Families targeting Chatham Grammar School ask the same first question: what exactly should we practise? The honest answer is that good preparation follows how this school selects its pupils, and Chatham Grammar selects through the Medway Test. Get the format right, build the underlying skills steadily, and the school-specific detail falls into place. This guide sets out the test, the subjects it assesses, a realistic build-up over Years 4 to 6, and calm advice for the day itself, with free Quest Arena practice tied to every skill named.
About Chatham Grammar School
Formerly Chatham Grammar School for Girls, the school went co-educational in recent years and is now simply Chatham Grammar. It is a long-established academy grammar in the town of Chatham, within the Medway local authority, and entry is decided by the Medway Test rather than by any bespoke school paper. That matters for planning: you prepare for a shared, county-wide test, not a one-off exam unique to this school. You can read the school's own admissions policy, open-day dates and prospectus on the official Chatham Grammar website, which is always the authority for this year's deadlines.
- Location: Chatham, Medway
- Intake: Mixed (co-educational)
- Founded: 1907
- Type: Academy grammar school
- Admissions test: Medway Test (GL Assessment)
For a fuller picture of the school alongside the other Medway grammars, see our full school profile and the wider grammar school directory.
How selection works at Chatham Grammar School
Medway runs six state grammars, and children who want a place at any of them sit the Medway Test, which is separate from the neighbouring Kent Test even though both fall in early September of Year 6. The Medway Test is produced by GL Assessment and is taken in the September of the year a child applies. It is important to understand this is a Medway-wide qualifying test: a strong score keeps Chatham Grammar in reach, but a place also depends on the school's own oversubscription criteria, such as distance and catchment.
The Medway Test is built from three components:
- English — comprehension and language skills, testing how well a child reads and understands a passage under time pressure.
- Maths — Key Stage 2 arithmetic and problem-solving, drawn from curriculum content up to Year 5.
- Extended Writing plus Reasoning — a short piece of writing to a prompt, together with verbal reasoning (VR) and non-verbal reasoning (NVR).
Because reasoning is bundled in, Medway children face both the timed multiple-choice style typical of GL and a written task, so preparation has to cover both. Results are norm-referenced, meaning a child's marks are compared against everyone else who sat the test that year and then age-standardised, so a specific "pass mark" changes annually and is not something we would invent here. Always confirm the exact arrangements and thresholds on the school and Medway Council websites for your child's year.
What to practise for this test
Because the Medway Test spans English, Maths and reasoning, plus a writing task, spread practice across all four rather than over-drilling one favourite. GL question types are published and stable, which makes systematic type-by-type work genuinely worthwhile.
- Verbal reasoning: work through the classic GL types — codes, letter sequences, hidden words, analogies, odd-one-out, closest-meaning and opposites, compound words, move-a-letter, and number series. Vocabulary is the single best predictor here, so pair drilling with wide reading. Our free worksheet library has sets for each type.
- Non-verbal reasoning: practise series, matrices, analogies, odd-one-out, reflections, rotations and cube nets until the patterns are automatic.
- Maths: secure times tables to 12×12, fractions, percentages and multi-step word problems, all timed so speed becomes second nature.
- English and extended writing: regular comprehension practice, plus short timed writing tasks where the child plans quickly and writes neatly to a prompt.
Start with our GL Assessment practice papers for the multiple-choice sections, then move to full-length timed mock papers so your child rehearses the whole sitting, not just isolated topics. When you are within reach of the test, our centre-specific mocks let you practise in the Medway format specifically.
A realistic preparation timeline
The children who cope best are not the ones who started earliest; they are the ones who built skills steadily and arrived composed. There are no invented dates below — check the school's site for this year's exact windows.
- Year 4: the foundation year. Daily reading of increasingly challenging books, casual vocabulary talk at home, and times tables to 12×12. No formal papers yet — this is about building the habits everything else rests on.
- Year 5, autumn and spring: begin 15–20 minutes of daily topic practice using our free worksheets, introducing verbal and non-verbal reasoning types one at a time so none feels alien later. Keep reading widely.
- Year 5 summer into Year 6: confirm the registration window on the school and Medway Council sites (registration for the September test typically closes over the summer), and start one full timed mock paper a week. Review the errors far more carefully than the score.
- Final six to eight weeks: switch to centre-specific papers in the Medway format, tighten timing on the extended-writing task, and taper the workload in the last few days so your child rests rather than crams.
On the day and after
Composure is a coachable skill, not a personality trait. A child who has sat ten timed papers at the kitchen table treats the real hall as the eleventh. In the final week, prioritise sleep, keep practice light and confidence-building, and rehearse the practicalities: a good breakfast, arriving early, and knowing what the answer sheet looks like so it holds no surprises.
- Pacing: remind your child to keep moving — if one question stalls, mark it, move on, and return if time allows. GL sections are tightly timed at roughly a minute a question.
- Answer sheets: for the multiple-choice sections, marks go on a separate sheet; practise transferring answers cleanly so none are misaligned.
- The writing task: spend a minute planning, write legibly, and finish with a proper ending rather than trailing off.
- Afterwards: results arrive in the autumn ahead of the secondary application deadline. Whatever the outcome, praise the effort and keep perspective — one test does not define a bright child.
If you would like the wider context of how the 11+ process fits together, our 11+ process guide and revision hub walk through every stage.
Frequently asked questions
Does Chatham Grammar use the Kent Test or the Medway Test?
The Medway Test. Even though Chatham is close to Kent and both tests fall in early September, Medway runs its own separate test for its six grammars, and Chatham Grammar selects through it.
What subjects does the Medway Test cover?
English (comprehension), Maths, and a component combining extended writing with verbal and non-verbal reasoning. Content is drawn from the curriculum up to Year 5, while VR and NVR sit outside the national curriculum and need their own practice.
When does my child sit the test?
In the September of Year 6, with registration usually closing over the preceding summer. Always confirm the precise dates on the school's website and with Medway Council, as they are set year by year.