Ashford, Kent · Kent
Highworth Grammar School
A secondary aggregator attaches its 2024 Progress 8 score to the current year — DfE's own data confirms no Progress 8 exists for 2025 at all.
Highworth's own admissions policy confirms no score requirement above Kent's standard threshold — its oversubscription criteria rank purely by category and distance, never by test score. Worth a specific correction: a tutoring aggregator currently quotes a Progress 8 of +0.65 for this school's 2025 results, but DfE's own year-by-year data confirms that figure genuinely belongs to 2024 — Progress 8 couldn't be calculated at all for the 2025 cohort, part of the nationwide COVID-era gap. No formal relationship exists with the nearby all-boys Norton Knatchbull School beyond an informal crossover: roughly 13% of Highworth's leavers move to Norton Knatchbull's sixth form.
Key facts
- Gender
- girls
- Age range
- 11-18
- Region
- South East
- Local authority
- Kent
- Established
- 1904
- DfE URN
- 136379
- Website
- https://www.highworth.kent.sch.uk
Admissions
- Admissions authority
- The school sets its own test and criteria
- Entrance test board
- The Kent Test (PESE), commissioned county-wide by Kent County Council. GL Assessment isn't named directly in KCC's own page text, but its branding appears on KCC's official Kent Test Familiarisation Booklet.partly verified
GL Assessment's branding appears on KCC's Familiarisation Booklet but isn't stated directly in KCC's own page text.
- Test format
- An English & Maths paper (about 1 hour) and a Reasoning paper (verbal and non-verbal, about 1 hour), both multiple-choice/computer-marked, plus an unmarked writing task that may be used for borderline or appeal decisions.
- Qualifying / pass mark
- Confirmed directly from Kent County Council's own page (2025 cycle, governing September 2026 entry): an aggregate of 332 or more, with no single component below 108 — resolving conflicting figures of 106 or 107 quoted by tutoring sites, which appear to reference earlier years (the minimum component genuinely moves year to year). The school applies no additional threshold of its own.
- Superselective?
- No
Confirmed directly from the school's own determined admissions policy: candidates need only reach the standard county-wide Kent Test threshold, with no elevated pass mark or score-banding. Oversubscription ranks purely by category and distance — care status, Pupil Premium, sibling, health need, then distance — with no criterion anywhere ranking applicants by test score.
Catchment & priority criteria
No defined catchment area. Distance is used only as the lowest-priority (5th) oversubscription criterion, effectively a tie-break among otherwise-equal qualifying applicants.
- Children with an EHCP naming the school
- Looked-after and previously looked-after children
- Children in receipt of Pupil Premium
- Current family association — a sibling attending at time of admission
- Health and special access reasons, evidenced under the Equality Act 2010
- Nearness of home to school, by straight-line distance; random selection for equal-priority ties
Results
| Year | Attainment 8 | GCSE 5+ Eng & Maths | Progress 8 | A*–A | A*–B |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 68.8 (Kent LA average 47, England state-funded average 45.9) | 89.4% (Kent LA average 47.9%) | +0.65 ('Well above average', confidence interval +0.46 to +0.85; 203 of 217 pupils included) | — | — |
| A-level: average grade B (38.51 points per entry). | |||||
| 2025 | 70.8 (Kent LA average 46.7, England state-funded average 46.1) | 95.3% (Kent LA average 47.0%, England 45.4%) | Not calculated — no KS2 baseline data for this cohort nationally. A secondary aggregator currently attaches a Progress 8 of +0.65 to this year, but DfE's own year-by-year data confirms that figure genuinely belongs to 2024, not 2025. | ~34% (partly-verified, secondary source) | ~68% (partly-verified, secondary source) |
| A-level: average grade B (39.97 points per entry, Kent LA average C+/34.87, England B-/36.1), AAB+ with 2 facilitating subjects 18.1% (Kent 17.3%, England 17.5%). A secondary source (Good Schools Guide, not DfE's current format) separately reports approximately 34% A*-A and 68% A*-B. | |||||
Ofsted
- Rating
- Outstanding, in every category: quality of education, behaviour and attitudes, personal development, leadership and management, and sixth-form provision. This inspection used the interim post-September-2024 arrangement — retaining traditional category language but issuing no overall headline grade. The previous inspection (2013) also rated the school Outstanding.
- Date
- 14-15 January 2025
- 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/136379
- 2. School's own determined Admissions Policy (applies from September 2025) — https://www.kent.gov.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0019/164710/Highworth-Grammar-School-admissions-criteria-2025-2026.pdf
- 3. Kent County Council — Kent Test qualifying threshold — https://www.kent.gov.uk/education-and-children/schools/school-places/kent-test/kent-test-results
- 4. Ofsted report, inspected 14-15 January 2025 — https://files.ofsted.gov.uk/v1/file/50268991
- 5. DfE Find School Performance Data — results over time — https://www.find-school-performance-data.service.gov.uk/school/136379/highworth-grammar-school/secondary/results-over-time
- 6. DfE Find School Performance Data — Progress 8, 2023/24 — https://www.find-school-performance-data.service.gov.uk/school/136379/highworth-grammar-school/secondary/progress-measures-for-2023-and-2024
- 7. Good Schools Guide — Highworth Grammar School review — https://www.goodschoolsguide.co.uk/uk-schools/review/highworth-grammar-school
Last updated 2026-08-31. Spotted something wrong? Tell us.