Sutton, Greater London · Sutton
Nonsuch High School for Girls
Only 85 of its 210 places are open by score alone regardless of address — the remaining 125 are gated by a 5.25km catchment circle, meaning a girl outside it competes for a meaningfully smaller pool than the total roll suggests.
Founded in 1938, Nonsuch shares Sutton's first-stage 'Selective Eligibility Test' with five other schools, but its second-stage exam is shared only with Wallington High School for Girls — both under the same academy trust, Girls' Learning Trust — while the three boys' schools in the wider consortium run a separate second-stage arrangement among themselves. Both stages are written in-house by the participating schools, with no external test board and no fixed, published pass mark. Structurally, this school sits between a standard selective school and a true superselective: 60% of its places are gated by a 5.25km catchment circle, and only the remaining 40% are open to score-rank competition regardless of address.
Key facts
- Gender
- girls
- Age range
- 11-18
- Region
- London
- Local authority
- Sutton
- Established
- 1938
- DfE URN
- 136795
- Website
- https://www.nonsuchschool.org
Admissions
- Admissions authority
- The school sets its own test and criteria
- Entrance test board
- No external test board — Stage 1 is set jointly by the participating Sutton schools, and Stage 2 (shared only with Wallington High School for Girls) is set and administered by this school and Wallington jointly via their shared academy trust.partly verified
That the schools write their own papers with no external agency is sourced from a fellow participating school's FAQ and a tutoring site, not from this school's own document directly.
- Test format
- Two-stage Entrance Test. Stage 1, the Selective Eligibility Test (SET): two multiple-choice papers (Maths, English), around 40-50 minutes each, based on the Key Stage 2 curriculum, no verbal or non-verbal reasoning — shared across six Sutton schools. Only candidates meeting the SET pass mark proceed to Stage 2, the Nonsuch and Wallington Second Stage Entrance Examination (NWSSEE): two non-multiple-choice papers, shared only between Nonsuch and Wallington High School for Girls, with candidates required to pass both papers. The final ranked score combines NWSSEE marks with half the aggregate SET mark, equally weighted.
- Qualifying / pass mark
- No fixed pass mark is published for any cycle. Sutton Grammar School's own admissions FAQ (a fellow participating school) states explicitly that the Stage 1 pass mark 'is not fixed and varies not only from year to year but also from school to school.'verify with school
No fixed or published pass mark exists for any cycle — the school's own policy gives only an illustrative worked example with placeholder numbers, not real marks.
- Superselective?
- No
Nuanced rather than a clean fit either way. Of the 210-place admission number, only 85 places (around 40%) are allocated purely by highest test score with no geographic restriction, while 125 places (around 60%) — the majority — are restricted to a 5.25km catchment circle. All candidates must still pass a demanding two-stage test to be eligible at all, and even within the catchment places go by rank order of score rather than simple pass/fail, so there's a genuine selective character to the catchment-gated places too. But because catchment materially gates the majority of seats, this doesn't meet the standard definition of a true superselective.
Catchment & priority criteria
Partial, not universal: a 5.25km straight-line radius from the school, verified via Sutton Council's GIS system, but this only governs 125 of the 210 places. The other 85 places, plus up to 35 Pupil Premium places, are allocated irrespective of home address.
- Children of selective ability with an EHC Plan naming the school, admitted before other places are allocated
- Looked-after and previously looked-after children of selective ability, with no numeric cap
- 85 places by highest entrance test score, irrespective of home address
- Up to 35 places for children eligible for Free School Meals or Pupil Premium who reach the pass mark, ranked by score, irrespective of address
- Up to 125 places linked to the 5.25km catchment circle, ranked by highest score within that catchment
- Any places still unfilled after the above are offered by highest score regardless of catchment
- Tie-break: proximity to school, then independently witnessed random allocation
Results
| Year | Attainment 8 | GCSE 5+ Eng & Maths | Progress 8 | A*–A | A*–B |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 81.3 (Sutton LA average not stated for this measure; England average 45.9) | 99.0% | +1.02 ('Well above average', confidence interval +0.83 to +1.22, Sutton LA average +0.45) — this cohort predates the COVID-era gap | — | — |
| A-level (229 students): average grade B+ (43 points per entry, Sutton LA average B/40.65, England average C+/34.38), retention 99.1%. DfE's page didn't show an A-level value-added score for this year. | |||||
| 2025 | 80.5 (England average 46.1, Sutton LA average 59.3) | 98.7% (England 45.4%, Sutton LA 67.9%) | Not calculated — confirmed directly by DfE as the nationwide COVID-era gap for this cohort | verify with school | verify with school |
| A-level (214 students): average grade A- (47.8 points per entry, Sutton LA average B+/42.26, England average B-/36.1), value-added progress score +0.17 ('Above average', confidence interval +0.09 to +0.26, England average -0.03), 58.9% achieved AAB+ with 2 facilitating subjects (England 17.5%), retention 96.8%. DfE's current service doesn't publish an A*-A/A*-B percentage breakdown for this school; the school's own August 2026 results-day post (for the newer, not-yet-DfE-published cohort) reported around 23% A*, 56% A*-A, 81% A*-B. | |||||
Ofsted
- Rating
- Under Ofsted's new report-card framework: 'Exceptional' in Attendance and Behaviour; 'Strong standard' in Achievement, Curriculum and Teaching, Inclusion, Leadership and Governance, Personal Development and Wellbeing, and Post-16 Provision. Safeguarding met. The previous inspection (2021) rated the school Outstanding under the old framework — not directly comparable to the new scale, so this shouldn't be read as a decline.
- Date
- 10 February 2026
- 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/136795
- 2. School's own Admissions Policy, 2026 Admission Year — https://www.nonsuchschool.org/_site/data/files/about_us/policies/65F663938879174BA10D419FFB230236.pdf
- 3. Ofsted report card, inspected 10 February 2026 — https://files.ofsted.gov.uk/v1/file/50301475
- 4. Sutton Council — secondary school tests, assessments and supplementary forms — https://www.sutton.gov.uk/schools-and-learning/school-admissions/information-applying-secondary-school-2027/secondary-school-tests-assessments-and-supplementary-forms
- 5. School's own History page — https://www.nonsuchschool.org/page/?title=Our+History&pid=12
- 6. DfE Compare School Performance — Progress 8, 2023 and 2024 — https://www.compare-school-performance.service.gov.uk/school/136795/nonsuch-high-school-for-girls/secondary/progress-measures-for-2023-and-2024
- 7. DfE Compare School Performance — A-level qualifications — https://www.compare-school-performance.service.gov.uk/school/136795/nonsuch-high-school-for-girls/16-to-18/advanced-level-qualifications
Last updated 2026-09-01. Spotted something wrong? Tell us.