The 11 Plus Designated Area Guide 2026

At several of London's most selective grammar schools, where a child lives can matter as much as the test score. Tiffin School has offered no place outside its 10km Priority Area since 2019, and every Tiffin Girls' place since 2014 has gone to a girl inside its Designated Area of 44 postcode districts, while QE Boys Barnet has no catchment at all. Each school sets its own rule and its own name for it.

If you are weighing schools with different area rules, book a free consultation and we will go through the rules that apply at your address.

What Is a Designated Area in 11 Plus Admissions?

A designated area is a geographic zone, set by a school, whose residents receive priority in admissions. Schools name and draw it differently: Tiffin Girls' calls it a Designated Area, Tiffin School a Priority Area, Dame Alice Owen's its Local Priority Areas and Nonsuch High School for Girls a catchment area circle. In grammar school admissions the priority usually works among children who have already met the school's academic standard: those living inside the area are ranked ahead of those outside it, even if the children outside scored higher. No amount of geography helps a child who has not met the standard.

Not every grammar school uses one. QE Boys Barnet has no catchment: it ranks boys by score and uses distance from the school only to separate boys with the same score, and Wilson's School in Wallington uses residence in the London Borough of Sutton only in the same way. Tiffin School, although it also ranks boys by score, is not in this group, because boys living within 10km of the school are ranked ahead of everyone else. Henrietta Barnett, Dame Alice Owen's, Tiffin Girls' and four of the Sutton grammar schools that use the Selective Eligibility Test (SET) also give priority by address, each in a different way, as the table below shows.

QE Boys Barnet vs Henrietta Barnett: A Direct Comparison

The contrast between these two North London super-selectives shows how much an area rule matters. Queen Elizabeth's School (QE Boys) in Barnet has no catchment. A boy needs a combined score of 225 across its two multiple-choice papers, in English and maths, to be eligible, and its 180 places then go in rank order of score, with no priority for siblings or for Pupil Premium. Distance from the school counts only when two boys have the same score. For 2025 entry, 3,433 boys sat the tests, about 19 for every place, and the lowest score gaining admission, excluding appeals, was 235. A boy from South London scoring 240 is ranked above a boy from Barnet scoring 236; where each lives makes no difference unless their scores are tied.

Henrietta Barnett School (HBS), in Hampstead Garden Suburb, also has no catchment area, but it does have a distance criterion. Round One tests verbal reasoning, non-verbal reasoning and English, and the top 300 girls are invited to Round Two in English and maths. Places go first to looked-after and previously looked-after girls, then to girls eligible for Pupil Premium, provided they rank in the top 300 in Round One; next to girls living within 3 miles of the school who sat Round Two; and then to everyone else in rank order. So a girl living 2 miles away who reaches Round Two is placed ahead of a higher-scoring girl living 5 miles away with no other priority. There is no sibling priority. The Published Admission Number for September 2027 is 120, and in 2025 the school received 3,121 applications for 104 places, about 3%.

Sources, retrieved 25 September 2026: each school's admissions arrangements for September 2027 entry; QE's admissions guide and entrance test FAQs; Tiffin School's and Tiffin Girls' published admissions figures for 2024 to 2026; Dame Alice Owen's allocation of places for September 2026; Greenshaw Learning Trust's published SET figures; and Buckinghamshire Council's guidance on applying for a grammar school place.

How Much Advantage Does a Designated Area Give?

The size of the advantage depends on how many strong applicants live inside the area. At Tiffin School it is decisive: the school's published admissions figures confirm that for 2024, 2025 and 2026 entry every place went to a boy in the 10km Priority Area, and for 2026 entry 1,866 boys sat Stage One for 186 places, one offer for every 10 boys tested. Tiffin Girls' is the same: 1,322 of the 1,468 girls tested at Stage One for 2026 entry gave a Designated Area address, and every place went to a girl living in the area. Tiffin School asks families outside its Priority Area to consider very carefully whether to register at all; Tiffin Girls' recommends that families outside its area consider a school closer to home.

Elsewhere the advantage is real but bounded. At Henrietta Barnett, the 3-mile criterion lifts a nearby girl above higher-ranked girls from further away, but only once she has reached Round Two, which for 2027 entry means ranking in the top 300 in Round One. At Dame Alice Owen's, the Local Priority Areas are a condition rather than a bonus: only children living in them, or educated in Islington, can win one of its academic places: 65 were offered for 2026 entry, when 1,109 children registered for the test. The school also gives 22 places to the children living closest to it; in 2026 the furthest of them lived 337.90 metres away.

