Borden Grammar School has its own admissions pattern, and the right preparation follows it. This guide covers exactly how Borden selects its Year 7 intake, the test it uses, a realistic build-up plan, and the free Quest Arena worksheets and mocks that match what your son will actually face. Everything here is free, and no account is needed to start practising.
About Borden Grammar School
Borden is Sittingbourne's long-established boys' grammar, drawing pupils from across the Swale district. Founded in 1879, it is a selective academy grammar for boys with a mixed sixth form, and selection into Year 7 is by the Kent Test. Families from Sittingbourne, Sheerness, Faversham and the surrounding villages routinely put Borden on their preference forms, so the entry route is competitive and worth preparing for properly.
- Location: Sittingbourne, Kent
- Intake: Boys (Mixed Sixth Form)
- Founded: 1879
- Type: Academy Grammar
- Admissions test: Kent Test (GL Assessment)
You can read the full school profile on Quest Arena, and always confirm this year's exact dates, catchment rules and admissions policy on the official Borden Grammar School website, which is the authority for anything official. Borden also appears in our wider grammar school directory alongside the other Kent selective schools.
How selection works at Borden Grammar School
Borden selects through the Kent Test, the county-wide 11+ used by Kent's 32 state grammar schools, which together form England's largest fully-selective system. The Kent Test is provided by GL Assessment and sat in early September of Year 6, at the very start of the school year. Children usually register through their home local authority the summer before, so the paperwork is done in Year 5 even though the test itself falls in Year 6.
The Kent Test is made up of separately-timed papers covering three areas:
- English — comprehension and literacy, testing reading understanding, spelling, punctuation and grammar.
- Maths — arithmetic and problem solving drawn from the Key Stage 2 curriculum up to roughly Year 5 level.
- Reasoning — combining verbal reasoning (VR) and non-verbal reasoning (NVR), the skills that are not taught directly in school.
GL papers are multiple-choice, tightly timed at roughly a minute a question, and answered without a calculator. Each paper is age-standardised, meaning a younger, summer-born boy's raw mark is adjusted upward so that children are compared fairly regardless of birth month. The results are combined into an aggregate standardised score, and Kent applies a qualifying threshold with a rule that no single area may fall too low. Because exact pass marks shift slightly year to year and are confirmed by the local authority, we will not quote a fixed cut-off here — always take the current figure from Kent County Council or the school. The important point for preparation is simple: your son needs to be secure and quick across English, Maths, VR and NVR, not brilliant at one and shaky elsewhere.
What to practise for this test
Because the Kent Test uses GL Assessment, it is one of the most learnable 11+ formats. GL question types are published and stable, so systematic type-by-type practice pays off directly. Work through each of these strands using free Quest Arena resources:
- Verbal reasoning: drill the full set of GL VR question types — codes, letter sequences, hidden words, analogies, odd-one-out, closest-meaning and opposites, compound words, move-a-letter, and number series — until each type is automatic. Vocabulary is the single best predictor of VR and comprehension scores, so pair this with daily reading.
- Non-verbal reasoning: practise series, matrices, analogies, odd-one-out, reflections, rotations and cube-net folding. These are pattern-spotting skills that improve quickly with exposure.
- Maths: lock down times tables to 12×12, fractions, decimals, percentages and multi-step word problems, then build speed under time.
- English: read widely and answer comprehension questions that ask for evidence from the text, plus regular spelling and grammar work.
Start with our free GL Assessment practice papers, use the worksheet library to shore up whichever subject a first timed paper exposes as weakest, then progress to full timed mock papers. When you get close to the test, switch to centre-specific mocks so your son sits papers in the exact Kent Test style, and use the revision hub to plan short, regular sessions rather than long crams.
A realistic preparation timeline
Good 11+ preparation is a gentle build-up, not a last-minute sprint. Spread it across Years 4, 5 and 6 so that by test day the format feels ordinary.
- Year 4: foundations only. Daily reading for pleasure across fiction and non-fiction, times tables to 12×12, and playful puzzle-solving. No formal papers yet.
- Year 5 autumn: introduce 15–20 minutes of daily topic practice with our free worksheets, cycling through English, Maths, VR and NVR so nothing is neglected.
- Year 5 spring and summer: keep building skills and begin gentle timed sections. Check registration windows for the Kent Test on our key dates page and, crucially, confirm and complete registration with your home local authority — this is usually done before the summer holidays of Year 5.
- Year 6, September: the Kent Test itself is sat in the first days back. In the run-up, do one full timed mock paper a week and review mistakes far more carefully than scores.
- Final few weeks: switch to centre-specific papers in the Kent Test format, and taper the workload so your son arrives rested rather than exhausted.
On the day and after
By September of Year 6 the goal is a calm, familiar routine. A boy who has sat ten timed papers at the kitchen table treats the real hall as the eleventh. To help him stay composed:
- Have a settled bedtime for the whole week before, not just the night before.
- Eat a normal breakfast and pack water and any equipment the school tells you to bring.
- Remind him of pacing: answer the questions he finds easy first, mark and move past anything sticky, and come back with time to spare rather than stalling.
- On a multiple-choice OMR sheet, keep the answer number lined up with the question number, and never leave a blank — a sensible guess costs nothing.
After the test, results in Kent are typically released in mid-October, in time to inform your secondary school preference form. A qualifying score is not the same as a guaranteed place — offers also depend on Borden's oversubscription criteria and catchment — so read the school's admissions policy carefully and list preferences honestly. Whatever the outcome, the reading, reasoning and maths habits built during preparation continue to pay off right through secondary school.
Frequently asked questions
Is Borden Grammar School's test GL or CEM?
It is GL Assessment. Borden selects through the Kent Test, which is a GL-provided, multiple-choice exam. CEM's separate paper 11+ was discontinued around 2023, so any older guide describing a CEM Kent Test is out of date.
When is the Kent Test sat?
In early September at the start of Year 6. Registration is normally completed through your home local authority during Year 5, so check deadlines well in advance on the school's website and our key dates page.
What score does my son need to pass?
Kent uses an age-standardised aggregate with a minimum in each area, but the exact qualifying figure varies by year and is confirmed by the local authority, so we do not quote a fixed number. Aim for consistent strength across English, Maths, verbal and non-verbal reasoning rather than a single standout subject.