Newport, Shropshire · Telford and Wrekin
Haberdashers' Adams
Girls have only been admitted into Year 7 since September 2024 — co-education is rolling forward one year group per year, after 337 years as a boys-only school.
Founded in 1656 by London haberdasher William Adams, who appointed the Worshipful Company of Haberdashers as governors in perpetuity — a genuine, centuries-old link, and an entirely separate institution from the independent Haberdashers' Aske's schools in Elstree despite sharing the same livery-company ancestry. Boys-only from 1656 until girls were admitted to the sixth form in 1993, and now transitioning to full co-education, with girls joining Year 7 for the first time in September 2024, rolling forward one year group annually. Shares a test-registration portal with nearby Newport Girls' High School but is otherwise fully independent of it — separate trust, separate admission number, and no fixed qualifying score published, since the school simply ranks all candidates who clear an unstated academic floor and takes the top scorers until its places are filled. Runs a roughly 100-place boys' boarding house, inspected on an entirely separate Ofsted track from the main school.
Key facts
- Gender
- co-ed
- Age range
- 11-18
- Region
- West Midlands
- Local authority
- Telford and Wrekin
- Established
- 1656
- DfE URN
- 137446
- Website
- https://www.adamsgs.uk
Admissions
- Admissions authority
- The school sets its own test and criteria
- Entrance test board
- Reported by multiple 11+ tutoring sites to be GL Assessment, administered via the shared 'West Midlands Grammar Schools' consortium portal — not named explicitly in the school's own admissions policy documents.partly verified
GL Assessment attribution and the exact paper/weighting breakdown come only from 11+ tutoring sites, not from the school's own admissions policy.
- Test format
- Reported by secondary sources as two papers of around an hour each covering English, mathematics, verbal reasoning and non-verbal reasoning, weighted 50% English/verbal reasoning, 25% non-verbal reasoning, 25% maths, age-standardised — this exact breakdown isn't stated in the school's own policy, which describes only a 'required academic standard' and a rank-order test score without publishing the paper structure.
- Qualifying / pass mark
- Not published as a fixed number. The school's own determined admissions policy (both the 2025-26 and 2027-28 versions, read in full) admits day candidates strictly by rank order of test score — the top 135, plus up to 15 boy boarders — among those clearing an undefined 'required academic standard.' The only numeric anchor given is relative: Pupil Premium and Service Premium children need to score no lower than 5% below the general qualifying score, but that general score itself is never stated as a fixed figure.verify with school
Not published as a fixed number in either the 2025-26 or 2027-28 determined admissions policy, both read in full for this research. Any qualifying-score figure quoted by tutoring sites isn't verifiable against a primary source.
- Superselective?
- No
The school's own admissions policy describes a straightforward rank-to-fill-places model: candidates clear an unpublished floor, then the top 135 by score (plus up to 15 boy boarders) are admitted. This is the standard non-superselective grammar mechanism, not the classic superselective pattern of an absolute, independently fixed high score threshold set without reference to place numbers. Neither the school's own site, its admissions policy, Ofsted, nor DfE materials use the term 'superselective' for this school.
Catchment & priority criteria
No mapped geographic catchment area. The third oversubscription tier instead gives priority to children on roll at one of around 34 named partner primary schools spanning most of the Telford and Wrekin borough — a named-school list rather than a geographic boundary, a different mechanism from neighbouring Newport Girls' High School's mapped catchment.
- Looked-after and previously looked-after children
- Children recorded as receiving Pupil Premium or Service Premium funding, provided they score no lower than 5% below the general qualifying score
- Children on roll at one of around 34 designated partner primary schools across Telford and Wrekin
- Rank order by entrance-test score among remaining qualifying candidates, tie-break by straight-line distance
- Separate boarding-place criteria apply for the roughly 15 boy boarding places each year, prioritising looked-after children, Armed Forces families, and children with a defined 'boarding need,' then rank order by test score
Results
| Year | Attainment 8 | GCSE 5+ Eng & Maths | Progress 8 | A*–A | A*–B |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 71.8 (secondary source, DfE-attributed, not independently cross-checked against DfE directly) | 94.6% (secondary source, DfE-attributed) | Not calculated for this cohort — consistent with the nationwide COVID-era KS2 gap. A separate, undated Progress 8 figure of -0.02 appears on Wikipedia that doesn't match any dated year in other sources and is treated as likely stale rather than current. | 47% (school's own figure; a secondary DfE-attributed source gives 45.8% for the same cohort) | 75% (school's own figure; a secondary source gives 74.6%) |
| GCSE cohort of 148 (school's own release): 93% grades 9-5, 81% grades 9-6, 59% grades 9-7, 39% grades 9-8. A-level cohort reported as 164 (school) or 170 (secondary source), unreconciled. | |||||
| 2026 | verify with school — not yet published by DfE | verify with school — the school's own release quotes an 'average point score of 74' without calling it Attainment 8 | Not calculated for this cohort — consistent with the nationwide COVID-era gap | 34% | 66% |
| GCSE cohort of 148 (school's own release, published August 2026): 98% grades 9-4, 87% grades 9-6, 66% grades 9-7, 43% grades 9-8. A-level cohort of 176, 98% overall pass rate. The A*-A/A*-B figures below represent a marked drop from 2025 (45.8%/74.6%) and 2024 (47%/75%) — no sourcing error found, but worth a direct check with the school given the size of the swing. | |||||
Ofsted
- Rating
- Good overall (this was a full graded inspection under the pre-September 2024 framework). Sub-judgements: behaviour and attitudes Outstanding; quality of education, personal development, leadership and management, and sixth-form provision all Good. The school's separate boarding provision (a distinct Ofsted regulatory track) was most recently inspected in February 2026 and rated Good throughout, meeting the National Minimum Standards for Boarding Schools.
- Date
- 10 May 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/137446
- 2. School's own Determined Admissions Policy 2027-2028 — https://www.telford.gov.uk/media/lckamt1z/determined-admissions-arrangements-2027-28-haberdashers-adams.pdf
- 3. School's own History page — https://www.adamsgs.uk/about-us/our-history
- 4. School's own GCSE Results 2026 announcement — https://www.adamsgs.uk/news/gcse-results-2026/
- 5. School's own A-level Results 2026 announcement — https://www.adamsgs.uk/news/a-level-results-2026/
- 6. Ofsted education inspection report, 10 May 2022 — https://files.ofsted.gov.uk/v1/file/50186951
- 7. Ofsted boarding inspection report, 24-26 February 2026 — https://files.ofsted.gov.uk/v1/file/50301321
Last updated 2026-09-01. Spotted something wrong? Tell us.