Salisbury, Wiltshire · Wiltshire

South Wilts Grammar School

Wiltshire's selective system isn't countywide at all — it's just two single-sex schools in Salisbury, with the rest of the county fully comprehensive.

Opened in 1927 with several founding staff transferred from neighbouring Bishop Wordsworth's School, South Wilts is one of only two grammar schools in the whole of Wiltshire — both in Salisbury, both entirely independent of each other today despite the shared origin story. There's no joint test or shared score: each sets its own GL Assessment papers and its own cutoff, with Wiltshire Council scheduling both schools' tests for the same Saturday purely as a scheduling convenience, not a joint admissions arrangement. Its own admissions policy never publishes a fixed qualifying score, resetting the cutoff each cohort, and a comparison across its last three annual policies shows real drift worth tracking: the external sixth-form intake dropped from 90 to 70 places, and a new Pupil Premium provision (10 reserved places at a pass mark set 3% below standard) was added.

Key facts

Gender: girls
Age range: 11-18
Region: South West
Local authority: Wiltshire
Established: 1927
DfE URN: 136391
Website: https://www.swgs.wilts.sch.uk

Admissions

Admissions authority: The school sets its own test and criteria
Entrance test board: GL Assessment.
Test format: Three multiple-choice papers — Verbal Reasoning, Mathematics, and English — each standardised for the child's age and equally weighted, then summed to a single score. Sat on a single Saturday, coordinated by Wiltshire Council to fall on the same date as Bishop Wordsworth's School's own separate test.
Qualifying / pass mark: Not published as a fixed number in any of the three most recent policy versions checked (2025, 2026-27, 2027-28) — candidates must 'achieve the cut off score' in the GL Assessment tests, reset each cycle. Pupil Premium-eligible applicants have a pass mark set 3% below the standard threshold, with 10 places reserved for them.verify with school
No fixed numeric cutoff is published in any of the three policy versions checked directly.
Superselective?: No

Catchment & priority criteria

A defined catchment area exists and is used as an oversubscription criterion, but is published only as a map image rather than a text description in every policy version reviewed. A secondary source's claim that the catchment is bounded by the Wiltshire/Hampshire county line to the east and south wasn't independently verified against the actual map.

Students with an EHC Plan naming the school who meet the entry criteria
Looked-after and previously looked-after children who meet the required academic standard
Pupil Premium-eligible children living within catchment, at a reduced pass mark 3% below standard, 10 places reserved
Service Premium children who meet the required academic standard
Children who meet the required academic standard and live within the catchment area
Pupil Premium-eligible children who meet the required standard but live outside catchment
Children of staff employed 2+ years who meet the required standard
Siblings of current pupils living outside catchment, ranked by distance
All other children meeting the required standard, ranked by straight-line distance to school

Results

Year	Attainment 8	GCSE 5+ Eng & Maths	Progress 8	A*–A	A*–B
2024	75 (England average 46.1, Wiltshire LA average 45.9)	98.1% (England 45.9%, Wiltshire LA 45.2%)	+0.79 ('Well above average', confidence interval +0.55 to +1.03) — this is the most recent year DfE has calculated Progress 8 for this school. A secondary aggregator's claimed figure of +1.32 for this year couldn't be traced to any DfE source and is not used here.	—	—
A-level (174 students): average grade B (39.24 points per entry, England average C+/34.38, Wiltshire LA average B-/35.26).
2025	77 (England average 46.1, Wiltshire LA average 46.2)	98.7% (England 45.4%, Wiltshire LA 44.6%)	Not calculated — confirmed directly by DfE as the nationwide COVID-era gap for this cohort	37%	66%
A-level (161 students): average grade B (39.47 points per entry, England average B-/35.0, Wiltshire LA average B-/35.35). DfE's current service doesn't publish an A-A/A-B percentage breakdown for this school. A secondary source separately reports around 37% A-A and 66% A-B for this cohort, not independently confirmed against DfE.

Ofsted

Rating: Good — this remains the school's last formally graded outcome, from a full graded inspection in October 2019. A more recent ungraded visit in January 2025 issued no grades at all, consistent with Ofsted's post-September 2024 pause on graded overall-effectiveness judgements, but its report noted the school's work may have improved significantly across all areas since the previous inspection, with the next inspection expected to be a full graded one.
Date: 22-23 October 2019
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/136391
2. School's own Admissions Policy 2027 — https://www.swgs.wilts.sch.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Admissions-Policy-2027.pdf
3. School's own School History and Information page — https://www.swgs.wilts.sch.uk/school-history-information/
4. Ofsted report, full graded inspection October 2019 — https://files.ofsted.gov.uk/v1/file/50125928
5. Ofsted report, ungraded visit 21-22 January 2025 — https://files.ofsted.gov.uk/v1/file/50270444
6. Wiltshire Council — Selection test for Grammar Schools — https://www.wiltshire.gov.uk/article/8972/Selection-test-for-Grammar-Schools
7. DfE Compare School Performance — Progress 8, 2023 and 2024 — https://www.compare-school-performance.service.gov.uk/school/136391/south-wilts-grammar-school/secondary/progress-measures-for-2023-and-2024

Last updated 2026-09-01. Spotted something wrong? Tell us.