Tiffin Girls' School Test Format — What to Expect

The Tiffin Girls' School entrance test runs in two stages, each with an English paper and a maths paper: for September 2027 entry, a computer-marked Stage One on 1 and 2 October 2026 and a written Stage Two on 7 November 2026 for the girls invited back. The school says it sets and marks the Stage Two papers itself, so the format has its own character and is worth understanding before your daughter sits it.

Overview of the Test Structure

Tiffin Girls' School is a highly selective grammar school in Kingston upon Thames, part of the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames. Ofsted's January 2026 inspection judged it 'Exceptional' in six of the areas it graded, and competition for places is intense: for September 2026 entry, 1,468 girls sat Stage One and 474 sat Stage Two for 180 Year 7 places.

For September 2027 entry, Stage One is on Thursday 1 and Friday 2 October 2026, invitations to Stage Two go out on or around 14 October, and Stage Two is on Saturday 7 November 2026, a week after the 31 October deadline for the local authority application. Each stage has two papers:

• English: At Stage One the English paper is multiple choice. At Stage Two it asks for written answers, some of them long, and includes a reading comprehension task and a creative writing task.
• Mathematics: At Stage One some questions are multiple choice and others need a numerical answer, all recorded on a computer-marked OMR sheet. At Stage Two the answers are written. The school says it assumes girls have completed the Year 5 National Curriculum and nothing beyond it, but some questions come in unfamiliar formats, so preparation specifically for the Tiffin style of questioning is important.

At each stage the two papers are sat on the same day. The school says each Stage One test lasts less than 60 minutes, with a short break between them, and that the Stage Two tests are similar in length; it also makes changes each year, often to the number of questions, time limits and question types. Families should check the school's official admissions page each summer for the confirmed format for that year's sitting.

The weighting explains why Stage Two matters most. On our arithmetic from the school's published rule, Stage Two English is 60% of the Combined Mark and Stage Two maths is three-quarters of the 40% maths share, or 30%, so Stage Two carries 90% of the final mark and Stage One maths only 10%. Stage One works mainly as a gate: it decides who is invited back, and after that a strong Stage One score contributes only a small share of the ranking.

What the English Paper Actually Tests

The school describes its Stage Two English paper only as including a reading comprehension task and a creative writing task, with some questions needing longer written answers, and it publishes no past papers, so no one outside the school can say what the passage or the writing prompt will be. What prepares a girl well is the underlying skill: reading unfamiliar fiction and non-fiction closely enough to infer meaning, explain the effect of a writer's word choices and support an answer with evidence from the text.

For the creative writing task, practise short, timed pieces of creative and descriptive writing, and aim for precise vocabulary, varied sentences and a clear voice rather than a memorised formula: a piece that answers the prompt in its own way is more likely to stand out than one assembled from stock phrases.

This is not an 11-plus paper in the traditional GL Assessment sense. There are no verbal reasoning or non-verbal reasoning sections in the Tiffin Girls' test. Stage One English is multiple choice, but the Stage Two English paper is closer in spirit to a junior version of a GCSE English Language assessment, so preparation should cover both: accurate multiple-choice answering for Stage One, and close reading and extended writing for Stage Two, rather than verbal reasoning questions.

What the Mathematics Paper Covers

The school says its maths tests assume only the Year 5 National Curriculum, which covers topics such as fractions, decimals and percentages, area and perimeter, and number sequences, but it also includes questions in unfamiliar formats that test how girls apply what they know.

The paper rewards mathematical thinking rather than rote recall. Girls who have only memorised methods without understanding the underlying concepts often find the problem-solving questions difficult. Some questions are presented in a way that requires careful reading — the mathematical challenge is sometimes embedded within a worded scenario.

Practise without a calculator, and practise recording answers accurately: at Stage One, maths answers go on a computer-marked OMR sheet, and some are numbers a girl must enter herself rather than choose. At Stage Two the school gives no marks for calculations or workings out, only for the answers recorded, so accuracy matters more than presentation. Practising under timed conditions is essential.

Our 11+ specialists prepare students for both stages of the Tiffin Girls' assessment, helping them understand the format and reach the score needed to progress to Stage 2. Our students have achieved a 95%+ offer rate across selective school entry, and we're rated 4.8/5 on Trustpilot. Book a free consultation here.

How the School Uses the Results

Stage One decides who is invited back: the highest-scoring girls go through to Stage Two, and the school does not give out Stage One scores. Girls who sit Stage Two are then ranked on a Combined Mark of 60% English and 40% maths, with the English mark from Stage Two and the maths mark from Stage Two and Stage One in a ratio of 3:1; there is no separate pass mark. Places follow the admissions criteria: first any girl with an EHCP naming the school who has shown her ability in the tests, then looked-after girls at or above the 350th-ranked mark, then up to 60 places for Pupil Premium girls in the catchment and girls living in the Inner Area at or above that mark, then the rest in rank order, girls in the Designated Area before everyone else. The catchment is not a radius but a fixed list of 44 postcode districts, the Designated Area, and since it was introduced in September 2014 all places have gone to girls living inside it.

Stage Two results are emailed on the day after National Offer Day (Tuesday 2 March 2027 for this cycle) to parents of girls who have not been offered a higher-preference school and are on the waiting list. Every family refused a place has a statutory right of appeal to an independent panel, but appeals rarely change the outcome here: the school heard 8 for 2026 entry, 10 for 2025 and 5 for 2024, and none succeeded.

Leading Tuition works with a number of families preparing for the Tiffin Girls' test each year, and one consistent finding is that girls who begin structured preparation in Year 5 — rather than rushing in the summer before the test — tend to approach the papers with greater confidence and flexibility.

How to Prepare Effectively

The school does not publish past papers: it makes changes each year, and each year's papers are new. However, preparation is still very achievable with the right approach:

1. Read widely and analytically. Regular reading of quality fiction and non-fiction, combined with discussion of what the author is doing and why, builds the comprehension and inference skills the English paper rewards.
2. Practise extended writing. Girls should write regularly — descriptive pieces, short stories, responses to prompts — and receive honest feedback on vocabulary, structure, and originality.
3. Secure the Year 5 curriculum, then stretch the application. Make sure all Year 5 maths is secure, then move into unfamiliar, multi-step problems that use the same content in new ways.
4. Use timed practice. Sitting practice papers under exam conditions — without prompts or extra time — helps girls build the stamina and pacing skills they will need on the day.
5. Plan for the gap between the stages. Stage Two invitations arrive on or around 14 October and the test is on 7 November, just over three weeks to shift from multiple-choice speed to long written answers, so practise both formats before Stage One rather than after it.
6. Review mistakes carefully. Understanding why an answer was wrong is more valuable than simply completing more questions. A structured review process accelerates progress significantly.

The school itself notes that past 11+ papers from other selective schools and online resources can help with familiarisation, but it endorses none of them and runs no mock tests of its own, so use them for practice in the question types rather than as a forecast of the real papers.

Frequently Asked Questions

Understanding the Tiffin Girls' School test format is the first step towards preparing purposefully rather than anxiously. The test is genuinely demanding, but it rewards the kind of careful reading, clear thinking, and mathematical reasoning that can be developed steadily over time — and girls who prepare with focus and consistency give themselves a real advantage on the day.