Know exactly where your child stands for Derby High School
Thousands of practice questions and up to 6 mock papers, all in the exact Derby High School 11+ format, on one simple plan. It starts with a free diagnostic.
Thousands of practice questions and up to 6 mock papers, all in the exact Derby High School 11+ format, on one simple plan. It starts with a free diagnostic.
Derby High School
Derby High School is a co-educational independent day school in Littleover, Derbyshire, that admits pupils into Year 7 through a single-stage process. The 11+ entrance exam is administered by Quest Admissions and includes an interview stage. Annual fees for Years 7-9 are #19,440 (including VAT), which covers school lunches, textbooks, and sports travel.
If you have heard of Derby High as a girls' school, that changed in 2019, when the senior school started taking boys. It is now co-educational throughout. It is an independent day school in Littleover on the edge of Derby, taking children from three to eighteen, with somewhere under seven hundred across the whole school in purpose-built buildings on one site. Girls still outnumber boys, which is the legacy of the older school. Year 7 and the sixth form are the two main points of entry from outside.
It opened in January 1892 in a semi-detached house on Osmaston Road, spent the war years out at Mackworth House and moved to Littleover in 1957. Year 7 is where the school makes its case. Every subject is taught by a specialist from the first week, the three sciences are taught separately from the start, and children sample French, German and Spanish for a term each before choosing two to carry on. The 11+ is a set of nationally standardised papers in English, maths and reasoning in the autumn term, with an informal interview and a reference from the current school.
The day runs from half past eight to a quarter to four, with a seventy-minute lunch 'hour' that carries most of the clubs: retro gaming, mindfulness, eco, craft, choirs, a Year 7 science club, cricket and tennis, a maths drop-in. The whole school eats together. Supervised waiting runs to half past five, which matters if you work. Every Year 6 leaver walks out of the junior building through a corridor of pupils and staff applauding them. It suits a child who would rather be one of a few hundred than one of a thousand, and who will take up more than one of those clubs.
Key facts
Annual fees
2026/27, including VAT: Years 7-9 £6,480 per term (£19,440 per year); Years 10-11 £6,740 per term (£20,220 per year). The school states fees cover school lunches, textbooks and travel to sport fixtures. Non-refundable registration fee £120; deposit £750, refunded at the end of the pupil's school career.
Admissions
Admissions contact
admissions@derbyhigh.derby.sch.uk
Admissions phone
01332 514267
Registration form
Sibling policy
What this school tests
Year 7 Entrance Examination
English
- Grammar
- Punctuation
- Reading Comprehension - Comparison
- Reading Comprehension - Evaluation
- Reading Comprehension - Grammar and punctuation
- Reading Comprehension - Inference and Deduction
- Reading Comprehension - Information Retrieval
- Reading Comprehension - Language Techniques and Imagery
- Reading Comprehension - Sentence-level Comprehension
- Reading Comprehension - Sequencing
- Reading Comprehension - Structure, Form, Voice and Tone
- Reading Comprehension - Summarising
- Reading Comprehension - Text Classification and Purpose
- Reading Comprehension - Types of Words and Phrases
- Reading Comprehension - Word Meaning / Choice
- Spelling
- Vocabulary
Maths
- Algebra
- Angles and Degrees
- BIDMAS
- Coordinate Grids
- Estimation and Rounding
- Factors and Multiples
- Fractions, Decimals and Percentages
- Measurement
- Money
- Number and Place Value
- Operations
- Perimeter, Area and Volume
- Position and Direction
- Properties of Shapes
- Ratio and Proportion
- Reflection, Rotation and Symmetry
- Sequences
- Special Numbers
- Speed, Distance and Time
- Statistics
- Time
Non-verbal Reasoning
- Figure Analogies
- Figure Matrices
- Figure Series
- Grid Matrices
- Horizontal Codes
- Match to a Group of Figures
- Most Like Three Figures
- Odd Figure Out
- Odd Shaped Matrices
- Star Matrices
- Triangle Matrices
- Vertical Codes
Verbal Reasoning
- Alphabet Logic
- Anagrams
- Compound Words
- Embedded Words
- Form a Word
- Insert 2 / 3 Letters
- Insert a Letter
- Letter Analogies
- Letter Sequences
- Move 1 / 2 Letters
- Ordering Words
- Rhyming Synonyms
- Shuffled Sentences
- Synonyms
- Word / Logic Puzzles
- Word Analogies
- Word Completion
- Word Match
- Word Opposites
- Word Pairs
- Word Relationships
- Word Swap
- Words and Codes
Spatial Reasoning
- 2D Rotations
- 2D View of 3D Shape
- 3D Rotations
- Block Counting
- Building Blocks
- Combining Shapes
- Diagonal Reflections
- Figure Missing from Image
- Fold and Punch
- Folding Cubes
- Hidden Shapes
- Missing Face of Cube
- Nets of 3D Shapes
- Shape Completion
Catchment area
Selection review and safety net
Previous exam results
GCSE results
2026: 63% of all grades at 7-9 and 44% of entries at 8-9 (school's own published figures).
A-level results
2026: 80% of grades at A*-B and 54% at A* (school's own published figures).
Frequently asked questions
What exam board does Derby High School use for the 11+?
Derby High School uses Quest Admissions for its 11+ entrance exam.
Is there an interview stage for Derby High School 11+ admissions?
Yes, Derby High School includes an interview stage as part of its Year 7 admissions process.
Is Derby High School co-educational or single-sex?
Derby High School is a fully co-educational school, having transitioned to admitting boys to the senior school in 2019.
What are the school fees for Derby High School?
For the 2026/27 academic year, fees for Years 7-9 are #6,480 per term (#19,440 per year), which includes VAT, school lunches, textbooks, and sports travel.
What is Derby High School's website?
The official website for the school is https://derbyhigh.derby.sch.uk/.
Location
https://www.google.com/maps/embed?pb=!1m18!1m12!1m3!1d2406.459562009638!2d-1.5187609220195215!3d52.90415397216434!2m3!1f0!2f0!3f0!3m2!1i1024!2i768!4f13.1!3m3!1m2!1s0x4879f726485a4f47%3A0x95b668d59d689f5f!2sDerby%20High%20Primary!5e0!3m2!1sen!2sph!4v1787818267329!5m2!1sen!2sph
