Families targeting Sir William Borlase's Grammar School ask the same first question: what exactly should we practise? The honest answer is that useful preparation has to fit how this school selects its intake, and Borlase's selects through the county-wide Buckinghamshire Secondary Transfer Test rather than a paper of its own. Get the test right, and the rest of your plan falls into place. This guide sets out what the school is, how selection actually works, which skills to drill, and a calm, unhurried timeline you can follow from Year 4 to test day.
About Sir William Borlase's Grammar School
Founded in 1624 by Sir William Borlase, this Marlow grammar is one of the country's most over-subscribed mixed grammars. It is a foundation grammar school with a long history and a strong local reputation, which is exactly why demand for places outstrips supply so heavily. Selection is by the Buckinghamshire Secondary Transfer Test, the same test used across the county's thirteen state grammar schools, so your child is not preparing for a bespoke Borlase's paper — they are preparing for the shared Bucks test and then relying on the school's own oversubscription and catchment rules to secure a place.
- Location: Marlow, Buckinghamshire
- Intake: Mixed
- Founded: 1624
- Type: Foundation Grammar
- Admissions test: Buckinghamshire Secondary Transfer Test
You can read our full school profile for how Borlase's sits within the county system, and browse the wider grammar school directory to compare it with other Buckinghamshire options. For this year's exact admissions dates, catchment and oversubscription criteria, always treat the official school website and Buckinghamshire Council as the authority — those details change year to year and only the school and the local authority publish the current version. Because Borlase's draws applicants from a wide area, its catchment arithmetic can be tighter than the raw qualifying score suggests, so it is worth reading the admissions policy carefully rather than assuming a good mark alone settles the matter.
How selection works at Sir William Borlase's Grammar School
Entry to Borlase's runs through the Buckinghamshire Secondary Transfer Test, sat in mid-September of Year 6. Every child hoping for a Bucks grammar place sits the same test; the county then uses a standardised, age-adjusted score to decide who qualifies. The test is set by GL Assessment and spans two papers covering verbal reasoning, non-verbal reasoning, spatial reasoning, comprehension and maths, presented across separately timed sections. GL-style papers are tightly timed — roughly a minute a question — and typically multiple-choice, which means accuracy under pace matters as much as raw ability.
One important caveat for 2026: the 11+ provider landscape has shifted a great deal in recent years, and several regions that once used CEM-style papers have moved to GL Assessment or bespoke arrangements. Buckinghamshire is among the counties that settled on GL, but formats and question counts can still be refined between years, so we will not quote a fixed pass mark for you — those are exactly the details that go stale on competitor pages. Confirm the current format and qualifying threshold directly with Buckinghamshire Council and the school before you finalise your plan. What has not changed is the underlying skill set: reasoning under time pressure, strong maths fluency and a wide, secure vocabulary.
Scores are age-standardised, meaning a summer-born child sitting on the same day as an autumn-born child receives an uplift so that younger pupils are not penalised for their months. On the usual 100-average, standard-deviation-15 scale, two children can achieve the same raw mark and end up with different standardised scores purely because of their birth month. Qualifying on score is also not the same as being offered a place: at a school as oversubscribed as Borlase's, distance and the published admissions criteria decide who actually gets in among the many qualified applicants.
What to practise for this test
Because the Bucks test blends verbal reasoning, non-verbal and spatial reasoning, comprehension and maths, split practice across all of them rather than over-drilling a single favourite. A sensible weekly balance looks like this:
- Verbal reasoning: codes, letter sequences, hidden words, analogies, odd-one-out and closest-meaning questions. Vocabulary is the single best predictor of scores here — daily reading matters as much as any worksheet.
- Non-verbal and spatial reasoning: series, matrices, rotations, reflections, cube nets and spatial patterns. These reward pattern-spotting speed, which comes from volume of practice.
- Comprehension: reading a passage closely and answering inference as well as literal questions, keeping one eye on the clock.
- Maths: secure times tables to 12×12, fractions, percentages, and multi-step word problems solved quickly and accurately.
Every question type above is covered by our free worksheet library, so you can target the exact weakness a first timed paper reveals. When your child is ready to work under real conditions, move to full-length mock papers, and in the closing weeks switch to centre-specific mocks matched to the Bucks format. Because the county uses GL, our GL-style practice papers give the closest multiple-choice rehearsal, and our revision hub helps close gaps between papers. Nothing here is gated — there is no account needed to start practising.
A realistic preparation timeline
The best-prepared children are not the ones who started earliest and hardest, but the ones who built steadily and stayed relaxed. A workable build-up:
- Year 4: daily reading for pleasure, times tables to 12×12, and gentle puzzle games. No formal papers yet — the goal is fluency and confidence, not exam pressure.
- Year 5 autumn: introduce 15–20 minutes of daily topic practice using free worksheets, rotating through verbal, non-verbal, comprehension and maths.
- Year 5 spring: check registration windows and deadlines on our key dates page and confirm them against Buckinghamshire Council. Missing the registration deadline is the single most avoidable way to lose a place.
- Year 5 summer into Year 6: one full timed mock paper a week, reviewing errors far more carefully than the raw score.
- Final six weeks: switch to centre-specific papers in the Bucks GL format so the September sitting feels familiar rather than new.
On the day and after
By September of Year 6, the aim is composure, not last-minute cramming. A child who has sat ten timed mocks at the kitchen table treats the real hall as the eleventh. Keep the final week calm: a good night's sleep, a proper breakfast, and a short, confident chat rather than a warning about how much rides on the result. Remind your child of the practical basics — read each instruction, keep an eye on the clock without panicking, and move on from a hard question rather than losing three minutes on it. On multiple-choice sections, an educated guess beats a blank, and it is worth practising the answer sheet itself so transferring answers never costs time.
Afterwards, resist re-running the paper question by question. Results arrive on the county's published timeline, and if your child narrowly misses, Buckinghamshire operates a review and appeal route worth understanding in advance. Whatever the outcome, the reading, reasoning and maths fluency built along the way are genuine gains that carry into secondary school and beyond.
Frequently asked questions
Does Sir William Borlase's set its own entrance exam?
No. Borlase's selects through the shared Buckinghamshire Secondary Transfer Test, sat by all applicants to the county's grammar schools in mid-September of Year 6. The school does not run a separate paper.
What subjects does the Bucks test cover?
Verbal reasoning, non-verbal and spatial reasoning, comprehension and maths, delivered across two GL papers in separately timed sections. Vocabulary strength underpins the verbal reasoning, so wide reading is as valuable as worksheet drilling.
Does a qualifying score guarantee a place at Borlase's?
No. Qualifying on the standardised score makes your child eligible, but because Borlase's is heavily oversubscribed, distance and the school's published admissions criteria decide who is offered a place among qualified applicants. Check the school website for current criteria.