Assessment

The Academy operates a fair-banding process as part of its admissions policy. Fair-banding is used by the academy to demonstrate that we admit children from all ability levels, not just those who achieve the highest score on the assessment test. Consequently, it is not a traditional pass or fail test. Allocation of a place will be based purely on the oversubscription criteria, which includes random allocation. Full details of the oversubscription criteria, can be found in our Admissions and Appeals Policy 2025-26.

Intake 2025

To enter children for the assessment for admission into Year 7 in September 2025, a supplementary form (SIF) has to be completed by the deadline of 3.30pm on Monday 30 September 2024. A link to the form is available from our Admissions page.

The assessment will be held on Saturday 12 October 2024. For those unable to attend on this date, an alternative date will be offered.

For those children whose supplementary forms have been submitted by the deadline, parents will be sent an e-mail by Thursday 3 October to advise them of the time for their child to attend for the assessment.

A sample assessment paper is available in the downloads section below. Please use this paper to familiarise your child with the type of assessment they will sit. They should not be worried if they cannot answer all of the questions; they should just try to answer as many as they can.

In-Year admissions

Places very rarely occur at the academy but, if they do, we would invite any applicant on the current waiting list for that year group to complete the assessment (if they have not already done so). The decision of who is offered a place will be determined by matching the ability level of the child who is leaving and applying the oversubscription criteria.