Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire · Buckinghamshire
Beaconsfield High School
Buckinghamshire's test doesn't rank children at all — every grammar school in the county shares one flat pass/fail score, with catchment and distance deciding who actually gets a place.
Unlike Kent's aggregate-scoring system, Buckinghamshire runs a single county-wide test with one flat qualifying score used identically by every grammar school: pass at 121 or you don't qualify, full stop — a higher score gives no priority. What actually determines admission to an oversubscribed school like Beaconsfield High is catchment and distance, layered on top of that binary pass/fail. Its most recent Ofsted visit needs careful framing: the December 2024 report wasn't a downgrade or a re-confirmation under the new framework — it was a specific 'ungraded' inspection type reserved for previously-Outstanding schools, which issues no rating at all, simply confirming the 2019 Outstanding judgement still stands.
Key facts
- Gender
- girls
- Age range
- 11-18
- Region
- South East
- Local authority
- Buckinghamshire
- DfE URN
- 140893
- Website
- https://www.beaconsfieldhigh.school
Admissions
- Admissions authority
- The school sets its own test and criteria
- Entrance test board
- The Buckinghamshire Secondary Transfer Test (STT), marked by GL Assessment — confirmed directly on Buckinghamshire Council's own page. Buckinghamshire Council administers the test county-wide on behalf of all Bucks grammar schools, but each school remains its own admissions authority.
- Test format
- Two multiple-choice papers sat on the same day in September of Year 6, each about an hour: Paper 1 covers verbal skills (comprehension, technical English, verbal reasoning); Paper 2 covers maths and non-verbal/spatial reasoning. The three skill areas are age-standardised then combined as 50% verbal + 25% maths + 25% non-verbal reasoning to produce a single Secondary Transfer Test Score (STTS). A Selection Review Panel process exists for girls who narrowly miss the qualifying score.
- Qualifying / pass mark
- An STTS of 121 or above — the same flat, county-wide threshold used identically by every Buckinghamshire grammar school, confirmed for both September 2026 and September 2027 entry in the school's own admissions policies. A lower threshold of 115 applies only to a small quota of catchment-resident, Pupil-Premium-eligible places.
- Superselective?
- No
Buckinghamshire's test doesn't rank children at all — it's a binary pass/fail against the flat county-wide 121 threshold, met by roughly 30-37% of the test cohort. Above that bar, Beaconsfield High's own admissions policy resolves oversubscription by care status, then catchment-and-Pupil-Premium, then sisters, then staff children, then straight-line distance within catchment — a distance-based mechanism, not score-ranking. This is a reasoned classification from how the policy actually allocates places, since neither the school nor the council uses the word 'superselective' either way. Secondary sources describe some other Bucks grammars (Dr Challoner's Grammar School, Dr Challoner's High School, Royal Grammar School High Wycombe) as functionally superselective because demand pushes effective entry well above 121 — but that's a demand effect layered on the same flat test, not a different scoring mechanism.
Catchment & priority criteria
A defined catchment area exists and is used for distance-based tiebreaking and a Pupil Premium priority quota, but is published only as a map on the school's own site, not as a written boundary description.partly verified
Confirmed to exist directly from the school's own policy, but published only as a map graphic, not extractable as a written boundary.
- Children with an EHCP naming the school
- Looked-after and previously looked-after children
- Qualified girls within catchment with Pupil Premium entitlement
- Up to 10 places for catchment-resident, Pupil-Premium-eligible girls who scored 115-120 (below the main threshold), ranked by distance
- Sisters within catchment currently attending the school
- Daughters of staff (2+ years' service, or filling a skill-shortage post)
- Girls living in the catchment area, ranked by straight-line distance
- Girls with exceptional medical or social needs specific to this school
- Sisters outside catchment, ranked by distance
- Girls outside the catchment area, ranked by straight-line distance
- Independently-supervised random allocation for exact ties
Results
| Year | Attainment 8 | GCSE 5+ Eng & Maths | Progress 8 | A*–A | A*–B |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 76.5 (school-reported; couldn't be independently cross-checked against DfE's archive for this specific year during this research) | verify with school | 0.95 (school-reported) — this cohort predates the COVID-era gap so a real DfE figure should exist, but wasn't independently confirmed | 48% | 77% |
| A-level (school-reported): 48% grades A*-A, 77% grades A*-B. | |||||
| 2025 | 75.9 (England state-funded average 53.4) | 99.4% (England average 45.4%) | Not calculated — no KS2 baseline data for this cohort nationally | 50% (school-reported) | 81% (school-reported) |
| A-level (DfE-confirmed): average grade B+ (43.9 points), AAB+ with 2 facilitating subjects 29.9%, retention 98.8%. The 50% A*-A / 81% A*-B figures below are school-reported, not a DfE headline measure in the current format. | |||||
Ofsted
- Rating
- Outstanding — from the last full graded inspection in December 2019 (all categories). A December 2024 visit was a specific 'ungraded' inspection type reserved for previously-Outstanding schools, which issues no rating at all; it confirmed only that the school 'has taken effective action to maintain the standards' from 2019.
- Date
- 11-12 December 2019 (last graded); 3-4 December 2024 (ungraded, no new rating)
- 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/140893
- 2. School's own Admissions Policy, September 2026 entry — https://www.beaconsfieldhigh.school/attachments/download.asp?file=515&type=pdf
- 3. School's own Admissions Policy, September 2027 entry — https://www.beaconsfieldhigh.school/attachments/download.asp?file=524&type=pdf
- 4. Buckinghamshire Council — Secondary Transfer Testing process — https://www.buckinghamshire.gov.uk/schools-and-learning/schools-index/school-admissions/school-admissions-guides-policies-and-statistics/guide-to-grammar-schools-and-the-secondary-school-transfer-test-11-plus/secondary-transfer-testing-process/
- 5. Buckinghamshire Council — Marking the Secondary Transfer Test (qualifying score, GL Assessment) — https://www.buckinghamshire.gov.uk/schools-and-learning/schools-index/school-admissions/school-admissions-guides-policies-and-statistics/guide-to-grammar-schools-and-the-secondary-school-transfer-test-11-plus/marking-the-secondary-transfer-test/
- 6. Ofsted report, ungraded, inspected 3-4 December 2024 — https://files.ofsted.gov.uk/v1/file/50267661
- 7. Ofsted report, graded Outstanding, inspected 11-12 December 2019 — https://files.ofsted.gov.uk/v1/file/50143075
- 8. DfE Compare School Performance — GCSE results — https://www.compare-school-performance.service.gov.uk/school/140893/beaconsfield-high-school/secondary
- 9. School's own Results page — https://www.beaconsfieldhigh.school/school-life/results
Last updated 2026-08-31. Spotted something wrong? Tell us.