The Ultimate Guide To Kendrick School Entry
Founded in 1877, Kendrick School is a well-loved selective girls' grammar school with a very strong academic record. An Academy since 2011, and recently named the second best secondary school in the southeast (and fifteenth nationally) in the Sunday Times Parent Power Guide 2024, Kendrick is rated as 'outstanding' in all areas by Ofsted. As a hub school in the Science Leadership Partnership, Kendrick also provides invaluable science teaching support to other schools in the local Reading area. Kendrick offers a diverse extracurricular program, including clubs and societies spanning the creative arts, sport, business, dance, music, and STEM.
The School
-
Open days are yet to be announced for 2027 entry
-
The deadline for registering for the Admission Tests for entry into Year 7 in September 2026 was Tuesday 1st July 2025 (midnight). Details of online applications for entry in September 2027 will be published in due course
-
Exams for 2026 entry have already taken place
-
Mock entrance exams for 2027 entry candidates are available as follows:
Sunday 18th January 2026
Sunday 26th April 2026
Saturday 6th June 2026
Saturday 11th July 2026
Sunday 9th August 2026
Saturday 22nd August 2026
-
The admission tests for entry into Kendrick School in 2026 took place on 19th September 2025. Admission test dates for 2027 entry will be announced in due course
-
The results of the Admission Test were released in October 2025
-
Click here for the full Admissions Policies document provided by Kendrick School
Key Dates
The Entrance Exams
The date for the 2026 entrance exam, for Kendrick School admission in 2027, has not yet been announced.
There will be two separate tests on exam day, focusing on verbal reasoning, non-verbal reasoning, maths and English. These exams are set by GL Assessment and differ from the standard 11+ exam sat in other parts of the country. Unlike other entrance and 11+ exams, creative writing does not play a part in the Kendrick School entrance exams. There are generally only 128 places available in Year 7, so unfortunately doing well in the exams does not guarantee a place. After results are released in mid-October, other factors are taken into consideration, such as your distance from the school.
Paper 1:
This is a one hour multiple choice exam paper, based on the English syllabus up to the end of Year 5, and verbal reasoning. This paper is worth 50% of the available marks, and these marks are split evenly between the English and verbal reasoning components.
Spelling
Punctuation
Grammar
Reading comprehension
Vocabulary
Verbal reasoning
Paper 2:
This is a one hour multiple choice exam paper, based on the maths syllabus up to the end of Year 5, and non-verbal reasoning. This paper is also worth 50% of the available marks, and these marks are split evenly between the maths and non-verbal reasoning components.
Measurements
Numbers
Statistics
Geometry
Non-verbal reasoning
Designated Areas
There are 2 ‘priority areas’ for Kendrick School, which make up the ‘designated area’. To apply for and sit the entrance exams, students do not need to live in the designated area, however these priority areas do strongly affect how available school places are allocated to students who are successful in the exams.
-
RG1
RG2 0, RG2 6, RG2 7, RG2 8
RG30 1, RG30 2, RG30 3, RG30 4, RG30 6
RG31 4, RG31 5, RG31 6, RG31 7
RG4 5, RG4 6, RG4 7, RG4 8
RG5 3
RG6 1, RG6 5, RG6 6, RG6 7
-
RG2 9, RG4 9, RG5 4, RG6 3, RG6 4, RG7, RG8, RG9, RG10, RG12, RG27 0, RG40, RG41, RG42, RG45
GU17 0, GU46, GU47
SL6 3, SL6 4, SL6 5, SL6 6
Current Kendrick School Year 8 Student
“For me, the most challenging aspect of the entry exam was the verbal reasoning and non-verbal reasoning. These were very different to anything I’d done before. My friends mostly felt the same.”
How we can help at Brainbox Learning Reading
Starting at just £28.50 per hour, the one-to-one, face-to-face tuition we offer is completely tailored towards the requirements of the Kendrick School entrance exam, and is guaranteed to stand your child in the best stead when exam time comes around. In all cases, our sessions provide the ideal mix between honing the necessary English, maths, verbal reasoning and non-verbal reasoning skills required to succeed, and providing enough exposure to our real world mock and past exam papers that taking the real exam will feel like second nature. Click here for more information, price lists or to book a free consultation.
Our mock exam days provide girls with:
the experience of sitting an entrance exam under timed conditions and managing their nerves, in an exam hall filled with unfamiliar faces from other schools
a realistic opportunity to track and measure their progress and level, and increase their confidence
fully individualised, detailed, question-by-question feedback reports, with question walkthroughs, teacher comments and links to further practice resources
We replicate as closely as possible the conditions girls will experience on the day of the real exam, from the moment they are dropped off, all the way through to pickup time. Our papers are carefully created from scratch by a team of expert 11+ teachers, with many years of experience teaching in schools, privately, and writing, marking and moderating real school exams. For each mock exam sat with us, parents will receive a fully comprehensive feedback report and presentation to look through with their child.
