Slough, Berkshire · Slough
Herschel Grammar School
A 4-mile catchment is prioritised above raw score for most of the intake — the opposite ordering from a superselective school, where score alone would decide.
Founded in 1952 (under an earlier name, later becoming Herschel Grammar School in the 1980s), this is one of four schools sharing the Slough Consortium's single GL Assessment 11+ test — alongside Langley Grammar, St Bernard's Catholic Grammar, and Upton Court Grammar, all also researched in this project. Each school remains its own legal admissions authority making its own final offer, with Slough Borough Council coordinating only the shared application form and offer day. The consortium's own guide explicitly states that neighbouring Reading School and Kendrick School use entirely different testing procedures with no facility for sharing scores — useful confirmation that Berkshire has no single unified system. Within Herschel's own criteria, a 4-mile catchment is prioritised above raw test score for most places, the opposite of how a superselective school would allocate.
Key facts
- Gender
- co-ed
- Age range
- 11-18
- Region
- South East
- Local authority
- Slough
- Established
- 1952
- DfE URN
- 137726
- Website
- https://www.herschel.slough.sch.uk
Admissions
- Admissions authority
- The school sets its own test and criteria
- Entrance test board
- GL Assessment, for the current September 2027 entry cycle, confirmed directly in two Slough Consortium primary documents. Several secondary tutoring sites report the consortium plans to switch to Quest Assessments starting with the test sat in September 2027 (affecting September 2028 entry) — not confirmed in the current consortium guide or this school's own current policy.partly verified
GL Assessment is confirmed as current from two independent primary consortium documents. A reported future switch to Quest Assessments comes only from secondary tutoring sites and wasn't found in the current consortium guide.
- Test format
- Two papers of around 60-65 minutes each, sat on one day in September at one of the four consortium schools: Paper 1 covers verbal reasoning and English, Paper 2 covers non-verbal reasoning and mathematics. Standardised scores are age-adjusted (100 = middle of the range). A child sits one test to be considered by any or all four Slough consortium grammar schools.
- Qualifying / pass mark
- A standardised score of 111 or above makes a candidate eligible for consideration for September 2027 entry — this has been stable across at least the 2024, 2026 and 2027 entry cycles. Scoring 111 makes a candidate eligible; it doesn't guarantee a place.
- Superselective?
- No
The school's own admissions arrangements never use the term. More importantly, the allocation mechanism itself isn't a pure ability-ranking model: after looked-after children, the next priority is a 4-mile catchment area, filled in order of proximity among all applicants who merely cleared the 111 threshold — not in order of score. A further block goes to Pupil Premium-eligible children within 10 miles, then staff children. Only the places remaining after those categories are filled go by rank order of exam score. Because catchment and proximity, not raw ranking, are the dominant sorting mechanism for most of the 150-place intake, this doesn't fit the standard definition of superselective.
Catchment & priority criteria
Not an eligibility restriction, but a defined 4-mile-radius oversubscription priority: any Slough Consortium test-taker scoring 111 or above may apply regardless of address, but applicants living within 4 miles (measured straight-line from home to the school's main entrance) are prioritised above out-of-catchment applicants, ranked by proximity within that band.
- Children with an EHC Plan naming the school, admitted automatically
- Looked-after and previously looked-after children
- Children living within the 4-mile catchment area, ranked by proximity
- Up to 10 further places for Pupil Premium-eligible children living within 10 miles
- Children of permanent staff employed continuously for 2+ years
- Remaining places up to the 150-place admission number, by rank order of test score, tie-break by proximity then independent random allocation
Results
| Year | Attainment 8 | GCSE 5+ Eng & Maths | Progress 8 | A*–A | A*–B |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 75.4 | 99.4% | +0.76 ('Well above average', confidence interval +0.53 to +0.99) — this cohort predates the COVID-era gap. The prior cohort (2022/23) scored +0.74, also well above average. Several secondary sources were found mis-attaching this figure to 2025 — corrected here to its confirmed year. | — | — |
| A-level: average grade B (38.97 points per entry, England state-funded average C+/34.38, Slough LA average C+/33.03). | |||||
| 2025 | 75.8 | 98.7% | Not calculated — confirmed directly on DfE's own page as the nationwide COVID-era gap for this cohort | verify with school | verify with school |
| A-level: average grade B+ (41.68 points per entry, England state-funded average B-/35.00, Slough LA average C+/34.49). DfE's current service doesn't publish an A*-A/A*-B percentage breakdown for this school, and explicitly states it cannot yet publish an A-level value-added trend, citing fewer than three years of post-COVID progress data. The school's own site separately reports 73% of GCSE entries at grade 7+ and 50% at grade 8-9 for this year, a different metric from DfE's standard measures. | |||||
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.
- Date
- 21-22 May 2024
- 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/137726
- 2. School's own Determined Admission Arrangements, September 2027 entry — https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/sh22-herschel-slough-sch-uk/media/downloads/herschelgrammarschooldeterminedadmissionarrangementsforentryinseptember2027.pdf
- 3. Slough Consortium of Grammar Schools — Guide to the 11+ test, 2026 entry — https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/sh22-herschel-slough-sch-uk/media/downloads/sloughconsortiumofgrammarschoolsguidetothe11test2026entry.pdf
- 4. School's own Year 7 Admissions 2027 page — https://www.herschel.slough.sch.uk/year-7-admissions-2027/
- 5. Ofsted report, inspected 21-22 May 2024 — https://files.ofsted.gov.uk/v1/file/50250710
- 6. School's own History page — https://www.herschel.slough.sch.uk/history/
- 7. DfE Compare School Performance — Progress 8, 2023 and 2024 — https://www.compare-school-performance.service.gov.uk/school/137726/herschel-grammar-school/secondary/progress-measures-for-2023-and-2024
Last updated 2026-09-01. Spotted something wrong? Tell us.