Introduction
Best Grammar Schools in the UK’. Does it still bother you? Not anymore because you have landed on the right page. Explore further and get all the information regarding Grammar Schools in the UK.
Well, not surprisingly but a lot of Parents are curious about getting a place for their child in one of the best Grammar Schools in the UK. It is a worrisome task to gather all the necessary information regarding schools including the school’s location, student amenities, teaching standards and several other factors.
So PiAcademy has come up with a comprehensive guide with all the necessary information.
What is a Grammar School?
Among the other types of schools in the UK, Grammar Schools are the state schools or the public-funded schools for secondary education. Established primarily with the objective of teaching Latin, these schools further broadened their curriculum and included several European languages as well.
However, present-day Grammar Schools include all subjects, primarily academic, ranging from modern science to Politics and Economics.
Admissions to Grammar Schools
Being a type of State Schools, Grammar schools are allowed to select students on the basis of academic ability. For the students interested in getting a place in any of the preferred Grammar Schools, they are supposed to take the entrance tests which are called the 11+ and the 13+.
- 11+: The most common entry year happens to be age 11 for students after completing Primary education, therefore the name of the test is 11 Plus (11+).
13+: For the students who, due to some reason, narrowly missed out when they sat for the 11+, an alternative test is conducted which is called the 13 Plus (13+).
Criteria of School Rankings
Progress 8
UK’s department of Education has adopted a new indicator to measure the academic performance of schools. Progress 8 scores are derived out of the Attainment 8 scoring system under which an average grade of 8 subjects taken by students is calculated by the students’ Attainment 8 score compared with the national average of pupils with similar academic starting points.
Progress 8 Scoring goes from -1 to +1. Here +1 means that the students are achieving one grade higher in each qualification compared to similar pupils in other schools. The Department of Education evaluates schools on this basis and the schools that score +0.5 and higher are considered above average. The higher the Progress 8 score, the better.
GCSE Results
The General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) is an academic qualification in a particular subject. Academic performance of Schools in this league table is determined by the number of students who have achieved 5+ A*-C grades at GCSEs.
The GCSE qualification is offered in a list of specific school subjects (e.g. Mathematics, History, Art, etc.). The Progress 8 benchmark scores are thus calculated based on the results of students in eight GCSEs including Maths and English.
Top 10 Grammar Schools in UK
As mentioned above, the Schools in the top 10 league table are ranked based on the GCSE results. Moreover, the featured schools in the list display a metric identified as ‘Progress 8′. Hence this statistics has been used to construct the following list of the top 10 Grammar schools in the UK.
- Queen Elizabeth's School, Barnet
- Nonsuch High School for Girls
- The Henrietta Barnett School
- Wallington High School for Girls
- Wilson's School
- St Michael's Catholic Grammar School
- The Latymer School
- The Tiffin Girls School
- Tiffin School
- Newstead Wood School
