Reading School is a selective, single-sex grammar school for boys in Reading, Berkshire, admitting 138 day pupils and up to 12 weekly boarders into Year 7 each September under a Published Admission Number (PAN) of 150. For September 2027 entry, places are decided by the FSCE Entrance Test, a four-paper assessment set by Future Stories Community Enterprise Ltd, not by GL Assessment, CEM or a shared 'Reading Consortium' test.
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Updated for September 2027 entry - the real test, the real numbers
Reading School's own admissions policy for September 2027 entry names the FSCE Entrance Test - four papers set by Future Stories Community Enterprise Ltd across the full Year 5 curriculum plus a creativity task - as the school's Year 7 entrance test, run separately from Kendrick School and with no shared 'Reading Consortium' test.
The Published Admission Number for entry is 150 (138 day places and 12 weekly-boarding places); boys within the catchment area and boarding applicants sit the test in July of Year 5, while boys outside the catchment area sit it online in September of Year 6; results are released by mid-October 2026 and formal offers follow from the local authority on National Offer Day, 1st March 2027.
The Common Application Form deadline of 11.59pm on 31st October 2026 is confirmed separately by Brighter Futures for Children, and has not moved this cycle despite falling on a Saturday.
Reading School's determined admissions policy for September 2027 entry is explicit: 'we have adopted the Future Stories Community Enterprise Ltd (FSCE) Test as our Year 7 Entrance Test.' FSCE, not Reading School, GL Assessment or CEM, designs and marks the test, and it is not shared with Kendrick School, the city's girls' grammar school - each school 'is responsible for its own testing arrangements and admission criteria,' in Reading School's own words.
The test consists of four papers - Adventure, Beacon, Compass and Discovery - mixing multiple-choice, constrained-response and written questions. Together they cover 'Thinking Like an Author,' 'Thinking Like a Problem Solver,' Key Stage 2 subjects 'up to and including the Year 5 programme of study,' and 'Thinking Creatively.' The Key Stage 2 element is not limited to English and maths: FSCE's own guidance lists Art & Design, Languages, Computing, Mathematics, Design & Technology, Music, English, Physical Education, Geography, Science and History as subjects the test may draw on.
Every paper except the Creativity Task is computer-marked and age-standardised; a boy's creativity work is only assessed once he has reached an eligible score on the marked papers. Reading School states plainly that 'there are no commercially available practice test papers,' and that a child 'may only take the test once' - a second attempt, if discovered, counts only the earlier score and can be treated as fraudulent.
Not every candidate sits the test on the same day. Boys living in the catchment area at the time of registration, and boarding applicants, are tested in July of Year 5 - the proposed date for September 2027 entry was Thursday 16th July 2026, with Wednesday 15th July 2026 for those needing special arrangements. Boys outside the catchment area are tested online in September of Year 6 instead - the proposed date was Friday 25th September 2026. All sittings share the same content, and a child cannot choose a different date or venue except for illness supported by a medical certificate.
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Our specialist 11+ tutors help families across Reading turn what the FSCE test actually asks for into a realistic programme for their son.
Book a Free Consultation Message us on WhatsAppReading School is a state-funded, selective grammar school for boys on Erleigh Road in Reading. Its Published Admission Number (PAN) for September 2027 entry is 150: 138 day places and 12 weekly-boarding places, and 'the school may admit above its PAN' if it chooses to, notifying the local authority when it does. Boarding has no catchment area of its own; day places are governed by the catchment rules below.
The school was 'named in the Top 25 Schools for Sport in the country and Top 5 State School for Sport in the country,' and reserves 10% of places each year for boys who pass the academic entrance test and then exceed a threshold in a separate Sporting Aptitude Assessment - up to 15 places across day and boarding combined, ranked by sporting aptitude score once the academic threshold is met.
