Lancashire grammar schools & how to get in.
Lancashire has 4 grammar schools, spread from Lancaster in the north to Rossendale in the south. There is no Lancashire 11+: the county council runs no selection test at all, and each school sets, sells and marks its own — with its own registration deadline, weeks before the council application. This page explains what to register for and when, and lets you check your postcode against all 4.
Check your postcode against every Lancashire grammar
See which priority areas you fall inside, your distance to each school and your eligibility — free, no account needed.
Real, published boundaries and the latest distance cut-offs — not straight-line estimates.
Four schools, four separate entrance tests.
Lancashire is not a selective county in the way Kent or Buckinghamshire are. Its 4 grammars are islands in an otherwise comprehensive system, and there is no shared test to sit — you register directly with each school you want, and your child sits each school’s own paper.
The deadlines are close together but not the same: Clitheroe Royal closes on 4 September, Lancaster Royal on 7 September, Lancaster Girls’ on 9 September, and Bacup and Rawtenstall at noon on 14 September. Each is weeks before the 31 October council application, and missing one cannot be undone.
Every school sets a standard a child must reach before being considered at all. Qualifying children are then sorted by the school’s own criteria — which is where the 4 diverge sharply.
Priority areas in the north, score in the south.
3 of the 4 place a priority area ahead of raw score. Lancaster Royal and Lancaster Girls’ both prioritise the City of Lancaster area, ranking children inside it above those further afield. Clitheroe Royal runs two tiers — the immediate Ribble Valley catchment first, then a wider Lancashire catchment — with test score deciding within each.
Bacup and Rawtenstall in Rossendale is the exception: it has no catchment area to live inside. Its own GL Assessment test decides, with feeder-area groups shaping the priority order and the highest mark coming first within each. For a family outside the Lancaster and Ribble Valley areas it is often the most realistic of the 4.
Lancashire’s other towns — Preston, Blackburn, Burnley, Blackpool and Lancaster’s neighbours — have no grammar schools, so these 4 draw from a wide rural area. GrammarBound maps each priority area and its tie-break — open the map or check your postcode above.
Every Lancashire grammar school, by town.
All 4 grammar schools in Lancashire. Each links to a plain-English admissions guide with that school’s own test, registration deadline and criteria.