Aylesbury Grammar School has its own admissions pattern, and the right preparation follows it. Because entry is decided by a single county-wide test sat in mid-September of Year 6, your practice plan should mirror exactly how this school selects — the subjects it tests, the timing it imposes, and the qualifying score your son needs. This guide covers the test, a realistic timeline and a free practice plan you can start today, with no account required.
About Aylesbury Grammar School
Aylesbury Grammar is one of England's oldest boys' grammars, with origins in the late 16th century — a school founded in 1598 that has selected its intake for centuries. It sits among 13 state grammar schools in Buckinghamshire and admits pupils through the county-wide Buckinghamshire Secondary Transfer Test, sat in mid-September of Year 6. It is a well-established boys' school with a mixed sixth form, so the great majority of families here are preparing for entry into Year 7.
- Location: Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire
- Intake: Boys (Mixed Sixth Form)
- Founded: 1598
- Type: Foundation Grammar
- Admissions test: Buckinghamshire Secondary Transfer Test (GL Assessment)
You can read the full school profile on Quest Arena, and always confirm this year's admissions policy, registration deadlines and open-day dates on the school's own website, ags.bucks.sch.uk. Aylesbury Grammar sits within the wider Buckinghamshire grammar system, which you can explore alongside other selective schools in our grammar school directory.
How selection works at Aylesbury Grammar School
Buckinghamshire runs one shared entrance test — the Secondary Transfer Test, sometimes called "the 11+" locally — and every state grammar in the county, including Aylesbury Grammar, uses the same result. Your son does not sit a separate paper for this school specifically; you register him with the county, and he sits the test at his own primary school (or a designated centre) in mid-September of Year 6, near the start of the autumn term.
The test is delivered across two papers. Paper 1 covers English and Verbal Reasoning, and Paper 2 covers Maths, Non-Verbal Reasoning and Spatial Reasoning. So across the two sittings your son is assessed on four skill areas — English comprehension, Verbal Reasoning, Maths and Non-Verbal/Spatial Reasoning. The test was for several years designed by CEM (the Durham University assessment centre) with a deliberately broad, "tutor-resistant" style; CEM's paper 11+ was phased out around 2022–2023, and the Buckinghamshire test is now GL Assessment-provided. Preparation today should therefore follow the standard-format, multiple-choice GL pattern used across most of the country, not dated CEM-only material.
| Paper | What it covers | Format |
|---|---|---|
| Paper 1 | English comprehension & Verbal Reasoning | GL multiple-choice, separately timed sections |
| Paper 2 | Maths, Non-Verbal & Spatial Reasoning | GL multiple-choice, no calculator |
The qualifying standardised score in Buckinghamshire is 121. A boy who reaches or exceeds 121 is deemed to have passed and qualifies for a grammar place, subject to the school's oversubscription criteria such as catchment distance. A key point for parents: scores are standardised and age-adjusted. Raw marks are converted to a scale where 100 is average, so a summer-born boy and an autumn-born boy who get the same raw mark can end up with different standardised scores — the younger child receives a small uplift to keep the test fair across the year group. There is a review and appeal route, and head-teacher assessment can be submitted for children who narrowly miss; the school's website is the authority on the current process. Passing qualifies your son for a place, but in an oversubscribed year distance and other admissions criteria still decide who is actually offered a seat.
What to practise for this test
Because the Buckinghamshire test spans four areas across two papers, split your practice across all of them rather than drilling only the subject your son already enjoys.
- Verbal Reasoning: the roughly 21 GL question types — codes, letter and number sequences, hidden words, analogies, odd-one-out, closest-meaning and opposites, compound words and simple logic. Vocabulary is the single biggest driver of VR marks, so wide reading pays off directly.
- Non-Verbal and Spatial Reasoning: series, matrices, analogies, odd-one-out, reflections, rotations, cube nets and spatial folding. These sit outside the normal school curriculum, so familiarity with the question types matters as much as raw ability.
- Maths: Key Stage 2 arithmetic, fractions, decimals, percentages, ratio, time and worded problems — worked at speed, roughly a question a minute, with no calculator.
- English: comprehension of an unseen passage, inference, vocabulary in context and spelling or grammar points depending on the year's paper.
Every one of these question types has free, printable practice in our worksheet library, and you can turn reference into timed practice with full-length mock papers. Because the Bucks test is now GL-format, our GL-style practice papers are the closest match to the real multiple-choice, separately-timed sitting.
A realistic preparation timeline
- Year 4 to summer: build the foundations — daily reading of increasingly challenging books, times tables secure to 12×12, quick mental arithmetic. No formal papers yet; the goal is fluency and confidence.
- Year 5 autumn: begin 15–20 minutes of daily topic practice with our free worksheets, introducing one Verbal Reasoning and one Non-Verbal type at a time so nothing feels alien later.
- Year 5 spring: keep an eye on registration. The Buckinghamshire registration window typically opens in the spring and closes over the summer before the September test — confirm the exact dates on the school's site and with Buckinghamshire Council.
- Year 5 summer to early Year 6: sit one full timed mock a week. Review the errors far more carefully than the score; a wrong answer that is understood is worth more than a lucky right one.
- Final weeks before mid-September: switch to format-matched practice with our centre-specific mocks so the two-paper layout, answer sheet and timing all feel routine on the day.
On the day and after
By September your son should have sat enough timed papers that the real hall feels like one more of many. On the morning, keep the routine ordinary: a normal breakfast, arrive in good time, and remind him that questions he finds hard are hard for everyone. Encourage him to work steadily, to skip and return to any question that stalls him rather than burning minutes, and to check that each answer lands in the right place on the separate answer sheet — a common, avoidable slip under GL's multiple-choice format. Afterwards, resist quizzing him on individual questions; the test is done and worrying changes nothing. Results are usually issued in mid-October, ahead of the secondary application deadline, so mark that date and be ready to complete the common application form promptly whatever the outcome.
Frequently asked questions
What test does Aylesbury Grammar School use?
It uses the county-wide Buckinghamshire Secondary Transfer Test, shared by all 13 Bucks grammars. Paper 1 covers English and Verbal Reasoning; Paper 2 covers Maths, Non-Verbal and Spatial Reasoning. It is sat in mid-September of Year 6.
What score does my son need to pass in Buckinghamshire?
The qualifying standardised score is 121. Scores are age-adjusted around an average of 100, so reaching 121 means he is judged to have passed — though catchment and oversubscription criteria still affect whether a specific place is offered.
Is the Buckinghamshire test CEM or GL?
It was designed by CEM for several years, but CEM's paper 11+ was phased out around 2022–2023 and the test is now GL Assessment-provided. Prepare with standard GL-format, multiple-choice practice rather than dated CEM-only material.