The Tiffin Girls' School 11+ guide

Thinking about applying to The Tiffin Girls' School? Find out everything you need to know about admissions and how to prepare your child for success in the 11 plus.

Key information about The Tiffin Girls' School

• Address: The Tiffin Girls' School, Richmond Road, Kingston-upon-Thames, Surrey, KT2 5PL
• Number of pupils: 1,200+
• Admissions contact: [email protected]
• Number of places in Year 7: 180
• 11+ exam: school’s own (stage one and two)
• Catchment area: yes

Dates for your diary

• Tuesday 3rd June 2025: registration opens for the Stage 1 entrance exam at The Tiffin Girls' School
• Monday 1st September 2025: registration closes for the Stage 1 entrance exam at The Tiffin Girls' School
• Thursday 2nd October – Friday 3rd October 2025: Stage 1 entrance exam takes place (children will be invited to the exam on one date)
• Wednesday 15th October 2025: parents receive Stage 1 results, and shortlisted children are invited to Stage 2
• Friday 31st October 2025: national deadline to apply for secondary school places
• November 2025: Stage 2 entrance exam (exact date TBC)
• Monday 2nd March 2026: national school offers day

About The Tiffin Girls' School

The Tiffin Girls' School is a girls' grammar school in Kingston upon Thames. It's well-known for students' outstanding academic success. In 2024, students' results placed the school 6th out of all state secondary schools in the UK.

Pupils at Tiffin Girls' are encouraged to 'dare to be wise'. The school prides itself on its strong sense of inclusivity, challenge, independence and creativity. A lot of value is placed on the importance of extracurricular opportunities to develop rounded young adults. There's no shortage of activities, with many clubs set up and led by students themselves.

Students leave The Tiffin Girls' School for a wide range of excellent universities. In 2024, 15 students were offered places at Oxford and Cambridge, and many go on to top colleges in the USA.

How to apply to The Tiffin Girls' School

The Tiffin Girls' School is a selective school. This means that your child will need to take the 11 plus exam to be eligible for a place. At The Tiffin Girls' School, the 11 plus is a two-stage process. Girls who perform well in the stage one exam are shortlisted for the second stage.

Registration for the stage one exam opens on Tuesday 3rd June 2025 and closes on Monday 1st September 2025. Your child will then be invited to take the exam on either Thursday 2nd or Friday 3rd October 2025. You’ll receive your child’s outcome from the stage one exam – and find out if they’ve been shortlisted for the second stage – around Wednesday 15th October 2025.

You can use these results to decide whether to then apply to The Tiffin Girls' School. To apply, 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 31st October.

The stage two exam will take place in November 2025. Results from the stage two exam are combined with the stage one exam to create a final ranking order of candidates. We’ve included more information about this below.

Remember – passing the exam 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 The Tiffin Girls' School below.

What's tested on the entrance exam for The Tiffin Girls' School?

Children applying to The Tiffin Girls' School have a two-stage testing process.

The Stage 1 entrance exam for The Tiffin Girls' School test assesses skills in English and maths. This covers topics your child will learn in Key Stage 2 at school.

• English: Your child will read passages and answer comprehension questions, testing their understanding, vocabulary, and inference skills.
• Maths: Expect a mix of arithmetic, problem-solving, and mathematical reasoning questions. They'll need to use numeracy skills and apply maths concepts in different contexts.

The exam is multiple-choice, meaning your child will select answers from given options rather than writing them out. The questions are designed to test core knowledge, reasoning ability, and speed under timed conditions.

Answers are recorded on a separate answer sheet, not on the question paper. This means:

• Answers must be carefully marked using a pencil.
• Any mistakes should be erased cleanly and re-marked.
• Misaligned answers (e.g. filling in the wrong row) could impact the score.
• Because the test is machine-marked, accuracy in shading the correct answer is crucial. Practicing with multiple-choice answer sheets before the exam will help your child feel comfortable with the format.

Only the highest-scoring candidates in Stage 1 will be invited to sit Stage 2. This involves written English and maths papers which are set internally by the school.

How does place allocation work at The Tiffin Girls' School?

After the stage one tests, your child’s raw scores are combined and age-standardised. This ensures children born later in the academic year aren’t disadvantaged. This final score is your child’s ‘stage one score’.

Children with the highest stage one scores are invited back to the stage two test. The number of shortlisted children will be at least sufficient to meet 180 after the admissions process has been completed.

The stage two exam papers are also age-standardised and then combined with the results from the stage one test. At The Tiffin Girls' School, the combined mark is made up of 60% English and 40% maths. The English mark comes from the stage two test only. The maths mark comes from the stage one and the stage two tests in the ratio of 3:1.

Children are ranked in order of their total weighted scores, and within each category of the school’s selection criteria. Disadvantaged children have a 10% leeway applied to their marks. Any child that has an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) which names the school will be automatically admitted.

All remaining places are then prioritised to children in this order:

1. ‘Looked after’ and ‘previously looked after’ children whose combined mark is higher than or equal to the 350th ranked mark of all children who took the stage two test.
2. Girls whose combined mark is higher than or equal to the 350th ranked mark of all children who took the stage two test, who live within the inner area or designated area, and who qualify for Pupil Premium funding.
3. Girls whose combined mark is higher than or equal to the 350th ranked mark of all children who took the stage two test who live within the inner area, until 60 places have been filled from this criterion and criterion 2.
4. Girls who live within the designated area, allocated in rank order of the combined mark
5. Girls who live outside the designated area, allocated in rank order of the combined mark

What is The Tiffin Girls' School priority area?

The Tiffin Girls’ School has an inner area and a designated area.

The inner area is made up of the following 13 electoral award areas:

Berrylands, Canbury Gardens, Coombe Hill, Coombe Vale, Green Lane & St James, Kingston Gate, Kingston Town, New Malden Village, Norbiton, St Mark’s & Seething Wells, Surbiton Hill, Tudor, and Ham, Petersham and Richmond Riverside.

The designated area is made up of 44 local postal districts:

• KT1, KT2, KT3, KT4, KT5, KT6, KT7, KT8, KT9, KT10, KT12, KT13, KT17 and KT19
• TW1, TW2, TW3, TW4, TW5, TW6, TW7, TW8, TW9, TW10, TW11, TW12, TW13, TW14, TW15, TW16 and TW17
• SW13, SW14, SW15, SW17, SW18, SW19 and SW20
• W3, W4, W5, W7 and W13
• SM4
• CR4

The Tiffin Girls’ School does not usually have any places left for children who live outside the designated area. Since 2014, all places have been offered to children who live within the designated area.

How can I help my child prepare for the Tiffin Girls' School 11 plus?

The 11 plus is designed to be challenging. Here are our top tips to help your child prepare for the exam in September 2025.

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.

Looking for reading inspiration? Explore Atom's top picks in our downloadable reading list for ages 7–11!

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. 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.