Burnham, Buckinghamshire · Buckinghamshire

Burnham Grammar School

A UK government procurement notice confirms exactly who runs Buckinghamshire's 11+: GL Assessment sets the test, the council administers it, and the qualifying score is written into the contract itself.

Burnham sets no score above Buckinghamshire's flat county-wide threshold and its own admissions policy confirms oversubscription runs through a defined catchment area, non-academic priority categories, and distance — never by ranking test scores. A UK government contract-award notice for the Buckinghamshire Secondary Transfer Test gives unusually strong sourcing for how the county's system actually works: GL Assessment produces and marks the test under a contract jointly commissioned by all 13 Buckinghamshire grammar schools, Buckinghamshire Council handles registration and administration separately, and the qualifying score of 121 is written directly into that contract as a fixed requirement — not an informally-reported figure.

Key facts

Gender: co-ed
Age range: 11-18
Region: South East
Local authority: Buckinghamshire
Established: 1960
DfE URN: 137564
Website: https://www.burnhamgrammar.org.uk

Admissions

Admissions authority: The school sets its own test and criteria
Entrance test board: The Buckinghamshire Secondary Transfer Test (STT). Confirmed via a UK government Find a Tender contract-award notice (June 2024): GL Education Group Ltd (GL Assessment) holds the contract to produce and mark the test, commissioned jointly by the 13 Buckinghamshire grammar schools through their shared company, The Buckinghamshire Grammar Schools (TBGS); Buckinghamshire Council separately holds the contract for test administration (registration, test centres, results). This arrangement took effect from the test sat in autumn 2025 onward.
Test format: Two age-standardised multiple-choice papers sat on the same day in autumn of Year 6, each about an hour including practice examples, assessing verbal, non-verbal and mathematical skills. Each of the three areas is age-standardised, then summed into a single Secondary Transfer Test Score (STTS).
Qualifying / pass mark: An STTS of 121 for September 2027 entry — confirmed both in the school's own admissions policy and, more unusually, written directly into the underlying government procurement contract as a fixed requirement that the test 'generate a threshold age-standardised score of 121.' The same flat threshold applies identically across all Buckinghamshire grammar schools.
Superselective?: No

Catchment & priority criteria

A defined catchment area exists, published only as a map on the school's and council's sites. Secondary sources describe it as covering Burnham, Taplow, Egypt, Hedgerley, Fulmer and Middle Green, though this specific village list isn't extractable from the primary map itself.partly verified

The specific village list comes only from tutoring/prep sites, not the primary map itself.

Looked-after and previously looked-after children
Up to 6 places for looked-after children (anywhere) or catchment children eligible for Pupil Premium scoring 115-120
Catchment children eligible for Pupil Premium scoring 121+
Siblings who will be on roll at the time of entry
Siblings previously on the school's roll
Exceptional medical or social needs met only at this school
Children of staff (2+ years' service, or a hard-to-fill vacancy recruit)
Children living within the catchment area
All other qualified children outside the catchment area
Tie-break: straight-line distance to the nearest school gate; random allocation for exact ties

Results

Year	Attainment 8	GCSE 5+ Eng & Maths	Progress 8	A*–A	A*–B
2024	69.9 (Buckinghamshire LA average 53.6, England state-funded average 45.9)	94.4% (Bucks LA 59.5%, England 45.9%)	+0.70 ('Well above average', confidence interval +0.49 to +0.91) — this is the last year Progress 8 was calculable before the COVID-era gap	—	verify with school
A-level: the school's own results-day announcement states only 'nearly 40% A/A' with no precise percentage, and no A-B figure at all — a widely-repeated online claim of '71% A*-B' for this year is identical to the confirmed 2025 figure and appears to be a stale carry-forward rather than genuine 2024 data.
2025	70.1 (Bucks LA average 53.4, England state-funded average 46.1)	94.4% (Bucks LA 58.7%, England 45.4%)	Not calculated — no KS2 baseline data for this cohort nationally	41%	71%
A-level (school-reported, 187 students, 570 grades): 41% A-A, 71% A-B. DfE's own measure: average grade B (40.84 points), progress score +0.18 ('above average').

Ofsted

Rating: Good. The previous inspection (2017, a short inspection) also confirmed the school remained good.
Date: 6 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/137564
2. School's own Admissions Policy 2027 — https://burnhamgrammar.reactfiles.co.uk/uploads/key_information/Admissions-Policy-2027-v0.01-Final.pdf
3. UK Find a Tender — TBGS Secondary Transfer Test contract-award notice, June 2024 (confirms GL Assessment and Buckinghamshire Council roles) — https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/018646-2024
4. Buckinghamshire Council — Grammar schools and Secondary Transfer Testing — https://www.buckinghamshire.gov.uk/schools-and-learning/schools-index/school-admissions/grammar-schools-and-transfer-testing-11/
5. Ofsted report, inspected 6 December 2022 — https://files.ofsted.gov.uk/v1/file/50206518
6. DfE Compare School Performance — results over time — https://www.compare-school-performance.service.gov.uk/school/137564/burnham-grammar-school/secondary/results-over-time
7. DfE Compare School Performance — Progress 8, 2023 and 2024 — https://www.compare-school-performance.service.gov.uk/school/137564/burnham-grammar-school/secondary/progress-measures-for-2023-and-2024
8. School's own Exam Results & Performance Tables page — https://www.burnhamgrammar.org.uk/key-information/item/23/exam-results-performance-tables

Last updated 2026-08-31. Spotted something wrong? Tell us.