The Skinners' School has its own admissions pattern, and the right preparation follows it. This guide covers the test, the timeline and the practice plan.
About The Skinners' School
A boys' grammar in the centre of Tunbridge Wells, Skinners' was founded under the patronage of the Worshipful Company of Skinners and remains one of the highest-achieving state schools in the south of England. Admissions combine the standard Kent Test with the school's own paper.
- Location: Tunbridge Wells, Kent
- Intake: Boys
- Founded: 1887
- Admissions test: Kent Test (GL Assessment) plus the school's own admissions test.
Full profile — including a link to the official school website for this year's admissions policy and open days — on our The Skinners' School profile page.
The test, and how to prepare for it
The Skinners' School uses GL Assessment. GL papers are the most learnable of the boards: the question types are published and stable, so systematic type-by-type practice pays off directly. Drill the 21 verbal-reasoning types and the standard non-verbal patterns until each is automatic, then move to full timed papers.
Start with our GL Assessment practice papers — all free — and use the worksheet library to strengthen whichever subject a first timed paper exposes as weakest.
A sensible timeline
- Year 4 → summer: daily reading, tables to 12×12, no formal papers yet.
- Year 5 autumn: begin 15–20 minutes of daily topic practice with our free worksheets.
- Year 5 spring (register!): registration windows for most regions open in May — check our key dates page and the school's own site.
- Year 5 summer: one full timed mock paper a week; review errors more carefully than scores.
- Final six weeks: switch to centre-specific papers in this school's format.
What a strong candidate looks like
Selective intakes are decided at the margin by three things: pace (finishing papers without rushing the last third), vocabulary (the single best predictor of verbal-reasoning and comprehension scores), and composure (a child who has sat ten timed mocks at the kitchen table treats the real hall as the eleventh). Every resource needed to build all three is free here.