Rugby, Warwickshire · Warwickshire
Rugby High School
Its qualifying score isn't a published number at all — the Headteacher resets it every year after consulting a shared regional committee, based on that cohort's strength.
Traces its roots to Arnold High School (1903), renamed Rugby High in 1927 on moving to its current site. Like its Warwickshire neighbours, it sits inside the wider West Midlands Grammar Schools consortium — a 19-school shared GL Assessment entrance test spanning Warwickshire, Birmingham, Shropshire, Wolverhampton and Walsall, with Warwickshire Admissions (the council's admissions service) handling registration and logistics on the school's behalf. But administration isn't authority: the school's own policy confirms its Trustees, not the council, hold formal admissions decision-making power. Its published admission number jumped 25% in a single year, from 120 (2026 entry) to 150 (2027-28 entry) — worth flagging since older sources will still quote the smaller figure. A two-tier catchment (an 'Eastern Area' of named parishes, plus a wider 10-mile 'Priority Circle') means location genuinely affects admission order, which is why this isn't classed as superselective despite real competition for places.
Key facts
- Gender
- girls
- Age range
- 11-18
- Region
- West Midlands
- Local authority
- Warwickshire
- Established
- 1903
- DfE URN
- 136595
- Website
- https://www.rugbyhighschool.co.uk
Admissions
- Admissions authority
- The school sets its own test and criteria
- Entrance test board
- GL Assessment — confirmed via a Warwickshire County Council news article announcing the county's switch from CEM to GL Assessment for 2023 entry onward, though the school's current admissions policy document doesn't itself name the provider.partly verified
GL Assessment confirmed via a 2022 Warwickshire County Council news article about the exam-provider switch, corroborated by tutoring sites, but not named directly in the school's current admissions policy document.
- Test format
- Two papers of around 60 minutes each, sat in September of Year 6: English comprehension and verbal reasoning (50% weighting), non-verbal reasoning (25%), and mathematics (25%), age-standardised. Part of the West Midlands Grammar Schools consortium test (19 schools across Warwickshire, Birmingham, Shropshire, Wolverhampton and Walsall) — one sitting, shareable across participating schools on request.
- Qualifying / pass mark
- Not a fixed published number — reset every year. The school's own policy gives the Headteacher 'overriding discretion to set the Automatic Qualifying Score (AQS)' after consulting the Eastern Area Committee of Reference, based on that year's cohort strength and places available. The most recent dated figure found (212, for 2024 entry) comes from a secondary source and should not be treated as current.verify with school
The AQS is deliberately reset every year and has no fixed published figure. 212 (2024 entry) is the most recent figure found with reasonable date confidence, from a secondary aggregator rather than a Warwickshire-published score table — treat as indicative only, not current.
- Superselective?
- No
The admissions policy defines two catchment tiers — the 'Eastern Area of Warwickshire' (Rugby town plus around 25 named parishes) and a wider 10.004-mile 'Priority Circle' from Rugby Water Tower — and gives catchment residents meeting the AQS priority ahead of equally- or higher-scoring applicants from outside catchment. Because home address materially changes admission order independent of test score, this doesn't meet the standard definition of superselective.
Catchment & priority criteria
Two-tier: an 'Eastern Area of Warwickshire' covering Rugby town and around 25 named surrounding parishes, and a wider 'Priority Circle' defined as a 10.004-mile radius from Rugby Water Tower (which encompasses the Eastern Area).
- Looked-after and previously looked-after children meeting the qualifying score (or a lower threshold)
- Up to 30 places: Pupil Premium-eligible children living in catchment meeting the qualifying score or a near-qualifying threshold
- Up to 5 places: Service Premium-eligible children living in catchment meeting the qualifying score or a near-qualifying threshold
- Children of staff employed 2+ years, meeting the qualifying score
- Children living in the Eastern Area of Warwickshire meeting the qualifying score or above
- Children living in the wider Priority Circle meeting the qualifying score or above
- Any undersubscribed Pupil/Service Premium places extended to those groups outside catchment
- Children living outside both catchment areas meeting the qualifying score or above
- Tie-break: highest test score, then Pupil/Service Premium eligibility, then shortest distance, then random allocation
Results
| Year | Attainment 8 | GCSE 5+ Eng & Maths | Progress 8 | A*–A | A*–B |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | verify with school | 96.6% | This cohort's KS2 SATs were sat normally pre-COVID, so a genuine DfE Progress 8 figure should exist, but DfE's performance-data service was unreachable during this research and the figure could not be directly retrieved. | — | — |
| A-level: average grade B (39.7 points per entry). A*-A 37.7%, A*-B 64.9% (school's own website). Around 49% of GCSE grades were 9-8. | |||||
| 2025 | 74.7 (school's own reporting; a secondary aggregator states 74.9 for the same year, unreconciled) | 99.2% | Not calculated — confirmed directly on the school's own site as unavailable for this cohort due to the nationwide COVID-era KS2 data gap. A secondary aggregator shows a Progress 8 of +0.66 attributed to this same year, which appears to be a stale prior-year figure mis-attached to the current cohort — not used here. | 38.6% | 69.4% |
| Average GCSE grade 8 (50% of grades were 9-8, 72% were 9-7). A-level: average grade B, 40.2 points per entry. | |||||
Ofsted
- Rating
- Good overall (pre-September 2024 single-word-grade framework — no inspection has occurred since the framework changed). Sub-judgements: behaviour and attitudes Outstanding; quality of education, personal development, leadership and management, and sixth-form provision all Good.
- Date
- 15-16 November 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/136595
- 2. School's own Admissions Policy 2027-28 — https://www.rugbyhighschool.co.uk/attachments/download.asp?file=2077&type=pdf
- 3. School's own GCSE Results 2025 page — https://www.rugbyhighschool.co.uk/gcseresults
- 4. School's own A Level Results 2025 page — https://www.rugbyhighschool.co.uk/alevelresults
- 5. School's own History page — https://www.rugbyhighschool.co.uk/history
- 6. Ofsted report, inspected 15-16 November 2022 — https://files.ofsted.gov.uk/v1/file/50204502
- 7. Warwickshire County Council — 11+ exam provider announcement (GL Assessment) — https://www.warwickshire.gov.uk/news/article/2808/warwickshire-grammar-school-applicants-for-2023-entry-will-take-the-11-test-from-a-new-exam-provider-
Last updated 2026-09-01. Spotted something wrong? Tell us.