Redbridge 11+ Catchment Area: Can Your Child Apply From Newham or Essex?

If you live near the edge of Redbridge, the most important question about the 11+ is not how hard the test is. It is whether your address falls inside the Redbridge 11 plus catchment area. Check it before you register, because it decides whether a place is realistically possible at all.

The check itself takes a couple of minutes. Understanding what the answer means, especially if you live in Newham, Barking and Dagenham or Essex, takes a little longer.

What is the Redbridge grammar school catchment area?

Redbridge's two grammar schools, Ilford County High School (boys) and Woodford County High School (girls), share a single common catchment area. Information published for the 2026 test describes it as covering all of Redbridge and Waltham Forest, plus parts of Barking and Dagenham, Newham and Essex.

So, yes: some families in Newham and Essex are inside the catchment, and some are not. The boundary does not follow borough lines, which is why checking your exact postcode matters.

Is my postcode in the catchment? How to check

Redbridge Council publishes the boundary on its online map.

1. Open the Redbridge Maps tool.

2. Select Education.

3. Choose 11+ Common Catchment Area.

4. Enter your postcode.

The red line shows the borough of Redbridge; the blue line shows the whole common catchment area. If your home sits inside the blue line, you are in catchment.

If your address is very close to the boundary, contact Redbridge's admissions team before you register rather than relying on a quick glance at the map.

What happens if you live outside the catchment?

On this point, Redbridge is unusually direct. Its 11+ information page asks families who do not live within the common catchment area not to register their child for the test, and states that it cannot offer a place at either grammar school to candidates living outside the catchment area.

The formal admission arrangements for 2027 entry list children living outside the catchment as the last priority group, considered only after applications from inside the catchment have been met. In practice, both schools are heavily oversubscribed, so the council's advice reflects reality: out-of-catchment applications are not a realistic route to a place.

Where catchment fits in the admissions order

When there are more applicants than places, Redbridge allocates the 180 places at each school in this order:

1. Looked after and previously looked after children.

2. Pupil premium children: 45 places, ranked by score.

3. Other children living in the common catchment area, ranked by score.

4. Children living outside the common catchment area, ranked by score.

There is no sibling category, so an older brother or sister at either school does not help a younger child's application. All applicants must also reach the minimum score of 104 to be ranked. For more detail on scores and offers, read the council's determined admission arrangements for 2027 to 2028.

Guidance by area

Redbridge and Waltham Forest

Both boroughs are described as falling within the common catchment area, which makes the Redbridge grammar schools a natural option for Waltham Forest families as well as Redbridge ones. Confirm your address on the map anyway, particularly if you are about to move.

Newham 11+ families

Newham has no grammar schools of its own, and only part of the borough sits inside the Redbridge catchment. Neighbours a few streets apart can fall on different sides of the line, so the only reliable check is the postcode map. If you are outside it, look at other options, such as the Essex (CSSE) schools or other London grammar schools with their own admission areas.

Barking and Dagenham

As with Newham, only part of the borough is included. Check before you register.

Essex

Parts of Essex near Redbridge fall inside the catchment. Essex families may also consider the CSSE test, used by grammar schools in Chelmsford, Colchester, Southend and Westcliff, which have their own priority areas.

Moving house to get into catchment

Some families consider moving into the catchment. Before you do:

• Read the admission arrangements carefully for the rules on which address is used and what evidence the council may ask for.

• Remember that catchment only gets your child into the ranked group. They still need a high enough score to be offered one of 180 places at each school.

• Councils investigate applications that use addresses where the child does not genuinely live, and offers made on a false address can be withdrawn.

Registering and applying: the two-step process

Being in catchment is not enough on its own. You must:

1. Register for the test with Redbridge in the summer term of Year 5. For 2027 entry, registration ran from 1 May to 5pm on 15 June 2026.

2. Apply for the school by naming it on your home council's secondary school application by 31 October of Year 6.

Registering for the test does not do this for you: if the school is not on your application, your child will not be offered a place there at national offer day.

Once you know you are in catchment

Confirming that your address is inside the Redbridge 11 plus catchment area answers the first question. The second is whether your child will be ready for a test that mixes English and verbal reasoning in one paper and maths and non-verbal reasoning in the other, sat only a couple of weeks into Year 6. That is much easier to plan for from Year 4 or early Year 5 than in the final summer.

Merit Tutors runs 11+ preparation classes for Years 3 to 5 covering all four of those subjects, at its Forest Gate branch, its Ilford and Plaistow branches and online.