Grammar School Index

Orpington, Greater London · Bromley

St Olave's and St Saviour's Grammar School

No catchment, no fixed pass mark, and around 1,600 applicants for 124 places — the school's own FAQ confirms admission is purely relative rank order each year, with no analogue to a fixed threshold at all.

Founded in 1571, St Olave's runs its own entirely bespoke two-stage test, set and marked in-house — not the Kent Test, despite the BR6 postcode's legacy 'Kent' postal label from before Orpington moved into Greater London in 1963, and not shared with neighbouring Newstead Wood School, which uses a completely different mechanism (a fixed GL Assessment threshold rather than pure rank order). Around 1,600 boys sit the first-stage test each year; the top 450 proceed to a second stage, and the top 124 by combined score receive offers — the effective bar moves every year with cohort strength, since there's no fixed qualifying score to point to. Despite being a Church of England voluntary-aided school, faith plays no role anywhere in its Year 7 admissions criteria.

Key facts

Gender
boys
Age range
11-18
Region
London
Local authority
Bromley
Established
1571
DfE URN
101676
Website
https://www.saintolaves.net

Admissions

Admissions authority
The school sets its own test and criteria
Entrance test board
None — the Selective Eligibility Test is the school's own bespoke test, set, administered and marked entirely in-house, not GL Assessment, CEM, or any external provider, and not connected to Kent County Council's admissions system.
Test format
Two stages, both set by the school itself. Stage 1: a one-hour multiple-choice test covering logic (verbal and non-verbal reasoning), mathematics and English, sat in September by around 1,600 applicants. The top 450 by rank order proceed to Stage 2: separate English (including creative writing) and mathematics papers. Stage 2 scores are standardised and combined with the Stage 1 mark into one final rank order.
Qualifying / pass mark
No fixed or published qualifying score exists for any cycle — the school's own admissions FAQ confirms selection is 'purely on the basis of high academic performance' by rank, not a threshold. Around 1,600 sit Stage 1, the top 450 proceed to Stage 2, and the top 124 (after EHCP-named admissions, with up to 10 reserved for Pupil Premium boys by separate rank order) receive offers each year — the effective bar moves with cohort strength since there's no fixed score to reference.
Superselective?
Yes

The school's own policy never uses the term, but the mechanism matches the standard definition closely: admission is pure rank order with no fixed pass mark; around 1,600 applicants compete for 124 places (roughly 13:1, with only the top 450 even reaching Stage 2); and there is explicitly no catchment area at all, so the school draws from a very wide geography rather than serving a defined local community. Resulting attainment is an extreme outlier even among grammar schools, with Attainment 8 nearly double the England state-school average.

Catchment & priority criteria

None. The school's own admissions FAQ states directly that it has no catchment area, and living nearby confers no admissions advantage.

  1. Boys with an EHC Plan naming the school who meet the admission standard, admitted before the ranked list
  2. Looked-after and previously looked-after children who reached the initial top 450 and completed testing, admitted by rank order
  3. Up to 10 places for boys receiving Pupil Premium, by rank order among Pupil Premium applicants
  4. All remaining places allocated strictly by rank order on the combined standardised score
  5. Fair Access Protocol children take precedence over the waiting list as a separate, cross-cutting mechanism

Results

YearAttainment 8GCSE 5+ Eng & MathsProgress 8A*–AA*–B
202485.8 (Bromley LA average 50.4, England average 45.9)100.0%+1.27 ('Well above average', confidence interval +1.00 to +1.54) — this cohort predates the COVID-era gap——
A-level: average point score 49.38 (grade A), value-added +0.09. A*-A 74%, A*-B 93.4% (school's own results page, not a DfE headline figure).
202583.6 (Bromley LA average 50.4, England average 46.1) — a genuine year-on-year decrease from 2024, not an error100.0%Not calculated — confirmed directly by DfE as the nationwide COVID-era gap for this cohort78%95.1%
A-level: average point score 50.26 (grade A), value-added +0.1. A*-A 78%, A*-B 95.1% (school's own results page, not a DfE headline figure, which reports average grade/points instead).

Ofsted

Rating
All five individually graded areas rated Outstanding — quality of education, behaviour and attitudes, personal development, leadership and management, and sixth-form provision — but no single overall headline grade was issued. This was an interim-arrangement inspection between Ofsted's September 2024 policy change and the full report-card rollout: category grades still used the classic wording, but without an overall word. The previous inspection (2014) was also fully graded Outstanding.
Date
5-6 November 2024
Report
Read the full report

Sources

  1. 1. DfE Get Information About Schools — URN, status, gender, LA — https://get-information-schools.service.gov.uk/Establishments/Establishment/Details/101676
  2. 2. School's own Admissions Policy 2027/28 — https://stolaves.reactfiles.co.uk/uploads/key_information/Admissions-Policy-2027-2028-updated-1.pdf
  3. 3. School's own Year 7 Admissions FAQ — https://www.saintolaves.net/113/faq-1
  4. 4. School's own Entrance Test Information — https://www.saintolaves.net/112/entrance-test-information
  5. 5. School's own School Performance page — https://www.saintolaves.net/23/school-performance
  6. 6. Ofsted report, inspected 5-6 November 2024 — https://files.ofsted.gov.uk/v1/file/50263327
  7. 7. DfE Compare School Performance — Progress 8, 2023 and 2024 — https://www.compare-school-performance.service.gov.uk/school/101676/st-olave-s-and-st-saviour-s-grammar-school/secondary/progress-measures-for-2023-and-2024

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