What Is the SEAG Entrance Assessment? Northern Ireland's Grammar School Selection Test, Explained in Full (2026)

What Is the SEAG Entrance Assessment?

The SEAG Entrance Assessment is the official, single, common test used for entry to academically selective grammar schools in Northern Ireland. It is the assessment most families simply call the "transfer test" or the "11-plus", sat by children in Primary 7 (P7) — the final year of primary school — when they are around 10 to 11 years old.

The name comes from the body that runs it: the Schools' Entrance Assessment Group (SEAG). "Entrance Assessment" is therefore the formal term, while "transfer test" is the everyday phrase parents and primary schools tend to use. They mean exactly the same thing — and if you've been comparing the two, our companion guide to what the SEAG Transfer Test is covers the same exam from a quick-start angle. This page is the deeper, end-to-end walkthrough.

The purpose of the assessment is to give every academically selective grammar school a single set of standardised outcomes to use within its own Year 8 admissions criteria. There are two papers, both covering English and Maths, and each child receives a Statement of Outcomes that schools draw on when deciding who to offer a place. SEAG itself does not write the questions — they are set and marked by GL Assessment — and SEAG plays no part in the admissions decisions that schools later make.

Who Runs the SEAG Entrance Assessment? SEAG & Its Member Schools

SEAG is a not-for-profit private limited company owned by the post-primary schools that use academic selection for all or part of their Year 8 intake. It is deliberately independent: SEAG is not controlled by, and does not report to, the Department of Education, the Education Authority, or any other public body. Its single job is to deliver the assessment and report standardised outcomes — nothing more.

All 63 academically selective post-primary schools in Northern Ireland are members of SEAG, and they are a broader mix than many parents assume. Membership spans:

• Voluntary grammar schools — the largest group, including the well-known Belfast grammars and long-established schools across every county.
• Controlled grammar schools — grammar schools within the controlled (state) sector.
• Integrated schools that use academic selection for part of their intake.

Crucially, the questions are written and marked by GL Assessment, the largest independent provider of educational assessments in the UK and Ireland, with over 40 years' experience and products used in more than 19,000 schools across 111 countries. Many NI primary schools already use GL's Progress Test in English and Progress Test in Maths, which sit on the same standardised-score scale you'll see in the results. You can view the full list of selective schools on the SEAG member schools page, or research catchments and entry data in our grammar school database.

Who Can Sit the 2026 SEAG Entrance Assessment?

The assessment is for P7 children whose families may want a place at an academically selective grammar school. Unlike England — where only some areas are selective — academic selection operates right across Northern Ireland, so the SEAG Entrance Assessment is the common route into grammar schools in every county.

For the 2026 assessment, children born between 2 July 2015 and 1 July 2016 — those due to transfer to Year 8 in September 2027 — are eligible. A small number of out-of-year-group children, who will transfer a year earlier or later than usual, are also eligible. Sitting the assessment is entirely optional: families choose whether to enter their child, and a child must be registered in advance to take it.

Children who hold a Statement of Special Educational Needs do not need to sit the assessment, because a separate Year 8 admissions process applies to them and SEAG outcomes form no part of it. For children with a diagnosed learning difficulty, disability or medical need who do sit, access arrangements can be requested during registration (see below).

The Two-Paper Format — English & Maths

The SEAG Entrance Assessment is made up of two papers of identical structure, sat on two separate Saturday mornings in November. Both papers test the same two subjects — English and Maths — and a child must sit both papers to complete the full assessment.

In recent assessments — and reflected in SEAG's free official practice papers — each paper has broken down roughly as follows. Treat this as the typical recent pattern rather than a guaranteed spec, and always confirm against the current-year practice materials.

Because answers go on a separate sheet, transferring answers accurately and keeping your place is a genuine skill worth rehearsing — it's one of the most common sources of avoidable lost marks. The exact layout is shown in the free official papers on the SEAG practice materials page.

What's Assessed in English & Maths

The SEAG Entrance Assessment covers just two subjects — English and Maths, both broadly aligned with the Northern Ireland primary curriculum but pitched higher and answered under time pressure. There is no separate Verbal or Non-Verbal Reasoning paper, although reasoning-style thinking is woven through the questions.

The strongest preparation builds genuine fluency in these areas first, then layers on the SEAG question styles and timing. Our SEAG practice papers mirror the format with a tutor-led video walkthrough for every question, and you can read our broader guide to the 11-plus exam to see how the SEAG syllabus compares with the GL, CEM and ISEB tests used elsewhere in the UK.

The Irish-Medium (Gaeilge) Assessment

Northern Ireland's Irish-medium sector is fully provided for. A Gaeilge version of the SEAG Entrance Assessment is available, and the English and Irish versions are designed to be equivalent in content and difficulty — children sitting in Irish are neither advantaged nor disadvantaged.

Because the Irish-medium papers are invigilated in Irish, they can only be sat at assessment centres able to provide Irish-language invigilation. For 2025 there were 12 such centres spread across Northern Ireland (including schools in Belfast, Derry, Newry, Omagh, Ballymena, Enniskillen, Limavady, Magherafelt, Donaghmore and Ballynahinch). When you choose your centre during registration, those offering Irish invigilation are clearly flagged, and there is a separate "Gaeilge Specification" document published alongside the English specification each year.

