Which grammar schools consistently get the best results?

[ThisEagerHiker]

I’ve been trying to understand how grammar schools compare academically across the UK and it’s surprisingly hard to get a clear picture.
Obviously Ofsted reports help, but they don’t always show how schools compare nationally.
I keep seeing schools like Wilson’s, QE Boys Barnet and Henrietta Barnett mentioned as some of the strongest academically, but I’m not sure how accurate that is or whether there are others that perform just as well.
For those who have gone through the 11+ process or looked into grammar schools seriously – which schools tend to come out near the top in terms of results and outcomes?

In what way are you trying to compare them?

Just a guess but maybe the most selective?

Published tables using GCSE and A Level results
www.schoolguide.co.uk/league_tables/secondary

Mainly things like GCSE/A-level results, university destinations and how competitive admissions are.
I initially thought Ofsted might be the easiest way to compare schools, but it doesn’t really show how grammar schools stack up against each other nationally.
I’ve seen Wilson’s, QE Boys Barnet and Henrietta Barnett mentioned quite a bit when people talk about the strongest grammars academically, but I wasn’t sure if that’s based on exam results or just reputation.
Did you look into this when applying for the 11+?

That makes sense actually – I guess the most selective schools tend to attract the strongest applicants in the first place.
I wasn’t sure though whether selectivity always translates into the best exam results, or if some grammar schools consistently outperform others regardless.

Thanks for sharing that – league tables definitely help.
I did have a look at GCSE/A-level tables, but I found it a bit tricky to compare grammar schools properly because some tables mix state, private and selective schools together.
I was trying to see whether certain grammars consistently appear near the top year after year.

I mean you can easily find the league tables year on year with the exam results and ranking by result. I’m not sure why that would be less useful then some random comments?

Yes that’s true – league tables are definitely useful. I think what I was finding tricky is that some of them mix grammar schools with high-performing comprehensives and private schools, so it’s not always obvious which grammars consistently come out near the top year after year.
I was mainly trying to see whether there are certain grammar schools that tend to appear near the very top academically most years, rather than just looking at a single year’s results.

Very hard to know what you mean.

Just because a grammar comes near of the league tables consistently doesn't mean it performs well except in the return of exam results. It most likely means it must accurately selects the dc who would have got top grades anywhere. League tables tell you nothing about the value added or broader stuff at all.

'School that only admits the top 2% of performers in a rigorous academic testing process gets good gcse grades' is very boring news.

Are you using AI for this?
Your posts seem disingenuous.

You can find multiple sources listing only grammar school results if that’s what you’re looking for, a simple google search makes that obvious.
You don’t have to look at a single years results,
youre free to compare as many as you like.

The most selective schools are the ones that have the most applicants, so that will be ones in cities.

Several million people live near the north London grammars compared to one in Lincolnshire.

From a quick google 45% of children in NI attend grammar school and it has 67, compared to London which only has 19 and 6 times the population.

If you move to London for the “best” schools then it’s less likely you will get in in the first place.

In the southwest, Plymouth and Torbay are both grammar areas, selecting roughly the top 20% of 11+ candidates. Colyton is more selective, taking only the top 10%. Colyton is consistently highly ranked at national level.

It is not particularly useful looking at A level results and university destinations for 11 plus entry. Most schools will select again for A levels and children already in the school who don't perform well enough at GCSE level will need to go elsewhere. The best school is the one your child is going to be happy at, is going to be offered a place at and ideally doesn't have to travel for too long to get to.

www.thetimes.com/article/2d6a3590-0ec0-4304-b22e-44ad84a8d908?shareToken=018a0bc8bda70b565cc1a671adfdbefa

Are you doing this out of sheer idle curiosity / for an academic research project / because you want to join the ranks of 11+ tourists? If the last, you need to have a close look at the nitty-gritty of the individual school's admissions policy, since few these days just have 'our PAN-worth of applicants, solely on their score in the entrance test, from wherever in the country they live' as their only criterion. Some, like the Buckinghamshire grammar schools and the vast majority of the ones in Kent, have had for many years admission by a pass in the test (actual score thereafter totally irrelevant), then ranking by oversubscription criteria very similar to those employed by neighbouring non-selective schools. Others (like HBS) saw the light a few years ago when funding for expansion was up for grabs and one of the eligibility criteria for that was having an admissions policy prioritising applicants from disadvantaged groups. Others just got fed up with pupils being bussed in from miles away, contributing little to the life of the school outside of their five hours a a day of classes and introduced a priority admissions area, albeit quite a wide one e.g. at the Chelmsford grammar schools.

