Families targeting Kesteven and Grantham Girls' School ask the same first question: what exactly should we practise? The honest answer is that good preparation fits the way this school selects. KGGS admits its Year 7 girls on the strength of the Lincolnshire 11+, a GL Assessment test sat in mid-September of Year 6, so every hour you invest should be pointed at the question types and timing that paper actually uses. This guide sets out how the school selects, what to drill, and a calm, realistic build-up you can start today with our free worksheets and mocks.
About Kesteven and Grantham Girls' School
KGGS is the girls' grammar in Grantham and one of the best-known names in Lincolnshire's selective system, with a famous alumna in former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. It is an academy grammar with a mixed sixth form, and selection into Year 7 is by the Lincolnshire 11+. Lincolnshire quietly runs one of the larger selective systems in the country — around fifteen state grammar schools — and the great majority use GL Assessment papers, so the preparation that suits KGGS also transfers well to nearby schools your daughter might list alongside it.
- Location: Grantham, Lincolnshire
- Intake: Girls (mixed sixth form)
- Founded: 1910
- Type: Academy grammar
- Admissions test: Lincolnshire 11+ (GL Assessment)
For dates, catchment details and this year's admissions policy, the school's own site is the authority — always confirm deadlines against kestevengrantham.lincs.sch.uk. You can also see our full school profile, and browse neighbouring options in the grammar school directory.
How selection works at Kesteven and Grantham Girls' School
Entry is decided by the Lincolnshire 11+, produced by GL Assessment. GL is now the dominant 11+ board across most of the UK, and its papers are the most learnable of the boards for one simple reason: the syllabus and the question types are published and stable, so systematic type-by-type practice pays off directly. The Lincolnshire test assesses the standard reasoning-led skill areas — verbal reasoning and non-verbal reasoning, underpinned by English comprehension and maths ability.
GL papers are multiple-choice: your daughter reads the question in a booklet and marks her answer (A to E) on a separate answer sheet, which is machine-marked. They are tightly timed — roughly a minute a question — with no calculator allowed. Raw marks are converted to a standardised age score, which adjusts for how old each child is: a younger, summer-born pupil earns a small uplift over an autumn-born child who scored the same raw mark, so no one is penalised for their birth month. Lincolnshire publishes a qualifying standard each year; we will not invent a specific cut-off, because thresholds vary by year and cohort — check the current figure via the school and your local authority.
What to practise for this test
Because the format is fixed, the winning strategy is to master each named question type until it is automatic, then rehearse under the real clock. Focus your practice here:
- Verbal reasoning: the roughly 21 GL question types — letter and number codes, hidden words, letter sequences, analogies, odd-one-out, closest-meaning and opposite words, compound words, move-a-letter and number-series logic. Vocabulary is the single best predictor of scores, so pair drilling with daily reading.
- Non-verbal reasoning: series, matrices, analogies, odd-one-out, reflections, rotations, cube nets and spatial folding. These sit outside the national curriculum, so they need dedicated practice rather than school lessons.
- Maths: secure KS2 arithmetic to Year 5 ceiling — times tables to 12×12, fractions, percentages, ratio, and quick mental calculation for speed under timing.
- English: comprehension technique — skimming a passage, then hunting for evidence to answer accurately at pace.
Start with our free GL Assessment practice papers, use the worksheet library to shore up whichever subject a first timed paper exposes as weakest, and build stamina with full-length mock papers. In the final weeks, switch to centre-specific mocks matched to the Lincolnshire format. No account is needed to practise.
A realistic preparation timeline
Steady beats frantic. This build-up assumes a mid-September test at the start of Year 6, and no invented dates — always confirm the exact registration window with the school and your local authority.
- Year 4 into the summer: daily reading for pleasure, tables to 12×12, mental arithmetic games. No formal papers yet — you are building the vocabulary and number sense everything else rests on.
- Year 5 autumn: begin 15–20 minutes of daily topic practice with our free worksheets, introducing one reasoning type at a time.
- Year 5 spring: broaden into verbal and non-verbal type coverage; check the Lincolnshire registration window (typically opens over spring or early summer) via kestevengrantham.lincs.sch.uk and our key dates page.
- Year 5 summer: one full timed mock paper a week; review errors far more carefully than scores, using our revision hub to close gaps.
- Late summer, before the test: switch to centre-specific papers in the Lincolnshire format and taper — short, confident sessions, not cramming.
On the day and after
By September the aim is calm familiarity. A child who has sat ten timed mocks at the kitchen table treats the real hall as the eleventh. Practical tips: get a good night's sleep and a proper breakfast; arrive early so nerves settle; teach her to read each instruction carefully and to keep the answer sheet aligned with the question number, since a single slipped row on a machine-marked sheet is costly. If a question is hard, mark a sensible answer and move on — pace matters more than any one item. Afterwards, whatever the feeling walking out, praise the effort rather than dissecting the paper; results and next steps come through the local authority in the autumn, and there is usually an appeal or review route if you need one.
Frequently asked questions
Is the KGGS test GL or CEM?
The Lincolnshire 11+ used for KGGS is a GL Assessment test. CEM's separate paper 11+ was discontinued around 2023, so current preparation should focus on GL question types.
Does the Lincolnshire test include verbal and non-verbal reasoning?
Yes. The GL paper is reasoning-led, covering verbal and non-verbal reasoning alongside English and maths — so practise all four skill areas, with dedicated time for the reasoning types that are not taught in school.
What score does my daughter need to pass?
Lincolnshire uses a standardised, age-adjusted qualifying standard that varies by year, and passing the test is separate from securing a place under the admissions criteria. Confirm the current figure and catchment rules directly with the school and local authority rather than relying on old numbers online.