Welling, Greater London · Bexley
Bexley Grammar School
Ran an IB-only sixth form for nearly a decade, but announced in December 2025 it's dropping the IB entirely and switching to A-levels for every new entrant from September 2026 — a live curriculum transition worth knowing before comparing its exam results to other schools.
Opened in 1955, Bexley Grammar shares the borough-run 'Bexley Selection Test' with the other three Bexley grammar schools, but as an academy is its own admissions authority — it has simply chosen to adopt the same shared 'deemed selective' standard rather than being required to. Distance from home to school, not raw test score, decides most of its places once that shared bar is cleared; only a small borough-wide pool of the very highest scorers across all four schools bypasses distance entirely. Most strikingly, this school has taught the International Baccalaureate exclusively since 2017 — every available result was an IB outcome, not A-levels — but announced in December 2025 that it's discontinuing the IB after the government withdrew funding for it, moving to A-levels for all new sixth-form entrants from September 2026.
Key facts
- Gender
- co-ed
- Age range
- 11-18
- Region
- London
- Local authority
- Bexley
- Established
- 1955
- DfE URN
- 136369
- Website
- https://www.bexleygs.co.uk
Admissions
- Admissions authority
- The school sets its own test and criteria
- Entrance test board
- Quest Assessments, contracted by Bexley Council to administer the shared 'Bexley Selection Test' on behalf of all four Bexley grammar schools.
- Test format
- Two timed multiple-choice papers of around 50 minutes each in one sitting, September of Year 6: verbal reasoning and English comprehension (50% weighting), numerical/mathematical reasoning (25%), non-verbal reasoning (25%), age-standardised.
- Qualifying / pass mark
- No fixed pass mark is published — the shared 'deemed selective' standard is set fresh each year by Bexley Council and the four grammar school heads together. Secondary tutoring estimates suggest a range around 214-216 for recent cycles; a separate borough-wide 'Guaranteed Grammar School Place' threshold for the top 180 scorers across all Bexley grammar-test candidates was reported at 252 for the 2024 cycle. Neither figure is school-specific and neither was independently confirmed from a primary source.verify with school
No fixed number exists by design — the shared standard is reset annually by the council and all four grammar heads. Figures found come only from secondary/tutoring sources or a search-summarised FOI reference and should be treated as indicative only.
- Superselective?
- No
The school's own admissions policy states it has chosen to use the same shared standard as the other Bexley grammars, not a higher, school-specific bar. For the bulk of its 210 places, oversubscription among deemed-selective applicants is resolved by home-to-school distance, not by ranking every applicant purely on test score — the hallmark of a standard selective school rather than a true superselective. The one purely score-ranked mechanism, a 'Guaranteed Grammar School Place' for the top 180 scorers across all Bexley grammar-test candidates, is a shared borough-wide pool across all four schools, not specific to this one.
Catchment & priority criteria
None — no defined catchment or zone. Admission is borough-wide via the shared test; straight-line home-to-school distance is used only as an oversubscription criterion (after several priority categories) and as the tie-break.
- Children with an EHC Plan naming the school who are deemed selective
- Looked-after and previously looked-after children
- Up to 12 places for deemed-selective children eligible for Pupil Premium, ranked by distance
- 'Guaranteed Grammar School Place': the 180 highest standardised scorers across all children sitting the Bexley Selection Test for any Bexley grammar school, guaranteed a place at their preferred school
- A sibling currently at the school
- Children of staff with 2+ years' service
- Distance — straight-line measurement from home to the school's official entrance, priority to nearest
- Tie-break: where distance is equal to within 0.001 mile, the higher test score wins
Results
| Year | Attainment 8 | GCSE 5+ Eng & Maths | Progress 8 | A*–A | A*–B |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 74.7 | 98.2% | +0.49 ('Above average', confidence interval +0.3 to +0.68) — this cohort predates the COVID-era gap | — | — |
| Sixth-form leavers this year were overwhelmingly IB, not A-level. School's own published results: 194 students awarded the full IB Diploma, average total point score 34/45, average UCAS tariff 191 points. | |||||
| 2025 | 74.7 | 98.2% | Not calculated — no KS2 baseline data for this cohort nationally | — | — |
| DfE's own data shows just 1 student entered A-levels in this cohort versus 222 on IB. School's own published results: 215 students awarded the full IB Diploma, average total point score 34/45, average UCAS tariff 195 points. This school announced in December 2025 that it is discontinuing the IB after current Year 12/13 students finish, teaching A-levels to all new sixth-form entrants from September 2026 — every result reported here and in future cohorts through 2027 will remain IB until the first new A-level cohort completes in summer 2028. | |||||
Ofsted
- Rating
- Outstanding, in every category: quality of education, behaviour and attitudes, personal development, leadership and management, and sixth-form provision. This was a full graded inspection under the pre-September 2024 framework — no inspection has occurred since. The previous inspection (2007) was also Outstanding, reflecting the long exemption from routine inspection that applied to outstanding schools for much of that period.
- Date
- 18 October 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/136369
- 2. School's own Admissions Policy 2027-2028 — https://www.bexleygs.co.uk/attachments/download.asp?file=3035&type=pdf
- 3. London Borough of Bexley — About the Bexley Selection Test — https://www.bexley.gov.uk/services/schools-and-education/selection-tests
- 4. Ofsted report, inspected 18 October 2022 — https://files.ofsted.gov.uk/v1/file/50200146
- 5. School's own news announcement — IB discontinued, switch to A-levels from September 2026 — https://www.bexleygs.co.uk/news/?pid=15&nid=3&storyid=2031
- 6. School's own IB Diploma Results 2024-2025 (PDF) — https://www.bexleygs.co.uk/_site/data/files/users/information/26A6C5DCD57DED02FAD253F48A19ACAA.pdf
- 7. DfE Compare School Performance — Progress 8, 2023 and 2024 — https://www.compare-school-performance.service.gov.uk/school/136369/bexley-grammar-school/secondary/progress-measures-for-2023-and-2024
Last updated 2026-09-01. Spotted something wrong? Tell us.