STEP 1: REGISTRATION
All boys must be registered to sit our entrance examination. To register your son, please complete our online registration form, along with the non-returnable registration fee. Registrations are now open for 11+ and Lower Sixth Form in September 2025.
STEP 2: ASSESSMENT
Boys are assessed for their suitability via the assessments outlined below, an interview and a confidential reference from their current headteacher.
All boys sit the online ISEB Common Pre-Tests tests during the first term of Year 6; a well-respected, widely-used, age-standardised assessment for pupils applying for selective independent senior schools. The adaptive, age-standardised tests comprise English, Mathematics, Verbal Reasoning and Non-Verbal Reasoning; they are in a multiple-choice format and take approximately two-and-a-quarter hours to complete. No special preparation is required for the Common Pre-Tests, which are designed to identify potential as well as attainment. Click here for further details, including a link to some helpful familiarisation questions.
All boys are interviewed individually by current members of staff. The aim of the interview is, within a relaxed atmosphere, to get an insight into each boys’ interests and to see how the boys think and how they react to questions which they will not have prepared for. Among other things, we want boys who will engage in the learning process, who have an inquisitive mind, who will challenge and question, who are flexible in their thought process and who are able to develop their answers. In addition, a short composition/English creative writing task is included in this part of the assessment process.
In addition, we shall invite some boys back in January for a second interview; this allows us to give all boys the benefit of doubt. The interview may provide an opportunity to reflect on inconsistency in performance; relative weakness in one area; disparity between performance in the assessments and their reference. This process allows us to identify those boys with the potential to thrive at the RGS but who, for whatever reason, have not performed consistently in the assessment.
STEP 3: OFFERS
Letters to the parents of candidates to whom the School will and, regrettably, will not be offering a place are sent out towards the middle of February, on a date agreed by all schools which are members of the Trinity Group. Acceptances are required by early March.