Prenton, Merseyside · Wirral
St Anselm's College
A high-scoring non-Catholic boy from outside the local area can rank behind a lower-scoring baptised Catholic boy from within it — passing the test is only a gate, not a ranking.
Founded in 1933, St Anselm's is one of two Catholic grammar schools on the Wirral that sit entirely outside the four-school 'Wirral Grammar Schools Consortium' — confirmed independently here and in Upton Hall's own research, both schools run their own separate entrance exams rather than the consortium's Quest Assessments test. Uniquely among the Wirral schools researched in this project, St Anselm's actually publishes its pass mark (55% in Maths, 55% in English, 118 in Verbal Reasoning), but clearing it only earns eligibility, not a place: allocation is then driven primarily by baptismal category, with test score used only to break ties within a single oversubscribed category. Ofsted's most recent visit issued no grades at all — a genuine ungraded maintenance visit confirming, but not renewing, the school's 2019 'Good' rating.
Key facts
- Gender
- boys
- Age range
- 11-18
- Region
- North West
- Local authority
- Wirral
- Established
- 1933
- DfE URN
- 136780
- Website
- https://www.st-anselms.com
Admissions
- Admissions authority
- The school sets its own test and criteria
- Entrance test board
- Not named in the school's own policy documents — the entrance exam is set and administered independently by St Anselm's itself, unlike the four-school Wirral consortium, which uses Quest Assessments.
- Test format
- Three assessments sat on the same occasion: Mathematics, English, and Verbal Reasoning.
- Qualifying / pass mark
- A published 'required standard' for the 2026-2027 cycle (test sat autumn 2026, for September 2027 entry): 55% in Mathematics, 55% in English, and 118 in Verbal Reasoning — unusually specific compared with most other schools in this project, which don't disclose a fixed pass mark.
- Superselective?
- No
The school sets a pass/fail 'required standard' threshold rather than a fixed top-percentile cutoff, and places aren't allocated purely by ranking all qualifiers by score: if more boys clear the threshold than there are places, allocation runs through five oversubscription categories that are primarily faith and baptism-based. Academic rank order among those who passed is used only as a tiebreaker within a single category, with distance as the final tiebreak — a high-scoring non-Catholic boy from outside the priority area could rank behind a lower-scoring, still-passing Catholic boy from within it.
Catchment & priority criteria
No absolute catchment restricting eligibility to sit the test or apply. A 'relevant area' — Wirral, Cheshire West and Chester, and anywhere within 10 miles of the college — is used as a qualifier within two of the five priority categories (baptised Catholic and baptised Christian non-Catholic boys must live in this area to claim those specific ranks).
- Threshold gate applied before any category: must reach the required standard in the entrance assessment. Boys with an EHC Plan naming the school who reach it are automatically offered a place.
- Baptised Catholic looked-after and previously looked-after boys
- Baptised Catholic boys living in the relevant area
- All other looked-after and previously looked-after boys
- Baptised Christian, non-Catholic boys, living in the relevant area
- Non-baptised boys whose parents wish them to have a Catholic education
- Within any oversubscribed category: rank order of entrance-test performance, then distance from home to college. Targeted Free School Meals-eligible boys get priority within each category.
Results
| Year | Attainment 8 | GCSE 5+ Eng & Maths | Progress 8 | A*–A | A*–B |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 55.6 (England average 45.9, Wirral LA average 44.4) | 71.6% (England 45.9%, Wirral LA 42.0%) | The school's own site states +0.08, labelled 'estimated.' DfE's official validated figure is +0.03 ('Average', confidence interval -0.20 to +0.26) — both land in similar territory, but the school's page appears not to have been updated with the final DfE figure, which is treated as authoritative here. | — | — |
| A-level: average grade B- (retention 60% from start of Year 12). A*-B 51.3% (school's own site; no A*-A figure was published for this specific year). | |||||
| 2025 | 57.2 (England average 46.3, Wirral LA average 45.4) | 75.5% (England 45.4%, Wirral LA 44.0%) | Not calculated — no KS2 baseline data for this cohort nationally | 30.6% | 56.1% |
| A-level (94 completers): average grade B- (37.72 points per entry, Wirral LA average B-/35.37, England average B-/36.1), value-added progress score +0.32 ('Above average', confidence interval +0.19 to +0.45, entirely above zero), retention 95.4% (England 93.1%). A*-A 30.6%, A*-B 56.1% (school's own published figures, not independently cross-checked against an equivalent DfE percentage table). | |||||
Ofsted
- Rating
- Good — carried forward from the last full graded inspection in July 2019. The most recent visit (March 2025) was an ungraded Section 8 inspection that issued no grades of any kind, only a narrative conclusion that the school had taken effective action to maintain previous standards. This is a genuine ungraded maintenance visit, not a fresh assessment.
- Date
- 18-19 March 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/136780
- 2. School's own Admissions Policy 2027-28 — https://st-anselms.com/storage/2026/02/Admissions-Policy-2027-28-.pdf
- 3. School's own Entrance Examination Policy 2026-2027 — https://st-anselms.com/storage/2026/03/entrance-examination-policy-2026-2027.pdf
- 4. Ofsted report, ungraded visit 18-19 March 2025 — https://files.ofsted.gov.uk/v1/file/50276934
- 5. Wirral Council — secondary education information for parents (confirms St Anselm's runs its own separate test) — https://www.wirral.gov.uk/schools-and-learning/school-admissions/secondary-education-information-parents
- 6. School's own College Performance page — https://st-anselms.com/academic/college-performance/
- 7. DfE Compare School Performance — Progress 8, 2023 and 2024 — https://www.compare-school-performance.service.gov.uk/school/136780/st-anselm-s-college
Last updated 2026-09-01. Spotted something wrong? Tell us.