How the SEAG Entrance Assessment Is Scored — TSAS, SAS & Bands

This is the part parents most often misunderstand. SEAG does not report a raw mark or a simple pass/fail. Instead it reports standardised outcomes based on a child's total performance across both papers, adjusted for the child's exact age so that younger pupils in the year group are not disadvantaged.

A Standardised Age Score (SAS) takes account of three things: how many questions the child answered correctly, the difficulty of the assessment, and the child's age in months when they sat it. SEAG reports an English (or Irish) SAS and a Maths SAS, then adds them together to produce the headline figure:

• Total Standardised Age Score (TSAS): range 138–282, with an average of 200 — the sum of the two subject scores.
• English/Irish SAS and Maths SAS: each ranges 69–141, with an average of 100 — the same scale as the GL Progress Tests many NI primaries already use.

Every child is also placed in one of six Bands, set by where they rank against everyone who sat the assessment that year (their cohort percentile):

Understanding Your Child's Statement of Outcomes

Results are delivered as a single page called the Statement of Outcomes, accessed by logging into your SEAG account on results day. It is based on your child's total performance across the two papers and contains more than just the headline score. You will see:

• The Total Standardised Age Score (TSAS) and the Band — the two outcomes schools are most likely to use.
• The separate English/Irish SAS and Maths SAS, so you can see relative strengths.
• The Cohort Percentile Ranking (CPR) — how your child ranked against everyone who sat the assessment.
• How many questions were answered correctly in each subject.
• How your child performed on Paper 1 versus Paper 2.

If a child sits only one of the two papers, they still receive a Statement of Outcomes, but the results are marked as estimated with an "e" — for example, TSAS 196e or Band 3e. How a school treats an estimated outcome is set out in that school's own admissions criteria, so check carefully if this applies to your child.

How Grammar Schools Use the SEAG Outcomes

This is the single most important thing for parents to grasp: SEAG has no role in admissions. It provides the Statement of Outcomes and stops there. Every school's Board of Governors independently sets and publishes its own Year 8 admissions criteria, and they do not all do it the same way. A school may choose to:

• rank applicants by Total Standardised Age Score;
• group applicants by Band;
• use a combination of the two; or
• use the outcomes alongside, or after, non-academic criteria (such as siblings already at the school, feeder primaries, or proximity).

Each Board of Governors must publish its criteria in the school year before applications open, so you can read exactly how each school will rank pupils before you apply. In practice, at the most heavily oversubscribed grammars, only children with scores well into the top Band are offered places, while many other schools admit across a wider range. The practical takeaway: read the published admissions criteria for every school on your list, and use our grammar school database and the SEAG member schools list to shortlist realistically.

SEAG Entrance Assessment 2026 — Key Dates

Here are the confirmed and planned dates for the 2026 SEAG Entrance Assessment (for children transferring to Year 8 in September 2027). Missing the registration window almost always means waiting a full year, so put these in your calendar now.

The 28 November date only comes into play if an entire assessment day has to be postponed across Northern Ireland — for example, in extreme weather. A short late-registration window sometimes opens in September at a higher £50 fee (it ran for four days in 2025), but it is not guaranteed, so don't rely on it. Always confirm against the official SEAG key dates page and our blog.

Choosing & Attending an Assessment Centre

The assessment is sat in one of the 63 SEAG assessment centres — the member schools themselves. During the Pupil Application you pick your centre from a drop-down list of all available centres and choose the one most convenient for you. The centres have worked to keep every registered pupil within a reasonable travelling distance of home, with responsibility shared fairly between them.

• Capacity matters. A centre can fill up. Although the list initially shows all 63, a centre that reaches its maximum will drop off the list — so register early to keep your first choice.
• Your centre does not affect admissions. This is vital: there is no connection between where your child sits the assessment and which schools you can apply to. You may apply to any SEAG school regardless of your test centre.
• Changing centre is awkward. Once a Pupil Application is submitted you cannot simply edit the centre — you must make a new application (and pay again) and withdraw the old one. SEAG advises making the new application before withdrawing the original, in case the new centre is full. The fee is not refunded.
• Arrive in good time. Pupils cannot be admitted after the assessment has started, so plan travel and parking with a generous margin.

How to Register — Step by Step

Registration is completed online at seagni.co.uk and runs in two stages:

1. Create a parent/guardian account. Register yourself on the SEAG portal once registration opens on 18 May 2026. If your child sat in a previous year you must set up a fresh registration, though you can reuse the same email address.
2. Complete and submit a Pupil Application for your child. You can make two Pupil Applications from one account if you have two children sitting.
3. Upload a photo and ID. Provide a passport-style photo (clear background, child only) and one ID document — a birth certificate, the photo page of a passport, or both sides of a residence permit (a Deed Poll if the child's name differs from the document).
4. Choose your assessment centre from the list, then pay the £20 fee — or select FSME exemption and upload valid evidence (an EA portal screenshot or entitlement letter showing the child's name and current entitlement).
5. Submit before the deadline. If a complete Pupil Application has not been submitted by 11:59pm on 18 September 2026, your child will not be registered and cannot sit the assessment.