And has already been said, at A Level, there will have been another layer of selection; year 12 is past the age of compulsory full-time education, so schools can introduce a new set of oversubscription criteria for progress / admission into their sixth form and at this point only can effectively exclude a pupil in their own year 11 on academic grounds.

i went to a grammar, very selective, very successful in league table terms, no idea now but at the time was one of the top in the UK. No way would I send my kids there. The mental health of the pupils and staff was horrific. And you were definitely kicked out after GCSEs if you weren’t up to scratch. The school cared about league tables deeply. Children, not so much.

i think the best you can do is visit the schools and look at their ethos and try and determine how far it aligns with your own values. I don’t think there is a shortcut of lists etc.

As already said, the grammar schools at the top of the list consistently will be those that are super selective or take a smaller top percentage of the ability range, as opposed to grammars that take (e.g.) top 20-25%.

If you're trying to work out which schools consistently achieve better results than might have been expected based on the intake, then I think that will be very difficult. You could look at Progress 8, but as children don't develop in a linear way that's not necessarily the whole picture, plus many grammar school children attend private schools to age 11, so don't have SATS results as a baseline.

You do realise that sending your child to a school that gets good results, does not, in itself mean your child will get good results?

By definition a high-performing comprehensive is outperforming a grammar school at the same level of the league table since, by definition, grammars select on ability they don’t need to do as much work to get those results. Comprehensives have to add value in various ways to suit needs of kids who don’t thrive in the traditional academic classroom.

You will never get a “clean” view from any league table - you need to consider wealth of the catchments too, and the fact that many parents continue tutoring their kids after 11+ to achieve their best potential at grammar (the very best pupils will indeed be skimmed off into the best super selective grammars).

Colyton us a really example of where this all really goes wrong.

You can apply to Colyton from anywhere, address is irrelevant. They simply offer places to the top PAN number of performers in their specific tests at 11+.

Therefore you have children who travel ridiculous distances on very rural routes to get there. You have large numbers of very high achievers all in one place, with the mental health, ND and ED numbers you may predict in that cohort. You have a group of young people who are keen to take part in all sorts of EC activities but because of their journey times and the sheer number of like minded keen beans cannot be catered for. Things like DofE places are allocated via a very competitive process.

Colyton does not engage locally to provide additional opportunities for state educated children with great potential. They sit back and wait for the competitive parents of everywhere to do the leg work and come to them. The good part of this is that the local schools are not therefore missing their top sets particularly in a way you may see in Kent for eg. Colyton FSM and other deprivation indicators are shocking compared to the local comparators though. It is highly socially and financially selective.

Colyton does not need its teaching staff to be innovative or imaginative or to deal with children with language issues or learning difficulties. Colyton's GCSE results are stellar but they have deliberately taken a group of children who could probably have sat them and done well with no school input at all!

What people consider 'the best' for both children and society really varies.

If best results mean best A*/A percentage in A level and best 9/8/7 percentage in GCSE, then London tends to feel more competitive because of the larger, more diverse population, many Asian families put a huge amount of focus on education from a very early age. The grammar schools that perform best are the ones that select purely on academic grounds, without giving any real advantage for where a child lives. In London, there are only three: QE, Wilson’s and St Olave’s.

Best results definitely don’t equal best schools though. You need to go and look round get a feel for the place. I’ve put 4 dc through 11+ I didn’t send any of mine to the “best performing” schools despite 3 of them passing for them (I didn’t put the fourth one on for that exam as I knew I wouldn’t send her) They all went to the slightly less high achieving grammars as they were much more well rounded.
I haven’t regretted my decision at all.