The Ultimate Guide To Reading School Entry
Founded in 1125, Reading School is a prestigious selective boys' grammar school with Academy status. It boasts exceptional academic results, with over 90% of Year 13 students achieving A* to B grades in A Levels and more than 85% of GCSE students securing the highest grades. With 150 students per year group, 80 boarders, and 360 students in the Sixth Form, Reading School offers a vibrant community. Named the Secondary School of the Year for the South East in the Sunday Times Parent Power Guide 2024, the school excels in music, sport, and drama. Rugby and cricket have particularly strong fixture lists, and other sports are played to a high standard.
The School
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Open Days for Year 7 2026 entry will be held on 31st March and 1st April 2025
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The registration window opens on 1st April 2025 and closes at midday on Friday 13th June 2025
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Saturday 5th April 2025 (Sold Out)
Sunday 6th April 2025
Saturday 26th April 2025
Saturday 24th May 2025
Sunday 22nd June 2025
Saturday 26th July 2025
Sunday 17th August 2025
Saturday 23rd August 2025
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Saturday 30th August 2025
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Friday 5th September 2025
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Mid October 2025
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Click here for the full Admissions Policies document provided by Reading School
Key Dates
The Entrance Exams
Candidates will be tested on Friday 5th September 2025.
There will be three separate tests on exam day. The Reading School entrance exams test boys across a range of subjects covered in the Key Stage 2 curriculum. Maths, English and ‘creativity’ form key parts of the entrance exam. These exams are set by Future Stories and differ from the standard 11+ exam sat in other parts of the country. Unlike other entrance and 11+ exams, verbal reasoning and non-verbal reasoning do not play a part in the Reading School entrance exams. There are generally only 150 places available in Year 7, so unfortunately doing well in the exams does not guarantee a place. After results are released in mid-October, other factors are taken into consideration, such as your distance from the school.
Papers 1 and 2:
These papers consist of multiple choice and free response questions, based on the syllabus up to the end of Year 5.
Spelling
Punctuation
Grammar
Reading comprehension
Vocabulary
Measurements
Numbers
Statistics
Geometry
Following Reading School’s announcement in Feb 2025, regarding changes to their entrance exams starting this September, we are closely monitoring the situation, and we will be building an appropriate amount of wider KS2 and creative thinking content into our tuition and mock exam schedule over the coming weeks. This will be assessed further once Reading School release their updated official familiarisation paper. National Curriculum subjects in addition to Maths and English, which could appear starting with this year’s exams include:
History
Science
PE
Geography
Languages
Art & Design
Music
Computing
Design & Technology
Paper 3:
This is the Creativity Task. Paper 3 will only be assessed if students achieve an eligible score in Papers 1 and 2. Reading School define creativity as: the ability to think of new and imaginative ideas, or to solve problems in original and unique ways.
Creativity
Catchment Areas
You can view the catchment area for Reading School below. To apply for and sit the entrance exams, students do not need to live in the catchment area, however the catchment area does strongly affect how available school places are allocated to students who are successful in the exams.
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RG1, RG2, RG4, RG5, RG6, RG7, RG8, RG10, RG12, RG18, RG19, RG30, RG31, RG40, RG41, RG42, RG45. RG9 1, RG9 2, RG9 3, RG9 4 & RG9 5 RG14 1, RG14 2, RG14 3, RG14 5, RG14 6 & RG14 7 RG20 4, RG20 5, RG20 6 & part of RG20 7 (east of A34) RG26 3, RG26 4 & part of RG26 5 (north of A339) RG27 0 parts of RG27 8 & RG27 9 (north of M3)
GU15 1, GU15 2, GU15 3 & GU15 4 GU17 0 & GU17 9 GU19 5 GU46 6 & GU46 7 GU47 0, GU47 8 & GU47 9
OX10 0, OX10 8, OX10 9 & part of OX10 6 (south of A4130) OX11 9
SL4 4 SL5 0, SL5 7, SL5 8 & SL5 9
Current Reading School Year 9 Student
“The maths and English tests were pretty much what I expected, but I did find the creative writing quite challenging.”
How we can help at Brainbox Learning Reading
Starting at just £28.50 per hour, the one-to-one, face-to-face tuition we offer is completely tailored towards the requirements of the Reading School entrance exam, and is guaranteed to stand your child in the best stead when exam time comes around. In all cases, our sessions provide the ideal mix between honing the necessary English, maths and creative writing skills required to succeed, and providing enough exposure to our real world mock and past exam papers that taking the real exam will feel like second nature. Click here for more information, price lists or to book a free consultation.
Our mock exam days provide boys with:
the experience of sitting an entrance exam under timed conditions and managing their nerves, in an exam hall filled with unfamiliar faces from other schools
a realistic opportunity to track and measure their progress and level, and increase their confidence
fully individualised, detailed, question-by-question feedback reports, with question walkthroughs, teacher comments and links to further practice resources
We replicate as closely as possible the conditions boys will experience on the day of the real exam, from the moment they are dropped off, all the way through to pickup time. Our papers are carefully created from scratch by a team of expert 11+ teachers, with many years of experience teaching in schools, privately, and writing, marking and moderating real school exams. For each mock exam sat with us, parents will receive a fully comprehensive feedback report and presentation to look through with their child.