For September 2027 entry, the designated catchment area reaches well beyond Reading itself, covering a broad ring of RG, GU, OX10 and SL postcode districts. Within it, day places cascade through several priority tiers before general catchment is reached - Priority Places, Sporting Aptitude, named Feeder Schools and Priority Postcodes - each set out in full, tier by tier, in our Reading School catchment area guide for 2027 entry.
Every one of the tutoring providers ranking for '11 plus tuition Reading' pitches the same four subjects: maths, English, verbal reasoning and non-verbal reasoning. That is the right preparation for a GL Assessment or CEM-style 11+ exam - and the wrong preparation for Reading School's FSCE test, which has no verbal- or non-verbal-reasoning papers at all, and instead draws on the full span of the Key Stage 2 curriculum up to the end of Year 5, including art, music, design and technology, geography, history and science, alongside a dedicated creativity task.
FSCE is candid about what it is trying to remove: its own guidance states that in focusing on content 'that have been taught up to the end of Year 5,' the test 'aims to remove any need for tutoring' and that 'no specific preparation is necessary,' adding that 'no teacher, tutor or parent will have knowledge of the test that others lack.' We do not dispute that, and we would rather say it plainly than sell a service that contradicts the test-setter's own guidance.
What genuinely helps a boy in this position is not rehearsing a fixed question type - there is not one to rehearse - but making sure the underlying breadth is actually there: confident written expression for the Creativity Task and the 'Thinking Like an Author' element, comfortable recall across the National Curriculum subjects FSCE may draw from, and enough exposure to unfamiliar problem-solving that an unusual question on the day does not throw a capable child off balance. That is a curriculum-breadth and confidence job, not a past-papers job, and it is different work from what a generic 11+ tutor, trained on GL and CEM question banks, is set up to do.
Building the breadth this test rewards
Our specialist 11+ tutors work across the full Key Stage 2 curriculum with boys preparing for Reading School - not just maths and English - so a wider FSCE paper never catches a capable child unprepared.
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Registration for the FSCE test for September 2027 entry opened on 27th March 2026 and closed at midnight on Sunday 17th May 2026 - both dates have now passed. Boys who registered on time take the test in July or September 2026 depending on their track, and results become available online by mid-October 2026, in time for the Common Application Form (CAF) deadline.
The CAF deadline itself is 11.59pm on 31st October 2026, confirmed independently by Brighter Futures for Children, the organisation that runs school admissions for Reading Borough Council, which gives the same national date - 31 October - for 'on time' applications across every Reading secondary school, Reading School included. Missing it means an application is processed as 'late,' after National Offer Day.
Local authorities write to families with formal offers on National Offer Day, 1st March 2027, with an acceptance deadline of 12th March. Boys who reach an eligible score but are not offered a place go onto Reading School's waiting list automatically, ranked by the same oversubscription criteria, and lists remain active under the school's own administration until 31st January 2028.
For families with a son currently in Year 5, targeting September 2028 entry, the same pattern is likely to repeat a year later - registration opening in spring, testing in the following July or September. Reading School has not yet published exact 2028 dates, so every family should confirm the live timetable on the school's own admissions pages nearer the time rather than assume last year's calendar repeats exactly.
Leading Tuition's specialist 11+ tutors work with boys targeting Reading School on exactly the ground the FSCE test covers: written expression and creative problem-solving for the Creativity Task and the 'Thinking Like an Author' strand, and steady, curriculum-wide confidence across the Key Stage 2 subjects the test may draw questions from, rather than the narrow verbal- and non-verbal-reasoning drilling built for a different kind of exam.
Every programme starts from where a child actually is, using the school's own familiarisation guide to understand the test's format rather than to chase a past paper that does not exist. Families across Reading and the wider catchment area work with us on tutoring support across Reading as well as preparation specific to this school.
Leading Tuition students preparing for selective schools have achieved a 95%+ offer rate across selective school entry. Book a free consultation to talk through a preparation plan built around what the FSCE test actually asks of a Year 5 or Year 6 boy.
For the school's own determined admissions policy, including the full oversubscription criteria and appendices, see Reading School's Year 7 admissions policies for 2027 entry.
Talk to an 11+ tutor about Reading School
Whether your son sits the test in catchment next July or online in September, our expert 11+ tutors can build a programme around the FSCE format and his own starting point.
Book a Free Consultation Message us on WhatsAppReviewed September 2026: the FSCE Entrance Test, the 2027 Published Admission Number, catchment area, oversubscription order and results/offer dates checked against Reading School's own determined admissions policies and Brighter Futures for Children's secondary admissions guidance.
Boys sit the FSCE Entrance Test, set and marked by Future Stories Community Enterprise Ltd - not GL Assessment, not CEM, and not a shared 'Reading Consortium' test. Reading School's own admissions policy confirms it 'is responsible for its own testing arrangements and admission criteria,' separately from Kendrick School, the city's girls' grammar school. The test has four papers - Adventure, Beacon, Compass and Discovery - mixing multiple-choice, constrained-response and written questions across the full Key Stage 2 curriculum up to the end of Year 5, plus a dedicated creativity task, rather than the verbal- and non-verbal-reasoning format most 11+ tutoring in Reading is built around.
No. Boys who live in the catchment area at the time of registration, and boarding applicants, sit the test in July of Year 5 - the proposed date for September 2027 entry was Thursday 16th July 2026, with Wednesday 15th July 2026 for candidates needing special arrangements. Boys outside the catchment area sit an online version in September of Year 6 instead, on a proposed date of Friday 25th September 2026. Every sitting uses the same content, a child may only take the test once, and an alternative date is only offered for illness supported by a medical certificate.
No. Reading School's 2027-entry admissions policy states plainly that the eligible score 'is not a pre-defined pass mark.' It is set each year by the Governors' Admissions Committee, based on that year's cohort, the school's oversubscription criteria and its Published Admission Number of 150. Achieving an eligible score does not guarantee a place, because more candidates typically reach it than there are places available; candidates below it are not ranked at all. A boy's final position then depends on the oversubscription category he falls into - catchment, feeder school, priority postcode or otherwise.
The Published Admission Number for September 2027 entry is 150: 138 day places and 12 weekly-boarding places, and the school may admit above this if it chooses to. Where there are more eligible candidates than places, day places are offered in a fixed priority order - Priority Places (including looked-after children and pupil premium), Sporting Aptitude, named Feeder Schools, Priority Postcodes, then general Catchment Area, then all other eligible candidates - each ranked by standardised test score. Our Reading School catchment area guide sets out every tier in full, including how boarding places, which have no catchment, are ranked separately.
The Common Application Form deadline is 11.59pm on 31st October 2026, confirmed on Reading School's own admissions policy and independently by Brighter Futures for Children, which runs Reading Borough Council's school admissions and names 31 October as the 'on time' deadline for every Reading secondary school. Despite 31st October 2026 falling on a Saturday, neither source has moved the date this cycle. Applications received after the deadline are treated as 'late' and processed only after National Offer Day, 1st March 2027, once on-time applications have been allocated.
Boys who fall below the eligible score, or who reach it but are not offered a place once the oversubscription criteria are applied, have the right to appeal to an independent panel, whose decision is binding on both the school and the family. For applications made in the normal admissions round, Reading School aims to hear appeals within 40 school days of the appeal deadline. An appeal is a review of process, not a re-mark, so the most reliable route to a place is still a result strong enough that a borderline decision is not the outcome a family is relying on.
Given that FSCE, the test's own setter, says 'no specific preparation is necessary' and that the test 'aims to remove any need for tutoring,' our role is not to drill a fixed set of questions. Our expert 11+ tutors instead build the breadth and confidence the test actually rewards: written expression and creative problem-solving for the Creativity Task and the 'Thinking Like an Author' strand, steady recall across the full Key Stage 2 curriculum, and calm familiarity with unfamiliar question formats using the school's own familiarisation guide. Book a free consultation to talk through what that looks like for your son.
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