Halifax, West Yorkshire · Calderdale
The Crossley Heath School
Its entrance test deliberately caps content at the Year 5 curriculum with no reasoning papers at all, aiming to reduce the tutoring advantage that shapes admission at many other selective schools.
Formed in 1985 by merging Heath Grammar School (founded 1585) and Crossley and Porter School (founded 1864), Crossley Heath runs a genuine joint admissions process with North Halifax Grammar School — the same FSCE-designed test, the same test day, and one joint policy document, both confirmed directly from the school's own admissions policy. Unlike its partner school, Crossley Heath has no catchment or priority area of its own at all, with the bulk of its 180 places allocated by pure rank order of combined English and Maths score. Its own results page correctly omits a Progress 8 figure for the most recent cohort, in contrast to several secondary sites that mistakenly attach the prior year's +0.49 score to current results — exactly the stale-figure trap this project watches for.
Key facts
- Gender
- co-ed
- Age range
- 11-18
- Region
- Yorkshire and the Humber
- Local authority
- Calderdale
- Established
- 1985
- DfE URN
- 139182
- Website
- https://www.crossleyheath.org.uk
Admissions
- Admissions authority
- The school sets its own test and criteria
- Entrance test board
- FSCE (Future Stories Community Enterprise), branded the 'Halifax Grammar Schools' test and shared jointly with North Halifax Grammar School.
- Test format
- Three papers sat on one day: English, Mathematics, and Creative Writing. English and Maths are marked, age-weighted and standardised first, with the two schools jointly agreeing a qualifying standard; only candidates meeting that standard have their Creative Writing paper judged by a trained joint panel drawn from both schools. Content is capped at the Year 5 National Curriculum, with no verbal or non-verbal reasoning paper — a deliberate design choice by the test provider to reduce tutoring advantage.
- Qualifying / pass mark
- Not published in advance or retrospectively as a fixed number — the joint qualifying standard for English and Maths is agreed by the two Halifax Grammar Schools only after each year's papers are marked and age-standardised.verify with school
Not pre-published by design — the joint qualifying standard is agreed only after each year's papers are marked.
- Superselective?
- Not establishedverify with school
No primary source uses the term either way; structural evidence is genuinely mixed. See full reasoning in superselectiveNote.
Genuinely indeterminate from available sources, and the school never uses the term either way. Evidence points both ways: the school has no catchment or priority area of its own, and the bulk of its 180 places go by pure rank order of test score with no geographic weighting, which leans superselective. But the FSCE test is explicitly designed to cap content at Year 5 curriculum with no reasoning papers specifically to reduce tutoring advantage, and reported applicant volumes (roughly 6-7 applicants per place, drawn from figures for the partner school) are oversubscribed but not in the extreme range typically associated with England's classic superselectives. Reported as null rather than guessed.
Catchment & priority criteria
None. The school's own policy states explicitly that Crossley Heath does not have a defined catchment area, and a Priority Admissions Area provision used by its partner school North Halifax Grammar explicitly does not apply to Crossley Heath.
- Looked-after and previously looked-after children, or those subject to a special guardianship order
- Children eligible for Pupil Premium or Service Premium, with evidence supplied by the deadline
- (This step applies only to North Halifax Grammar's own priority area — skipped entirely for Crossley Heath, which has no priority area of its own)
- Remaining places offered in combined rank order of standardised English and Maths score until the 180-place admission number is reached
- Tie-break for the final place: siblings already attending the school, then proximity of home to school by straight-line distance
Results
| Year | Attainment 8 | GCSE 5+ Eng & Maths | Progress 8 | A*–A | A*–B |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 72.56 (school's own document couldn't be directly re-fetched during this research and was reconstructed from search-indexed content of the same document, cross-checked against independent local press reporting) | 93% (English 5+ 97%, Maths 5+ 96% individually) | +0.49 ('Above average', per local press reporting of government league-table data) — this was the last cohort with a calculable Progress 8 figure before the nationwide COVID-era gap | — | — |
| Grade profile: 44% grades 9-8, 64% grades 9-7, 98% all grades 4+. | |||||
| 2025 | 74.2 (school's own provisional figure; a secondary aggregator states 74.5 for the same year, a small unreconciled discrepancy) | 99% (English 5+ 99%, Maths 5+ 100%) | Not calculated — the school's own 2025 results document correctly omits a Progress 8 figure entirely, consistent with the nationwide COVID-era gap. Several secondary aggregator sites incorrectly display the prior year's +0.49 figure alongside 2025 attainment data — a live example of the stale-figure mis-attachment this project watches for, and not used here. | — | 50% (secondary source, not independently confirmed) |
| Grade profile: 48% grades 9-8, 70% grades 9-7, 96% all grades 5+. A-level (303 entries): 75% A*-C — the school's own results page doesn't publish a whole-cohort A*-A or A*-B percentage. A secondary aggregator separately reports an average grade of C+ (34.84 points per entry) and 50% A*-B across 311 entries, not independently confirmed against DfE directly, which was inaccessible during this research. | |||||
Ofsted
- Rating
- Good overall (this was a full graded inspection under the pre-September 2024 framework — no inspection has occurred since). Behaviour and attitudes was Outstanding; quality of education, personal development, leadership and management, and sixth-form provision were all Good.
- Date
- 3-4 July 2023
- 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/139182
- 2. School's own Admissions Policy for entry September 2026 — https://www.crossleyheath.org.uk/_site/data/files/school-information/admission/D87023E885B9A19EB64ABB65E7DFC67D.pdf
- 3. North Halifax Grammar School's own Admissions Test page (confirms joint FSCE test) — https://www.nhgs.co.uk/admissions/school-admissions/admissions-test
- 4. Ofsted report, inspected 3-4 July 2023 — https://files.ofsted.gov.uk/v1/file/50229204
- 5. School's own History page — https://www.crossleyheath.org.uk/school-information/school-history
- 6. School's own GCSE Examination Results 2025 — https://www.crossleyheath.org.uk/attachments/download.asp?file=423&type=pdf
- 7. School's own A Level Examination Results Summer 2025 — https://www.crossleyheath.org.uk/attachments/download.asp?file=434&type=pdf
- 8. Halifax Courier — Progress 8 league table reporting — https://www.halifaxcourier.co.uk/education/best-and-worst-performing-secondary-schools-in-calderdale-for-progress-8-according-to-latest-league-tables-4897258
Last updated 2026-09-01. Spotted something wrong? Tell us.