Each registered child is issued a Unique Pupil Number (UPN), which is printed on their answer sheet so results are matched to the right child — quote it in any correspondence with SEAG. SEAG only contacts you if there is a problem with your application, so no follow-up email generally means you're verified. If you have no internet device, you can ask your chosen assessment centre to pass your details to SEAG so they can help you apply.

Access Arrangements for Additional Needs

If your child has a diagnosed learning difficulty, disability or medical condition, access arrangements can be put in place so they can sit the assessment fairly. You request these during the Pupil Application by selecting the access-arrangements option; after the payment step you are taken to the Access Arrangements section to provide details and upload supporting evidence.

You can build up and amend this information over time, but it must be submitted before registration closes on Friday 18 September 2026. Securing your assessment-centre place (by paying the fee or supplying FSME evidence) is separate from completing the access-arrangements section, so don't leave the evidence to the last minute. SEAG publishes a dedicated Access Arrangements Guide setting out the support that can be considered — read it early so you know what evidence to gather.

On the Day & Special Circumstances

On each assessment morning, your child sits one 60-minute paper at your chosen centre. Each paper opens with a short practice section so children can settle, and all answers are marked on a separate answer sheet pre-printed with the child's name, date of birth and UPN. Arrive early — late pupils cannot be admitted once the paper has begun.

Two situations worry parents most:

• Missing one paper. A child who sits only Paper 1 or only Paper 2 still has it marked and receives a Statement of Outcomes, but the results are flagged as estimated (the "e", e.g. Band 3e). There is no individual re-sit and no alternative date.
• Illness or disruption. If your child is unwell on the day or their assessment is disrupted, this is dealt with after the assessment through the "Special Circumstances" element of the post-primary admissions process. That process is run by the Education Authority, not by SEAG, and allows a school's Board of Governors to take verified circumstances into account.

After the Assessment — Applying to Post-Primary Schools

Getting the Statement of Outcomes is only half the journey. The actual business of applying for and being allocated a Year 8 place is the Post-Primary Admissions Process, run by the Education Authority (again, entirely separate from SEAG). In broad terms:

1. Results arrive (planned for 23 January 2027), giving you your child's TSAS and Band.
2. You apply to schools in order of preference through the Education Authority's online admissions system, during its published application window in early 2027.
3. Schools rank applicants strictly against their published admissions criteria.
4. The Education Authority notifies families of the school their child has been allocated, typically in May 2027.

Because each school applies its own criteria, a sensible preference list balances ambition with realistic fallback options. Reading the published criteria — and being honest about your child's likely Band — matters far more than chasing a single "dream" school.

SEAG vs the Old AQE/GL Tests — and England's 11+

If you've heard older parents mention "the AQE" and "the GL", here's what changed. Until 2023, Northern Ireland ran a confusing dual system: two competing transfer tests — one from the AQE (the Association for Quality Education) and one using GL Assessment papers through the PPTC consortium. Many children sat both, sometimes across several sittings, just to keep their options open. From the November 2023 assessment, those were replaced by a single common assessment under SEAG, accepted by every selective grammar school — one test, one set of outcomes.

It also helps to see how SEAG differs from the 11-plus elsewhere in the UK:

For families looking beyond NI, our guides to GL Assessment papers, CEM papers and Independent school papers cover each of these in detail.

How to Prepare for the SEAG Entrance Assessment

The SEAG Entrance Assessment is demanding but highly learnable, and a steady, well-paced plan beats last-minute cramming every time. A simple year-by-year rhythm works well:

1. P5–P6: build the foundations. Secure times tables, daily reading and steady vocabulary growth, and confident number work — before any exam technique.
2. Start with the free official papers. Download SEAG's own practice papers, answer sheets and the "Practice Papers with Answer Keys – Parents' Guide" (English and Gaeilge) from seagni.co.uk. These are the only genuine "SEAG Practice Papers" and show the exact format.
3. Teach the answer-sheet skill. Practise transferring answers to a separate sheet accurately and not losing your place — a frequent source of dropped marks.
4. Cover both question styles — five-option multiple-choice and free-response written answers — across English and Maths.
5. Practise little and often. Three or four short sessions (20–30 minutes) a week beat occasional marathons.
6. Add full timed papers in P7. Two 60-minute papers demand pace and stamina; build to full timing gradually, starting with generous time.
7. Review every mistake. It's the marking and gap-filling — not the sheer number of papers — that drives improvement.

When you're ready for structured practice, ExamTutor's SEAG practice papers come with tutor-led video walkthroughs for every question — like having an online tutor and mock exams in one. You can also download free 11+ papers to benchmark progress and browse our recommended 11+ books for wider reading.

SEAG Glossary — Key Terms Explained

The SEAG process comes with its own vocabulary. Here's a plain-English reference: