Alcester, Warwickshire · Warwickshire
Alcester Grammar School
Out-of-area applicants are only offered places 'if there are insufficient children of the required level of ability' living inside the priority circle first — geography gates access before raw score does.
A co-educational grammar school whose current form dates to 1912, succeeding an earlier single-sex predecessor. Sits within the same 19-school West Midlands Grammar Schools test consortium as the rest of Warwickshire's selective schools, with Warwickshire Admissions handling registration on behalf of the school's own Academy Trust governors. Its qualifying score is deliberately never pre-published: a regional 'Committee of Reference' recalculates it every year after seeing that cohort's results and discloses it privately to applicants alongside their scores. Its own policy names this panel a specifically 'South Warwickshire' mechanism, raising an open question about whether Warwickshire's Rugby-area schools use an identically structured committee.
Key facts
- Gender
- co-ed
- Age range
- 11-18
- Region
- West Midlands
- Local authority
- Warwickshire
- Established
- 1912
- DfE URN
- 136622
- Website
- https://www.alcestergs.co.uk
Admissions
- Admissions authority
- The school sets its own test and criteria
- Entrance test board
- GL Assessment, since the September 2022 test sitting, replacing previous provider CEM following a joint procurement between Warwickshire County Council and the King Edward VI Foundation, Birmingham.
- Test format
- Two written multiple-choice papers of around 50 minutes each, sat on one day in September of Year 6: verbal reasoning, non-verbal reasoning, numeracy/maths and English, weighted and combined into an age-standardised score. Part of a shared common test sat by 19 schools across three sub-groups (Warwickshire's 6 selective schools, Birmingham's 8 grammar schools, and a 5-school Shropshire/Wolverhampton/Walsall consortium) — one sitting, but each sub-group and school sets its own qualifying score and criteria independently.
- Qualifying / pass mark
- Not published as a fixed figure. The Automatic Qualifying Score is set annually, after the test, by a 'Committee of Reference' of South Warwickshire head teachers based on cohort strength and place availability, then disclosed privately to applicants alongside their results, with only the prior year's figure shared for comparison.verify with school
No current or archived numeric qualifying score was found on any open source — it's set annually by the Committee of Reference and disclosed privately alongside applicants' results, not published in advance.
- Superselective?
- No
The school's own admissions policy explicitly prioritises its catchment area over raw score: applicants living inside the priority area who meet the qualifying score are admitted before out-of-area applicants at or above the same score, and the policy states out-of-area children 'will normally only be offered places... if there are insufficient children of the required level of ability living within the priority area.' A true superselective ranks all applicants by score with no geographic buffer, so this doesn't meet that definition. The school also maintains a lower 'Required Minimum Academic Standard' for its waiting list, calibrated to be consistent with previously admitted cohorts rather than skimming only the highest possible scorers.
Catchment & priority criteria
A circle with a 16.936-mile radius (for the 2027/28 cycle) centred on the Fountain, Rother Street, Stratford-upon-Avon, extending to the county boundary south of Long Compton. Recalculated most years to admit a stable number of local pupils — a 2026-cycle secondary source cites a very slightly different 16.885-mile radius.
- Children with an EHC Plan naming the school, subject to meeting the minimum academic standard
- Looked-after and previously looked-after children achieving the qualifying score, or up to 20 marks below (capped, combined with the next category, at 20 below-threshold places)
- Children in the priority area attracting Pupil Premium via Free School Meals eligibility, achieving the qualifying score or up to 20 marks below
- Children living in the priority area achieving the qualifying score or above
- Children living outside the priority area achieving the qualifying score or above — normally only reached if insufficient priority-area children qualify
- Children scoring below the qualifying score but above the minimum academic standard — waiting list only
- Tie-break: nearest straight-line distance, then independently witnessed random allocation
Results
| Year | Attainment 8 | GCSE 5+ Eng & Maths | Progress 8 | A*–A | A*–B |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 73.7 (positional cross-reference from an incompletely rendered DfE comparison table — sits between the confirmed 2023 figure of 73.2 and the independently confirmed 2025 figure of 73.7; recommend a direct re-check) | 97.4% | +0.56 ('Well above average', confidence interval +0.33 to +0.79, Warwickshire LA average +0.01) — this cohort predates the COVID-era gap | 41% (school-reported) | 73% (school-reported) |
| A-level (254 students): average grade B (40.96 points per entry). School-reported (not independently verified against DfE, which doesn't publish this breakdown): A*-A 41%, A*-B 73%, A*-C 93%, pass rate 100%. EBacc entry 85.0%. | |||||
| 2025 | 73.7 | 100.0% (DfE); the school's own site separately states 99% for the same year | Not calculated — no KS2 baseline data for this cohort nationally | verify with school | verify with school |
| A-level (264 students): average grade B (39.05 points per entry), value-added progress score +0.08 ('Above average', confidence interval +0.01 to +0.16, England average -0.03). AAB+ with 2 facilitating subjects 18.5%. EBacc entry 59.6%. | |||||
Ofsted
- Rating
- Outstanding overall — but Sixth-Form Provision specifically was graded Good, a distinction worth surfacing rather than reporting a blanket Outstanding. Quality of Education, Behaviour and Attitudes, Personal Development, and Leadership and Management were all Outstanding. This was the school's first full inspection since 2009 (having been exempt from routine re-inspection while previously rated Outstanding), under the pre-September 2024 framework.
- Date
- 7-8 December 2022
- Report
- Read the full report
Sources
- 1. DfE Get Information About Schools — URN, status, gender, LA — https://get-information-schools.service.gov.uk/Establishments/Establishment/Details/136622
- 2. School's own Admissions Policy 2027/2028 — https://www.alcestergs.co.uk/_site/data/files/users/xcv/2728-consultation/756BF87C54DE0D0630CFE4A899BF06B1.pdf
- 3. Warwickshire County Council — Grammar Schools in Warwickshire — https://www.warwickshire.gov.uk/grammar-schools-11-test/grammar-schools-warwickshire/1
- 4. Warwickshire County Council — 11+ exam provider announcement (GL Assessment) — https://www.warwickshire.gov.uk/news/article/2808/warwickshire-grammar-school-applicants-for-2023-entry-will-take-the-11-test-from-a-new-exam-provider-
- 5. Ofsted report, inspected 7-8 December 2022 — https://files.ofsted.gov.uk/v1/file/50206999
- 6. School's own Exam Results page — https://www.alcestergs.co.uk/page/?title=Exam+Results&pid=45
- 7. DfE Compare School Performance — Progress 8, 2023 and 2024 — https://www.compare-school-performance.service.gov.uk/school/136622/alcester-grammar-school/secondary/progress-measures-for-2023-and-2024
- 8. DfE Compare School Performance — A-level qualifications — https://www.compare-school-performance.service.gov.uk/school/136622/alcester-grammar-school/16-to-18/advanced-level-qualifications
Last updated 2026-09-01. Spotted something wrong? Tell us.