The Sutton schools show how differently schools sharing one test can treat an address. Six schools use the SET (Nonsuch, Wallington High School for Girls, Sutton Grammar, Wallington County Grammar, Wilson's and the comprehensive Greenshaw High School), and 5,842 children sat it for 2026 entry, but each school sets its own pass mark after the test is marked and applies its own admission rules. Wilson's uses Sutton residence only to break ties. Nonsuch and Wallington High School for Girls fill 85 and 100 places respectively on score alone, whatever the address, before their catchment places. Sutton Grammar and Wallington County reserve places for listed postcodes, and Sutton Grammar's list reaches beyond the borough to KT17 in Epsom. Greenshaw, which admits up to 60 pupils on SET results, has no catchment area at all. Our Sutton SET guide covers the test itself.

Can You Move Into a Designated Area Before the 11 Plus?

Moving into an area is allowed, but the address must be your child's genuine permanent home, and each school fixes the date on which it counts. Nonsuch, Wallington High School for Girls, Sutton Grammar and Wallington County all use the address on 31 October 2026, the deadline for the local authority application; Henrietta Barnett uses the address at the point the application is submitted in October; and Dame Alice Owen's requires an address in a Local Priority Area both when the child registers for its test and when the application is made. Henrietta Barnett's policy states that where an application contains false or misleading information, an offer may be withdrawn even after the child has started at the school.

A second address does not count. The Kingston council rules reproduced in Tiffin School's admissions policy say that if you own or rent a home and then buy or rent another property, or stay with family or friends temporarily, the second address will not be used for admissions, and that if you own a home you have lived in but apply from a different one, the home you own is the address that counts. Your home local authority verifies the address and may ask for evidence. For September 2027 entry, applications are due by 31 October 2026 and offers are made on 1 March 2027. If you move at any point before your child starts school, tell your local authority and follow its process for moving home: the Tiffin Girls' arrangements warn that an address change after places are allocated means the offer is reassessed, which could lead to its withdrawal. Our guide to moving into the Henrietta Barnett three-mile area works through one school's rules in detail.

Before relying on a move, check three things for each school on your list: the exact rule (a radius, a list of postcodes or wards, or a distance to a named gate or door), the date on which your address counts, and whether the rule has decided places in recent years. Tiffin and Tiffin Girls' publish that it has, while at QE Boys and Wilson's the address matters only at a tie. For further planning guidance see our grammar school complete guide, our pages on Henrietta Barnett School and QE Boys Barnet, and our 11 plus tuition service.

Designated Area Schools: Implications for Preparation Strategy

Understanding the area rules should shape how you prepare. Where a school ranks every child and gives priority to nearby children, living inside the area lowers the score your child needs, but it rarely removes the need for a high one. At Henrietta Barnett, a girl within 3 miles still has to rank in the top 300 in Round One to reach Round Two, and the school releases no Round Two scores or rankings; a girl who is not offered a place and leaves the waiting list can ask for her scores after National Offer Day, but rankings are never given, so there is no known target score. At Nonsuch and Wallington High School for Girls, a girl inside the circle still has to reach the school's pass marks in the SET and its second-stage papers, and each school sets its SET pass mark only after the test has been marked. In practice, that means preparing to a high standard whatever your address, and treating the area rule as a margin rather than a plan.

For families outside a school's area, the first question is whether to apply at all. At Tiffin and Tiffin Girls', where no place has gone outside the area in recent years, a child living outside is better served by preparing for schools open to them: QE Boys Barnet for a boy, for instance, or for a girl the places that Nonsuch and Wallington High School for Girls fill on score alone. Where a school fills some places on score regardless of address, preparation should aim for a score that competes for those places. If you would like help working out which schools are realistic from your address, book a free consultation and we will go through each school's rules with you.

Key Statistics on Designated Area Grammar Schools

A few figures frame the landscape. At Henrietta Barnett, 3,121 applications were received for 104 places in 2025, about 30 for every place, and the Published Admission Number for 2027 is 120. The five Sutton grammar schools have 906 Year 7 places between them for 2027 entry (210 each at Nonsuch and Wallington High School for Girls, 186 at Wilson's and 150 each at Sutton Grammar and Wallington County), Greenshaw High School admits up to 60 more on SET results, and 5,842 children sat the SET for 2026 entry. The areas themselves vary widely in size: Nonsuch's catchment circle has a radius of 5.25km, Wallington High School for Girls' 6.7km and Tiffin School's Priority Area 10km, while Dame Alice Owen's gives 22 places to the children living closest to it, the furthest of whom lived 337.90 metres away in 2026. Greenshaw, a comprehensive with no catchment area, made its furthest offer on distance at 1,108 metres in 2026, a figure the London Borough of Sutton also publishes.

Frequently Asked Questions