5.4 Registration, Eligibility & Test-Day Logistics

Registration, Eligibility & Test-Day Logistics

Preparation for the Kent Test is only half the job. The other half is administrative, and it is unforgiving: a child who is not registered by the deadline does not sit the test, and a child who sits the test but is not named on a school application cannot be offered a grammar place. This section sets out the process as Kent County Council publishes it.

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The 2026 Cycle at a Glance

These are the published dates for the test taken in September 2026, which decides entry to Year 7 in September 2027.

The pattern repeats annually — registration through June, the test in September, results in mid-October — but the exact dates change each year and Kent County Council publishes them on its Kent Test pages. Always confirm the current year's dates rather than assuming last year's.

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Who Can Register

For the 2026 test, Kent County Council's stated criteria were:

• Children born between 1 September 2015 and 31 August 2016 — that is, children in Year 5 at the point of registration who move into Year 6 in September and transfer to secondary school in 2027.
• Children resident in England, which explicitly excludes the Crown Dependencies such as Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man.
• Children of UK service personnel with a confirmed posting to the UK, and Crown Servants returning from overseas to the UK.

Children outside the age range who are still expected to transfer to secondary school in the relevant September are handled individually by Kent Admissions rather than through the standard form.

Kent County Council is also explicit about the standard involved, and puts it under the things to consider before registering: "Many children will find the test difficult. Grammar schools in Kent provide for children in about the top 25% of the ability range." It advises discussing a child's academic achievement with their primary school before deciding to register. That is a genuine decision point, not a formality.

Registration is not an application. Registering a child for the Kent Test only books the test. Naming schools is a separate step on the secondary common application form later in the autumn, and missing that step means no grammar school can consider the child regardless of their score.

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Where the Test Is Sat

• Children at a Kent primary school normally sit the test at their own school on the weekday test date. This is the least disruptive route: familiar room, familiar adults.
• Children who do not attend a Kent primary school — independent-school pupils and out-of-county pupils — are invited to a Kent test centre, typically a grammar school, on the weekend dates.

Kent County Council asks families living outside Kent to register only if they genuinely intend to apply for a Kent grammar school place, because unused registrations waste test-centre capacity every year. It also notes that some Kent grammar schools, particularly those most likely to offer places to children from outside the county, give priority to the highest scores — so for out-of-county families, comfortably clearing the threshold matters more than just reaching it.

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Special Educational Needs and Access Arrangements

The process here runs through the school, not the parent, and it runs before registration closes.

1. Talk to the primary school's special educational needs coordinator (SENCO) before registering.
2. The school applies for any access arrangements that are needed; parents cannot apply directly.
3. Requests were not accepted after 1 July 2026 for the 2026 test — the same day registration closed.

Kent County Council also states that a child with a severe visual impairment who cannot access the test papers can instead be assessed by a headteacher panel, which looks at their classwork and academic achievement rather than a test score.

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Results Day and What Follows

• Results are emailed on results day to the address given at registration, and only to that address. Families who gave no email address receive a letter by first-class post; if it has not arrived, the child's primary school can supply the scores the following day.
• The result reports three standardised scores — English, maths and reasoning — plus an aggregate, and states whether the child has been assessed as suitable for grammar school.
• Being assessed as suitable does not guarantee a place. Grammar schools are frequently oversubscribed and rank applicants using their own published admissions criteria, so the school's criteria matter as much as the score.
• A grammar school can only consider a child if the school is named on the application and the child has been tested and assessed as suitable.
• If a place is refused when offers are made on 1 March 2027, families have the right to appeal to an independent appeal panel, and may be able to join the school's waiting list.

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The Boundaries of the Kent Test

Three limits are worth stating plainly, because each catches families out:

• The Kent Test is only valid for Kent grammar schools. Medway Council runs its own Medway Test and the London Borough of Bexley runs its own Bexley selection test. A Kent result does not transfer to either.
• Applications are co-ordinated between local authorities. A family living outside Kent must list every preferred school, including Kent ones, on their home authority's application form, and will be offered only one school place in total.
• Moving into Kent after the test does not close the door: a child arriving after the Kent Test has taken place and seeking a Year 7 grammar place will still need to be assessed, through Kent County Council's separate process for moving to a different school.

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A Practical Checklist for Families

• Diary the registration window as soon as it is announced, and register early rather than on the closing day.
• Raise any access-arrangement need with the SENCO in the spring term, well before the July deadline.
• Give an email address at registration that will still be monitored in mid-October, and check the junk folder on results day.
• Read the admissions criteria for each grammar school of interest before results day, so the application can be completed quickly once scores are known.
• Treat the common application form deadline in the autumn as a separate, equally hard deadline.