Grammar Schools in Devon

Devon has no single county-wide test the way Kent, Essex or Buckinghamshire do. Grammar school entrance testing is organised separately by town. In Plymouth, three grammar schools (Devonport High School for Boys, Devonport High School for Girls, Plymouth High School for Girls) each run their own 11+ arrangements: children sit externally-set English and maths papers (Devonport Boys uses Quest Assessment papers plus its own English writing paper), scores are age-standardised, and children are ranked. Plymouth's own published policies define the "cut off score" only as "the score attained by the last candidate allocated to the school" — an outcome of that year's ranking, not a number set in advance. In Torbay, grammar schools (including Torquay Girls' Grammar School, Torquay Boys' Grammar School and Churston Ferrers Grammar School) similarly rank children by age-standardised score against an "eligible score" that TGGS's own policy states is "determined by the Admissions Panel" each year and is deliberately not disclosed, even to successful families, so that all Year 7 entrants "begin their academic journey... from the same starting point." In both towns, reaching a competitive rank — not a fixed public number — is what determines a place, and the actual standard needed varies year to year and school to school depending on applicant numbers and places available.