Gainsborough, Lincolnshire · Lincolnshire
The Queen Elizabeth's High School, Gainsborough
A 'Community school' where the Governing Body, not the council, is the admissions authority — a genuinely unusual hybrid confirmed directly in the school's own policy.
Styled 'High School' rather than 'Grammar School' because it's the 1982 merger of the boys' Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School (chartered 1589) and the girls' Gainsborough High School (founded 1920) into one co-educational institution — it kept neither predecessor's exact name, though it remains fully selective. Structurally unusual nationally: GIAS classifies it as a Community school, which normally means the local authority is the default admissions authority, but the school's own policy states directly that its Governing Body holds that role instead. Its own priority system is more distance-driven than most Lincolnshire Consortium schools: a 9-mile 'local children' band uses distance, not 11+ score, as the primary ranking method for most applicants.
Key facts
- Gender
- co-ed
- Age range
- 11-18
- Region
- East Midlands
- Local authority
- Lincolnshire
- Established
- 1982
- DfE URN
- 120655
- Website
- https://www.qehs.lincs.sch.uk
Admissions
- Admissions authority
- The school sets its own test and criteria
- Entrance test board
- The Lincolnshire Consortium of Grammar Schools' shared 11+ test, covering 14 of Lincolnshire's 15 grammar schools (all except Caistor Grammar, which runs its own separate test). GL Assessment is reported by tutoring sites as the provider, though not named directly in the school's own admissions policy.
- Test format
- Two tests: Verbal Reasoning (letters and words, with roughly 20% number-based questions) and Non-Verbal Reasoning (shapes, including some spatial reasoning). No English, maths or writing component. Both sat on a Saturday in September at the consortium school nearest the child's home.
- Qualifying / pass mark
- An aggregate standardised score of 220 for September 2027 entry — the same threshold shared across the Lincolnshire Consortium, targeting the top 25% of the local cohort. The school notes that in most years more than 188 children (its Year 7 admission number) qualify, meaning meeting 220 doesn't guarantee a place.
- Superselective?
- No
The school shares the same county-wide qualifying threshold as the rest of the Lincolnshire Consortium rather than setting an independently elevated bar. For its largest applicant band — 'local children' living within 9 miles — distance, not 11+ score, is the primary ranking method when oversubscribed; the score is used mainly as a tiebreaker there. Score is the primary ranking method only for the smaller 'non-local' band. This distance-first structure for most applicants is why the school isn't classified as superselective, unlike schools that rank strictly by score across the board.
Catchment & priority criteria
No formally exclusionary catchment — any child meeting the qualifying standard may apply regardless of address. In practice, a 9-mile 'local children' priority band (by driving distance) functions as a soft catchment, ranked ahead of non-local applicants when the school is oversubscribed.
- Children with an EHCP naming the school
- Looked-after and previously looked-after children
- Siblings on roll at time of application
- Children of staff
- 'Local children' within 9 miles by driving distance, ranked by distance (then 11+ score, then straight-line distance, then lottery)
- Children eligible for Free School Meals (now or in the past 6 years)
- All other 'non-local' children, ranked by highest 11+ score
Results
| Year | Attainment 8 | GCSE 5+ Eng & Maths | Progress 8 | A*–A | A*–B |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | verify with school — secondary sources gave inconsistent figures (62.4-64.6) with unclear year-labelling, and DfE's own service was inaccessible during this research to resolve it | 79% (school's own published results — this is DfE's most recently validated cohort) | Not calculated — confirmed directly on DfE's own site: no KS2 baseline data for this cohort nationally | — | — |
| A-level: the school's own results page describes only 'one-quarter of all grades' at A*-A and 'over 50%' at A*-B, without precise percentages. | |||||
| 2026 | verify with school | 75% (school-reported, provisional — not yet in DfE's validated data) | A figure of 0.39 appears on the school's own site for these results, but is explicitly labelled by at least one aggregator as 'calculated from internal data' rather than a DfE-validated figure, and is inconsistently attributed to different years across sources — not treated as a real Progress 8 score. | — | — |
| A-level (school-reported, 'the best the school has seen'): described only as 'one-third of all grades' at A*-A and 65% at A*-B. | |||||
Ofsted
- Rating
- Good, in every category: quality of education, behaviour and attitudes, personal development, leadership and management, and sixth-form provision. The previous inspection (2021) rated the school Requires Improvement — this represents a genuine improvement.
- Date
- 13-14 December 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/120655
- 2. School's own Admissions Arrangements Policy, effective January 2026 — https://www.qehs.lincs.sch.uk/docs/imported/Policies-and-Other-Documents-Queen-Elizabeth039s-High-School/QEHS_Admissions_Policy_2026-27_Final.pdf
- 3. Ofsted report, inspected 13-14 December 2023 — https://files.ofsted.gov.uk/v1/file/50238619
- 4. School's own Exam Results page — https://www.qehs.lincs.sch.uk/exam-results/
- 5. DfE Compare School Performance — https://www.compare-school-performance.service.gov.uk/school/120655/the-queen-elizabeth's-high-school,-gainsborough
Last updated 2026-09-01. Spotted something wrong? Tell us.