St Ambrose College 11 Plus (11+) Exam Guide

About St Ambrose College

St Ambrose College is a state-funded Catholic grammar school for boys aged 11 to 18 in Hale Barns, Altrincham, in the Trafford area. Although it sits alongside Trafford’s five-school grammar consortium, St Ambrose is not part of that shared test: it sets its own separate entrance exam, its own application window and its own results.

The school offers 140 places each year at Year 7, with a further 10 places available to external applicants at Year 12. Demand from Trafford’s Catholic primary schools and beyond consistently exceeds this, particularly within the school’s Nominated Local Pastoral Area (which covers the WA14, WA15, M31 and M33 postcodes).

St Ambrose College’s own admissions pages set out the exam format, key dates and oversubscription criteria in full, and are worth reading alongside your child’s practice.

Key information for 2027: St Ambrose College at 11 Plus (11+)

• School type: State-funded Catholic grammar school for boys
• Registration deadline: midday, 6 July 2026
• Exam date: 18 September 2026
• CAF deadline: end of October 2026
• National school offer day: March 2027
• Contact details: www.st-ambrosecollege.org.uk

Admissions information for 2027 entry: St Ambrose College at 11 Plus (11+)

Online applications for St Ambrose College open in April and close at midday on 6 July 2026. The exam itself is sat in September, with results sent to parents by late October 2026.

It is important that you also submit your Common Application Form (CAF) to your local home authority by the end of October 2026, listing ‘St Ambrose College’; the order you list schools in is reflected as your order of preference.

National school offer day is held in March 2027. The published admission number (PAN) is 140, and the qualifying score is 320, an age-standardised total across all three papers, though reaching this score is a threshold rather than a guarantee of a place. St Ambrose College then allocates places through a strict category order: looked-after and sibling Catholic boys first, then Catholic boys in the Nominated Local Pastoral Area, then other Catholic boys, then boys of other faiths in a defined order, and finally any other boys, with Pupil Premium status and distance from school as tie-breakers within each category.

How can I register my child for the 11 Plus (11+) exam at St Ambrose College?

To register your child for the entrance exam, you as their parent/legal guardian need to complete St Ambrose College’s own online application, before the 6 July 2026 midday deadline.

St Ambrose College’s test and application are entirely separate from the neighbouring Trafford consortium schools, so registering here does not use, or count towards, a consortium score.

What is the 11 Plus (11+) entrance exam format for St Ambrose College?

St Ambrose College sets its own entrance exam: three separate multiple-choice papers, all sat on the same day.

• Verbal reasoning: a 50-minute GL Assessment paper covering word relationships, codes, sequences and logic.
• Mathematics: a 35-minute school-set paper covering content up to the Year 5 programme of study, rather than the full Year 6 curriculum.
• English: a 35-minute school-set paper testing comprehension and other English elements, with no creative or extended writing task.

How to prepare your child for the 11 Plus (11+) St Ambrose College exam

The most useful way to prepare for St Ambrose College’s 11+ entrance exam is to use practice tests that cover all three of its papers in roughly equal measure, rather than focusing mainly on verbal and non-verbal reasoning as some neighbouring schools’ families do.

Because St Ambrose tests English comprehension as its own standalone paper, and maths only up to the Year 5 programme of study, it is worth giving your child dedicated practice in both areas alongside regular verbal reasoning work.

For St Ambrose College 11+ preparation, we recommend the following packs: