The Crossley Heath School 11+ Guide 2026

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The Crossley Heath School is a co-educational grammar school in Halifax, Calderdale, admitting 180 pupils into Year 7 each September. For September 2027 entry, registration for the admissions test opened on 20 March 2026 and closed on 26 June 2026, and the main FSCE (Future Stories Community Enterprise) test — sat jointly with North Halifax Grammar School — was held on Saturday 19 September 2026. Crossley Heath is oversubscribed: Calderdale Council's own admissions statistics show 295 on-time first-preference applications for September 2026 entry against 180 places, a ratio of roughly 1.6 first-preference applicants per place. This guide sets out the exact test format, the full 2026/2027 admissions timetable, the oversubscription criteria that decide places, the school's published academic results, and how families should prepare.

How Many Places Does The Crossley Heath School Offer for 2026/2027 Entry?

Crossley Heath's Published Admission Number (PAN) is 180 places for Year 7 entry, a figure confirmed on both the school's own admissions page and Calderdale Council's secondary admissions criteria page. The same figure appears in both the 2026 and 2027 admission arrangements on Calderdale Council's page.

Demand exceeded supply for September 2026 entry. Calderdale Council's admissions booklet publishes statistics for each school by preference order, and for September 2026 entry (places allocated as at 2 March 2026) Crossley Heath received these on-time applications:

That is 295 first-preference applications against 180 places, a ratio of about 1.6:1 on first choice. This preference-by-preference breakdown is published by Calderdale Council and counts on-time applications only.

What Test Format Does Crossley Heath Use for 11+ Entry?

Crossley Heath uses the FSCE (Future Stories Community Enterprise) test, administered jointly with North Halifax Grammar School — the two schools run one joint admissions test on the same day, and families register for it through either school's website. The admissions test consists of three papers:

English: assessed in Papers 1 and 2, each of which is a test in Mathematics and English, through the test's mix of multiple-choice and written-response questions.

Mathematics: assessed in the same two papers, on knowledge appropriate to the KS2 curriculum, again through multiple-choice and written-response questions.

Creative Writing: Paper 3, assessed only for candidates who first meet the qualifying standard in English and Maths.

English and Maths are marked by computer and age-standardised, so scores allow for differences in age within a year group. Crucially, the Creative Writing paper is a two-stage gate: it is only judged, by a panel of staff from the two Halifax Grammar Schools, for children who meet the qualifying standard on English and Maths first. A child must meet the qualifying standard in English, Mathematics and Creative Writing to be considered for a place, and meeting all three does not guarantee one. The school states explicitly that the test "aims to remove any need for tutoring" by testing knowledge appropriate to the KS2 curriculum, and adds that no specific preparation is necessary — families who choose to prepare can still practise KS2 English and Maths, and writing, under timed conditions, using the school's Familiarisation Guide for sample questions.

What Are the Key Dates for Crossley Heath 11+ 2026/2027 Entry?

The Halifax Grammar Schools publish an admissions timetable. For September 2027 entry, the confirmed dates are:

For comparison, September 2026 entry (the previous cycle) ran to a similar rhythm one year earlier: registration opened 21 March 2025 and closed 27 June 2025, with the main test on 20 September 2025 . The pattern is the same in both cycles — registration opening in March, the test in September, offers the following March — and the policy says the main test is usually held on a Saturday in September or early October, so families can plan a year ahead and check the school's admissions page for each cycle's exact dates.

How Does the Joint Admissions Process With North Halifax Grammar Work?

Crossley Heath and North Halifax Grammar School are selective grammar schools in Halifax that hold a joint admissions test — on 19 September 2026 for September 2027 entry. Registering for the test and applying for a place are separate steps: parents register their child for the admissions test online through either school's website, and then name Crossley Heath, North Halifax Grammar or both among the five preferences on the Common Application Form, which closes on 31 October 2026.

The two schools also apply different oversubscription rules once results are in. North Halifax Grammar reserves up to 10% of its places for children living within its own defined Priority Admissions Area. Crossley Heath has no such catchment or priority area at all — it is officially confirmed as open to applicants from any UK local authority, with places allocated purely by order of merit for English and Mathematics once the higher-priority categories (looked-after children, Pupil Premium and Service Premium children) are accounted for. This makes Crossley Heath, in practice, a genuinely open-catchment grammar school within the joint Calderdale test, which is an important distinction for families relocating into the area or applying from another local authority.

The school's own admissions policy also confirms that supplementary testing is available for children who cannot sit the main test for a valid reason, as set out in the policy's Appendix 2; the timetable for September 2027 entry lists a supplementary test at The Crossley Heath School on Friday 25 September 2026.

