Walsall, West Midlands · Walsall
Queen Mary's Grammar School
No catchment at all, but the nominal minimum qualifying score (180 for 2026 entry) sat far below the actual lowest score that secured a place (225).
Founded in 1554, Queen Mary's Grammar shares its regional GL Assessment test, sixth-form-external-entry tradition, and — confirmed directly on GIAS — its academy trust (The Mercian Trust) with sister school Queen Mary's High, though the two run fully independent admissions policies with separate published admission numbers and qualifying scores set by their own governors each November. The school's own policy states plainly it has no catchment area at all: any family in or beyond Walsall may apply. Its minimum qualifying score is a low eligibility floor rather than a realistic offer threshold — 180 for 2026 entry against a lowest score actually offered of 225 the same year — leaving genuine ambiguity about how selective the school really is, since Walsall isn't a wholly-selective authority with an established benchmark the way Kent or Buckinghamshire are.
Key facts
- Gender
- boys
- Age range
- 11-18
- Region
- West Midlands
- Local authority
- Walsall
- Established
- 1554
- DfE URN
- 136773
- Website
- https://qmgs.walsall.sch.uk
Admissions
- Admissions authority
- The school sets its own test and criteria
- Entrance test board
- GL Assessment, shared across a West Midlands-wide consortium of grammar schools holding the test within a common window using identical papers — confirmed on the school's own site, though not named by brand in its formal legal admissions document, which refers only to 'the Test.'
- Test format
- Two test papers covering three skill areas: verbal ability (including reading comprehension), non-verbal ability, and numerical ability, standardised for candidate age.
- Qualifying / pass mark
- Set independently each year by the school's governors, confirmed in November for the following September's cohort. For September 2026 entry: minimum qualifying score 180, but the lowest score actually offered was 225. For September 2025 entry: minimum qualifying score 200, lowest score offered 224. The minimum qualifying score functions as a low eligibility floor rather than the real competitive cutoff.
- Superselective?
- Not establishedverify with school
See full reasoning in superselectiveReasoning — Walsall has no established local reference framework for the term, unlike wholly-selective counties.
Catchment & priority criteria
None. The school's own policy states explicitly that it has no defined catchment area and that families living within or beyond Walsall may all apply. The only geography-adjacent rule sits inside the capped Pupil Premium tier: within that group only, children attending a Walsall state-funded primary school rank ahead of those who don't — this doesn't affect the general applicant pool.
- Looked-after and previously looked-after children (including those adopted from state care) meeting the minimum qualifying score, ranked by standardised score
- Children in receipt of Pupil Premium at the time of the test meeting the qualifying score, capped at 30% of the intake (currently 54 of 180 places); within this group, those attending a Walsall state-funded primary school rank first
- All other children meeting the minimum qualifying score, ranked by standardised score, until the published admission number of 180 is reached
- Tie-break: sum of the candidate's rank positions across the three test skill areas, then independently verified random allocation
Results
| Year | Attainment 8 | GCSE 5+ Eng & Maths | Progress 8 | A*–A | A*–B |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 74.2 | 97.2% | Not calculated — confirmed directly by DfE as unavailable for this cohort due to the nationwide COVID-era KS2 data gap | 43% | 70% |
| EBacc entry 88.8%, EBacc average point score 7.23. A-level (secondary source, not independently confirmed against DfE): average grade B (40.91 points per entry), A*-A 43%, A*-B 70%. | |||||
| 2026 | 72.5 (school's own self-published results, not yet validated by DfE) | 97% (school's own self-published results) | Not published for this cohort, consistent with the continuing nationwide COVID-era gap. The school's own results page shows a 'value-added progress measure of -0.24,' but the page itself captions this as being 'in 2025' — it is last year's figure carried forward, not a genuine 2026 score, and shouldn't be read as one. | 43% | 76% |
| A-level (school's own self-published results): average grade B+, pass rate 99%, retention 99.2%, A*-A 43%, A*-B 76%. The EBacc average point score shown (7.23) is identical to the DfE-confirmed 2025 figure to two decimal places, which may indicate this specific figure wasn't freshly recalculated for 2026. | |||||
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 newer inspection had occurred as of this research.
- Date
- 28-29 March 2023
- 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/136773
- 2. School's own Admission Arrangements 2027-28 — https://qmgs.walsall.sch.uk/docs/admissions/Year_7/2026_feb_QMGS_Admission_Arrangements_27_28.pdf
- 3. School's own September 2027 Entry page (historical qualifying scores) — https://qmgs.walsall.sch.uk/September-2027-Entry/
- 4. School's own Exam Results page — https://qmgs.walsall.sch.uk/exam-results/
- 5. School's own History page — https://qmgs.walsall.sch.uk/history-of-the-school/
- 6. Ofsted report, inspected 28-29 March 2023 — https://files.ofsted.gov.uk/v1/file/50217642
- 7. Walsall Council — secondary school admissions — https://go.walsall.gov.uk/schools-and-learning/schools-in-walsall/school-admissions/apply-for-a-secondary-school-place
Last updated 2026-09-01. Spotted something wrong? Tell us.