Entry into Year 7

The assessment for 11+ entry is taken in the Autumn Term for admission the following September.

There are three parts to the assessment for a Year 7 place at Farnborough Hill: a reference from your daughter’s current school, a meeting with the Headmistress and, finally, our entrance assessment day. 

Reference

We will first contact your daughter’s current school directly to request a reference from the Head.

Meeting with the Head

Both you and your daughter will be invited to meet with the Head, Maria Young, prior to any offer of a place at Farnborough Hill. Meetings take place in the Summer Term of Year 5 and the Autumn Term of Year 6. Once your daughter is registered with us, Mel Clark, Head’s PA, will invite you to make an appointment from April onwards.

Year 7 Entrance Assessment

Girls are assessed through the CEM Select Evaluate Abilities computer assessment devised by the Centre for Evaluation and Monitoring, part of the University of Cambridge, which is used to measure verbal, numerical and non-verbal ability. The allocated time for this section is around one hour. CEM don’t provide practice materials for the Abilities assessment, however they do offer guidance (download here) and a familiarisation website which gives both you and your daughter a chance to see what the tests look like. A link to the CEM Familiarisation Website will be emailed to you as soon as you have registered your daughter.

In addition, all applicants will also be asked to complete a 45-minute handwritten Creative Writing paper, before they come together in small groups to enjoy a team building activity and a short group interview with one of our Senior Leadership Team.  The team building activity and interview will be facilitated by our teaching staff and will give us the opportunity to observe the girls working together. No preparation will be needed for these activities: we just hope the girls will enjoy them! 

If your daughter is hoping to join us in Year 7 in September 2025, she will take her Entrance Assessment on Monday 16 December 2024, with the registration deadline being Monday 4 November 2024.

If you are hoping to join us before September 2025, please contact us.

Deferred Year 9 Entry

Each year we offer a small number of deferred places to Year 6 pupils looking to join us in Year 9.  If you would like to take this route, your daughter will need to be registered with us by the November deadline in her Year 6 and will also sit her entrance assessments in Year 6.   A deferred place will be offered to your daughter if we believe she will be able to adapt to senior school at this later stage. Your daughter’s place will be conditional on a final reference and school report from her current school that we will request during Year 8. There will also be another short assessment during Year 8. These results will help us place your daughter in the most appropriate class for Maths and English.

Should demand for places exceed available space or we feel that a Year 9 deferred place isn’t the best option for your daughter, we may offer her a place in Year 7 instead or invite her to visit us again in Year 8 for a further assessment.

Entry into other Year Groups

If you would like your daughter to join us outside of the normal entry points, please contact us first to see if we have a space for her.

She will sit both the online CEM assessment and the 45-minute creative writing paper, and have an interview with the Headmistress. We will also ask you for a copy of her latest school report, which we will consider in addition to her school reference. Assessments for places in other Year Groups take place on an ad-hoc basis – usually within a few weeks of you registering your daughter with us.

If you are interested in a place in the Sixth Form, please visit our Sixth Form Admissions page.