How Are Places Allocated? Oversubscription Criteria Explained

Once test results are in, Crossley Heath's 180 places are allocated using a fixed order of oversubscription criteria, set out in its admission arrangements as published by Calderdale Council:

Where two or more children have the same order of merit as the child in the last place offered, two tiebreakers apply in order: first, priority to a child who has a sibling already attending Crossley Heath; and if still tied, priority to the child living closer to the school, measured as a straight-line distance from home to the school's nearest designated gate using the council's Geographical Information System (GIS). Because Crossley Heath has no defined catchment area, this distance tiebreaker only comes into play where children have the same order of merit.

What Are Crossley Heath's Academic Results and Ofsted Rating?

The Department for Education's performance tables and the school's own GCSE results sheet give these 2025 figures:

Attainment 8 was 74.5 in 2025, against 46.1 for all state schools in England, and 98.9% of pupils reached grade 5 or above in both English and maths (45.4% across all state schools in England). The school's own results sheet gives 99% at grade 4 or above in both subjects. The same sheet shows that, across all subjects, 48% of the grades awarded were 9–8 and 70% were 9–7.

Ofsted last inspected Crossley Heath on 3 July 2023, rating the school Good overall, with Behaviour and Attitudes judged Outstanding and Leadership and Management, Personal Development and Sixth-Form Provision all rated Good. Get Information About Schools records 1,179 pupils against a capacity of 1,160 places — figures that give a sense of scale for a school admitting 180 into Year 7 each year across an 11–18 age range.

Is The Crossley Heath School Co-educational? A Brief History

Yes — Crossley Heath is co-educational: Calderdale Council's admission arrangements describe it as a mixed, selective 11-18 grammar school, and the Department for Education's Get Information About Schools register lists its gender of entry as Mixed. North Halifax Grammar, which shares the admissions test, is described in the same way on Calderdale Council's website.

The school was formed by the merger of two earlier schools, described below. Heath Grammar School was originally chartered by Queen Elizabeth I in 1585. Separately, the Crossley Orphan Home and School, an orphan home and school for boys and girls, was founded in Halifax in 1864; its boys' and girls' schools had separate heads until they were officially merged under one head on 1 January 1968. In 1985, Heath Grammar School and Crossley and Porter School amalgamated to form the single co-educational institution known today as The Crossley Heath School, with the former Heath site ceasing to be used once the amalgamation was complete in 1988.

How Should You Prepare for the Crossley Heath 11+ Test?

Because the FSCE covers English, Maths and Creative Writing, and the admission arrangements say children are not tested on non-verbal reasoning, preparation for Crossley Heath centres on KS2 English, Maths and writing. Families should focus on three areas specifically:

Timed English and Maths accuracy: because English and Maths are marked by computer and age-standardised, and places are offered by order of merit for English and Mathematics, accuracy counts. Practice under timed conditions from an early stage — Year 5, ideally — is a sensible habit, rather than relying only on untimed classroom-style work.

Creative Writing as a genuine second gate, not an afterthought: because only children who clear the English and Maths threshold have their Creative Writing paper marked, some families assume writing preparation matters less. In practice the arrangements require a child to meet the qualifying standard in Creative Writing as well as in English and Maths to be considered for a place, so a weak, rushed piece of writing can cost a child eligibility even after a strong English and Maths result. Building a fast, structured approach to responding to a writing task — planning in two to three minutes, then writing with a clear beginning, middle and end — is a specific, coachable skill.

Genuine KS2 curriculum depth, not test-specific tricks: the school states its intention is to test knowledge appropriate to the KS2 curriculum, and says the test content changes each year, so its Familiarisation Guide is not definitive and coaching that relies on memorised question types is a poor fit. The most effective preparation blends solid subject mastery with regular exposure to FSCE-style timed conditions, so that on the day a child is applying real understanding quickly rather than pattern-matching a familiar question shape.

Registration closed on 26 June 2026 and the test was held on 19 September 2026, so the summer holiday sat directly between registration and the test itself — a period when structured practice can lapse.

For wider context on how Crossley Heath compares with the other grammar schools across the region, including Heckmondwike, North Halifax, Ripon and Ermysted's, see our North and West Yorkshire Grammar Schools 11+ Guide. Families comparing Yorkshire grammar schools may also find our guides to Ripon Grammar School and Ermysted's Grammar School useful for comparison, and our 11+ tuition service page sets out how our specialist tutors structure preparation programmes. Full official admissions details are published by Calderdale Council's admissions criteria page and the school's own admissions page, and families should always check both directly before finalising their application, as dates and criteria can be updated between publication and the relevant deadline.

Leading Tuition is rated 4.8 out of 5 on Trustpilot from 59 reviews, read on 3 October 2026, and 91% of our students achieve their desired grades.

Reviewed September 2026: dates, figures and rules checked against Crossley Heath School's admissions page and 2027 timetable, Calderdale Council's admission arrangements and secondary admissions booklet, DfE Compare school and college performance, Get Information About Schools and Ofsted.

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