Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire · Warwickshire
Stratford Girls' Grammar School
A 16.885-mile priority circle absorbed 110 of 120 places in the most recent cycle, and the general open category made zero offers at all.
Opened in 1958, evolving from the grammar stream of the former Hugh Clopton School for Girls. Warwickshire's six grammar schools share one GL Assessment test with Birmingham's, coordinated by the county's own admissions service — but each remains its own admissions authority, setting its own qualifying score annually through a regional 'Committee of Reference' of selective-school heads, and can weight the shared test results differently from its neighbours. Admission here runs almost entirely on a single large catchment circle rather than open competition: in the most recent cycle, 110 of 120 places went to qualifying applicants inside the circle, while the small 'outside the circle' category received zero offers — though within that circle, the realised cutoff (232) still ran meaningfully above the nominal qualifying score (227), so it isn't a soft bar either.
Key facts
- Gender
- girls
- Age range
- 11-18
- Region
- West Midlands
- Local authority
- Warwickshire
- Established
- 1958
- DfE URN
- 137235
- Website
- https://www.sggs.org.uk
Admissions
- Admissions authority
- The school sets its own test and criteria
- Entrance test board
- GL Assessment, replacing a previous CEM-based test from 2023 entry onward per Warwickshire County Council's own announcement — not re-confirmed by name in the school's current policy text, so treated as continuing rather than freshly verified.partly verified
GL Assessment confirmed via Warwickshire County Council's 2022 announcement of the switch from CEM, but not re-named directly in the school's current admissions policy text.
- Test format
- Two papers of around 45 minutes each, sat in one September sitting, testing verbal reasoning, non-verbal reasoning and numeracy, multiple-choice and machine-marked, standardised for age. Part of the wider West Midlands Grammar Schools consortium test shared with Birmingham's grammar schools, though each school can apply its own scoring weighting to the shared papers.
- Qualifying / pass mark
- 227 (the 'Automatic Qualifying Score') for September 2026 entry, with a waiting-list minimum of 224. Not a fixed figure — the school's own policy states a regional Committee of Reference of South Warwickshire selective-school heads resets it every year based on cohort strength and places available.sources conflict
Warwickshire County Council's official 2026-entry leaflet gives 227/224. A secondary aggregator site gave 224/225 with no year stated — likely a different year rather than a genuine conflict, but not reconciled.
- Superselective?
- No
The school's own policy never uses the term. Structurally, admission is gated primarily by a single large geographic catchment circle rather than open nationwide rank order: in the most recent cycle, in-circle qualifiers filled 110 of 120 places while the out-of-circle category received zero offers — the opposite mechanism from a classic superselective school. That said, competition inside the circle is real: the realised cutoff actually needed for a place (232) ran 5 points above the nominal qualifying score (227), meaning clearing the qualifying score is necessary but not sufficient. Best described as highly selective within a large defined catchment, rather than superselective.
Catchment & priority criteria
A single 'priority circle' with a 16.885-mile radius centred on the Fountain, Rother Street, Stratford-upon-Avon, extending to the Warwickshire county boundary and covering most of south Warwickshire plus edges of Worcestershire, Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire. Shares its exact centre point and outer radius with neighbouring King Edward VI School's catchment — a geographic coincidence between two independently governed schools, not a shared policy. Doesn't apply to sixth-form entry, which is open regardless of address.
- Looked-after and previously looked-after children at or above the qualifying score, or up to 20 marks below it
- Pupil Premium-eligible residents of the priority circle at or above the qualifying score, or up to 20 marks below it, capped at 19 places
- Priority-circle residents at or above the qualifying score, ranked by score (the bulk of the intake)
- Applicants outside the priority circle at or above the qualifying score, ranked by score
- Applicants below the qualifying score but at or above the 'Required Minimum Academic Standard' (waiting-list eligibility only)
- Tie-break: straight-line distance to school, then independently witnessed random allocation
Results
| Year | Attainment 8 | GCSE 5+ Eng & Maths | Progress 8 | A*–A | A*–B |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 79.9 (secondary source only — not independently corroborated against DfE or the school's own site) | verify with school | +1.07 (secondary source only) — this cohort's KS2 baseline (May 2019 SATs) predates the COVID disruption, so a genuine DfE figure should exist, but it wasn't independently confirmed here | 62% | 87% |
| A-level (secondary source only): A*-A 62%, A*-B 87%. | |||||
| 2025 | 80.5 | 100% | Not calculated — confirmed as a nationwide gap (no KS2 baseline for this cohort), consistent with local press coverage of this school's 2025 results | 54% | 82% |
| 24% of GCSE entries were grade 9, 86% were grades 9-7. EBacc entry 68%, EBacc average point score 7.6. A-level: A*-A 54%, A*-B 82% (school's own results page; a separate secondary snippet gave a conflicting 44%/76% for the same year, possibly conflated with a different school or year — the school's own figure is treated as more reliable here). | |||||
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, before Ofsted's move away from single-word judgements — no newer inspection had occurred as of this research.
- Date
- 27-28 September 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/137235
- 2. School's own Admissions Policy 2026 — https://www.sggs.org.uk/attachments/download.asp?file=560&type=pdf
- 3. School's own Admissions page — https://www.sggs.org.uk/main-school/discover/admissions
- 4. School's own History page — https://www.sggs.org.uk/main-school/discover/history-of-sggs
- 5. School's own Achievements page — https://www.sggs.org.uk/page/?title=Our+Achievements&pid=170
- 6. Warwickshire County Council — Admission to Secondary School 2026 entry (11+ Test and Grammar School Offers) — https://api.warwickshire.gov.uk/documents/WCCC-1990003847-4160
- 7. Warwickshire County Council — switch to GL Assessment from 2023 entry — 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-
- 8. Ofsted report, inspected 27-28 September 2022 — https://files.ofsted.gov.uk/v1/file/50200185
- 9. Stratford Herald — 2025 GCSE results coverage — https://www.stratford-herald.com/news/top-performing-stratford-school-seventh-in-england-for-gcse-9438797/
Last updated 2026-09-01. Spotted something wrong? Tell us.