Trafford's test is the earliest in the country — the first Saturday of September of Year 6 — which dramatically compresses the preparation window.
Year 5 spring
Confirm Trafford registration via the Trafford consortium portal. Registration opens in May and closes in late July.
Begin CEM-style preparation. Trafford uses a CEM-style mixed paper across its eight grammar schools.
Year 5 summer
Substantive topic work and baseline papers. Submit registration before the July deadline; late registration is not possible.
Trafford's test happens before the autumn term begins — there is no run-up window in Year 6 itself, so the summer holiday must do the bulk of the dress-rehearsal work.
Summer holidays — full intensity
The summer is the test runway. Full mocks fortnightly across July and August in CEM-style format. Wind down the final week before the early September sitting.
Family holidays in August must accommodate the test runway. Many Trafford families take their main holiday earlier in the summer to preserve August for preparation.
First Saturday of September — test
Trafford's sitting falls on the first Saturday of September, often before some primary schools have returned for the autumn term.
Wind down the week before the test entirely. The mistake is to keep practising into the final week — confidence dents more than it builds at this stage.
Mid-October — results
Trafford results are released in mid-October. The consortium uses a cohort-relative threshold — typically the top 25% of the cohort — rather than a fixed published number.
Submit Trafford secondary preferences by 31 October. Trafford's eight grammars run a coordinated allocation; preference order matters.
1 March — offer day
Offers are released on national offer day. Trafford's competitive grammar landscape means waiting-list movement through spring is meaningful; do not assume the first offer is final.
For families also considering Manchester or other Greater Manchester grammars, separate applications and offers apply. Confirm each authority's timeline independently.