Plymouth High School for Girls 11+ guide

From September 2026, the Plymouth grammar schools (Devonport High School for Boys, Devonport High School for Girls and Plymouth High School for Girls) will be using Quest Assessments as their 11+ exam provider. More information about the entry process for these schools will be available in spring 2026.

Atom Learning is partnered with Plymouth High School for Girls. You can read more about our partnership here.

Thinking about applying to Plymouth High School for Girls? Find out everything you need to know about admissions in 2025–2026 and how to prepare your child for success in the 11 plus entrance exam.

Key information for Plymouth High School for Girls

• Address: Plymouth High School for Girls, St Lawrence Road, Plymouth, Devon, PL4 6HT
• Number of pupils: 800+
• Admissions contact: [email protected]
• Number of places in Year 7: 120
• 11+ exam: GL Assessment
• Catchment area: no

Dates for your diary

• Tuesday 22nd April 2025: registration opens for the DHSG and PHSG practice 11+ exam
• Monday 28th April 2025: 11+ registration opens
• Friday 23rd May 2025: registration closes for the practice exam
• Saturday 5th July 2025: DHSG and PHSG practice (mock) 11+ exam
• Friday 18th July 2025: results sent for the DHSG and PHSG practice 11+ exam
• Sunday 31st August 2025: 11+ registration closes
• Saturday 13th September 2025: 11+ exam paper 1
• Saturday 20th September 2025: 11+ exam paper 2
• Friday 17th October 2025: parents receive 11+ results
• Friday 31st October 2025: secondary school applications close at 5pm
• Monday 2nd March 2026: secondary school national offers day

About Plymouth High School for Girls

Plymouth High School for Girls (PHSG) is a girls' grammar school with sixth form in Plymouth, Devon. It was founded in 1874 as a response to the growing pressure to improve women's rights and education.

PHSG aims to create an environment where pupils embrace achievement, personal development and happiness. The school provides a high-quality learning experience and opportunities to develop life skills. Some of the school's many clubs include a pupil-led climate awareness group and hands-on engineering with the school's own Formula 24 racing car, Hummingbird.

How to apply to Plymouth High School for Girls

Plymouth High School for Girls is a selective state school. This means that your child will need to take the 11 plus exam to be eligible for a place in Year 7.

Plymouth High School for Girls shares an 11 plus entrance exam with Devonport High School for Girls (DHSG). If you are considering both schools, your daughter will only need to take the test once – at either school – to apply to both.

Registration for the 11 plus opens on the school website on Monday 28th April 2025 and closes on Sunday 31st August 2025.

The 11+ exam for Plymouth High School for Girls and Devonport High School for Girls is taken over two dates. Your child will take the first paper on Saturday 13th September and the second paper on Saturday 20th September. You’ll receive their results on Friday 17th October.

To apply to Plymouth High School for Girls, you’ll need to name the school as one of your preferred schools on the secondary school common application form. This will be available on your home council website from early September and must be submitted by Friday 31st October 2025.

Remember – passing the 11 plus doesn’t guarantee that your child will be allocated a place at your preferred school. Many grammar schools are often oversubscribed with qualified children. Schools and their admissions authorities work through admissions criteria to prioritise children for places. We’ve included the admissions criteria for Plymouth High School for Girls below.

What subjects are on the Plymouth High School for Girls 11 plus?

Children applying to Plymouth High School for Girls and/or Devonport High School for Girls take two 11 plus papers on two separate dates. Both papers are supplied by GL Assessment – one of the main 11+ exam providers in England.

Both papers last around 45 minutes to one hour and are multiple-choice. Your child will be given a question booklet and pre-printed answer sheets. They will need to mark the answer(s) or the answer sheets which they believe are correct.

Children will take the English paper on Saturday 13th September. The questions are based on the content your child will have learned on the national curriculum at school. Some questions will test reading comprehension. Your child will need to read a passage of text and answer questions to demonstrate their understanding. Other questions might test further English skills, such as spelling, vocabulary, grammar and punctuation.

Your child will then take the maths paper the following week on Saturday 20th September. This is also based on Year 5 content, but the questions might be more challenging than what your child is used to. They will assess your child’s knowledge of key concepts, including times tables, mental maths, shapes, space and measures, how to use the four basic operations, and reading graphs. Your child will need to use their skills to solve new kinds of problems for some more advanced questions.

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How does place allocation work at Plymouth High School for Girls?

Your child’s marks in the English and maths papers are age-standardised to ensure that younger children aren’t disadvantaged. The standardised for each paper is added together to form your child’s final 11 plus score. All children are then placed in rank order according to their score.

The school refers to two types of scores when deciding which children to offer places to. These scores are the ‘cut off score’ and the ‘adjusted cut off score’:

• Cut off score: the score attained by the last child allocated a place under oversubscription criteria 3 (see below)
• Adjusted cut off score: the score two points below the score achieved by the 120th child who applied for PHSG, in score order

There are 120 places available at Plymouth High School for Girls. Children who have achieved the cut-off score and have an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) which names the school are given places first.

All other children are allocated places in this order:

1. Looked after and previously looked after children who achieve a score equal to or higher than the adjusted cut-off score
2. Up to 12 places are allocated to children who achieve a score equal to or higher than the lowest cut-off score, and who qualify for free school meals or the pupil premium
3. All other children ranked by score order (starting with the highest)

There is no catchment area for Plymouth High School for Girls. All children are considered equally and purely on the basis of their results in the 11 plus exam.

The only time your child's address may be used is if there's a tie for the last place. If this happens, the school will allocate the place to the child who lives closest to the school.

Atom’s top tips for 11 plus preparation

The Plymouth 11 plus is designed to select the most academically able girls in Plymouth and the surrounding area. Here are our top tips to help you and your child feel confident for exam day!

Bitesize learning

It’s important to build a good knowledge base before the 11 plus. Using a ‘little and often’ approach when learning is key – our brains encode new information more effectively when dealing with smaller ‘chunks’ of information. For children aged 10–11, child psychologists recommend regular study sessions of 20–30 minutes.

Atom Home makes learning a more enjoyable process for your child. They'll explore exciting worlds full of interactive questions, earning coins to spend in the Atom shop. Atom adapts to your child, showing them questions at just the right level of difficulty to keep them motivated.

Read widely

11 plus exams test your child’s ability to analyse and interpret written information. Regular reading is a great way to help your child build these skills.

Encourage them to read books from different genres and by a diverse range of authors. Increasing the variety of your child’s reading will help them understand different styles, tones and purposes. Meanwhile, reading a little every day will help widen their vocabulary, sharpen their analytical thinking, and enhance their imagination.

Refine exam technique

When your child feels confident with the topics they’ve learnt in Year 5, they’ll be ready to put their knowledge to the test.

Practice tests can help your child develop problem-solving skills and build confidence working under test conditions. They’re also a great way to consolidate learning and highlight knowledge gaps for further improvement.

With Atom Home, you'll unlock online mock tests and printable practice papers for the Plymouth 11 plus. Enjoy automatic marking and progress tracking with the online tests, and help your child get familiar with the real exam experience with printable practice papers.

Celebrate progress

Setting regular, achievable goals and celebrating your child’s progress – no matter how big or small – will help keep their motivation high.

Make sure to encourage a growth mindset. This means celebrating effort, as well as achievement! When your child makes mistakes or struggles to understand a particular topic, help them understand that they’ll improve through practice. Regular praise will help your child improve their resilience when tackling new and challenging topics.

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