out, reflections, rotations and cube nets. Because the types are named and repeat, question-type drilling works. You can practise each type on our free topic worksheets.
When and where it sits: the Kent timeline
The Kent Test is taken in your child's own primary school for most in-county pupils. Out-of-county applicants and home-educated children sit at a designated test centre instead. Registration opens in late spring (usually late May or the start of June) for the September sitting, and the deadline is typically the first working day of July — miss it and your child cannot sit that year, so diarise it early.
| Stage | Roughly when |
|---|---|
| Registration opens | Late May / early June (Year 5 into Year 6) |
| Registration closes | Early July |
| Test date | Early September of Year 6 |
| Results issued | Mid-October |
| Secondary application (CAF) deadline | 31 October |
The crucial point: results land before the national 31 October secondary-application deadline, so you know your child's outcome before you rank schools on the Common Application Form. Always confirm the exact 2026 dates on the Kent County Council PESE pages, as they shift by a few days each year. Our key dates hub tracks the main regional windows.
How the scoring works
Raw marks across the papers are age-standardised and combined into an aggregate. Standardised scores are age-adjusted so that summer-born children are not penalised for being younger on test day — the same raw mark earns a slightly higher standardised score for a younger child than an older one. To be assessed as suitable for grammar school, a Kent child generally needs an aggregate around 332 and no single component below roughly 106. Both conditions matter.
Here is why the "no subject below 106" rule catches families out. Imagine a child who is very strong at maths and reasoning but weak at English:
| Component | Child A | Child B |
|---|---|---|
| English | 104 | 112 |
| Maths | 118 | 110 |
| Reasoning | 115 | 112 |
| Aggregate | 337 | 334 |
| Assessed as suitable? | No — English below 106 | Yes |
Child A has the higher total but fails because one component dipped below the floor. The lesson: balance beats a spiky profile. Shore up the weakest subject rather than pushing an already-strong one higher.
Passing the test versus getting a place
Being assessed as suitable is not the same as securing a seat. Kent's most oversubscribed grammars then rank suitable children by criteria such as distance, siblings and, for the super-selective schools, by test score. A "pass" qualifies your child to compete; catchment and ranking decide the actual offer. Check specific schools in our grammar school directory and read the wider process in our 11+ process guide.
How to prepare your child
Most successful Kent candidates practise steadily from the start of Year 5, not in a summer panic. Two habits do the heavy lifting:
- Short, frequent, mixed sessions. Fifteen focused minutes a day across mixed topics beats a long weekend blitz, and mirrors the fast pace of the real paper.
- Full timed mocks from spring onwards. These build stamina, exam-day timing and the habit of transferring answers cleanly to a multiple-choice sheet — a real skill GL rewards.
Quest Arena's free mock library includes full GL-style Kent-format mock papers, and many parents pair mocks with our revision hub to target weak question types between attempts. Everything is free, with no account needed to start practising.
If you're considering an appeal
If your child narrowly misses the threshold, you can request a head-teacher assessment, where a panel reviews school evidence, the writing exercise from test day and other work to decide whether the child is of grammar-school ability despite the score. This is where that reserved writing task suddenly matters, so it is worth your child taking it seriously on the day even though it is not routinely marked.
Frequently asked questions
Is the Kent Test GL or CEM?
It is GL Assessment. CEM's separate paper 11+ was discontinued around 2022–2023, so any advice telling you to prepare "CEM-style" for Kent is out of date. Prepare for GL: named question types and multiple-choice answer sheets.
What score does my child need to pass the Kent Test?
As a guide, an aggregate around 332 with no single component below roughly 106. Exact thresholds are set each year and vary, so treat this as indicative and confirm current figures with Kent County Council.
Can my child sit the Kent Test if we live outside Kent?
Yes. Out-of-county children can register and sit at a designated Kent test centre. You still register through Kent County Council by the early-July deadline, and the same September test date and October results timeline apply.