Rugby High School 11+ guide

About Rugby High School

Founded in 1903, Rugby High School is a selective girls’ grammar school located in Bilton, Warwickshire with an attached mixed sixth form. The school aims to educate students as ‘ambitious and creative thinkers’ who strive for academic excellence in their studies and a wide range of extracurricular activities.

How to apply to Rugby High School

Rugby High School is a selective state school. This means that your child will need to take the 11 plus exam to be eligible for a place in Year 7.

Rugby High School is a member of the West Midlands Grammar Schools partnership. The partnership consists of 19 schools across Birmingham, Warwickshire, Shropshire, Walsall and Wolverhampton. All 19 schools share the same entrance test. This means that your child will only need to take the test once – even if you’re applying to multiple schools in the partnership.

The registration portal for the West Midlands Grammar Schools Entrance Test opens in May 2025 and closes in late June. After registration, your child will be invited to take the 11 plus exam at one of the participating schools. They will be allocated a test venue and a slot to take the test in September 2025. You’ll then receive your child’s results in mid-October.

To apply to Rugby High School, you’ll need to name the school as one of your preferred schools on the secondary school common application form. This will be available on your home council website from early September and must be submitted by 31st October 2025.

Remember – passing the 11 plus doesn’t guarantee that your child will be allocated a place at your preferred school. Many grammar schools are often oversubscribed with qualified children. Schools and their admissions authorities work through admissions criteria to prioritise children for places. We’ve included the admissions criteria for Rugby High School below.

How does place allocation work at Rugby High School?

Your child’s marks in the West Midlands Grammar Schools Entrance Test are weighted for each section:

• English and verbal reasoning: 50%

• Non-verbal reasoning: 25%

• Maths: 25%

These weighted scores are age-standardised to ensure that younger children aren’t disadvantaged.

Rugby High School will then set a qualifying score. This isn’t always decided until after the entrance test takes place. As a guide, the minimum qualifying score for entry to Rugby High School in 2024 was 212.

If the number of children who have achieved the qualifying score exceeds the number of places available, Rugby High School applies oversubscription criteria. Children are prioritised for places in the following order:

1. 1. Looked-After or Previously Looked-After Children who achieve the automatic qualifying score or up to 20 marks below it.

2. Children living in the priority areas who are eligible for Free School Meals and who achieve the automatic qualifying score or up to 15 marks below it.

3. Children living in area 1 (east Warwickshire) who achieve the automatic qualifying score or above.

4. Children living in area 2 (eastern priority circle) who achieve the automatic qualifying score or above.

5. Children living inside or outside the priority areas who achieve the automatic qualifying score or above.

6. Children living inside or outside the priority areas who score below the automatic qualifying score, but above the required minimum academic standard for the waiting list.

Those with the highest scores in each category are given highest priority for a place. In the case of children with the same score in any of these categories, the child living nearest the school in a straight line is given highest priority.

What is the priority/catchment area for Rugby High School?

The overall priority area for Rugby High School is based on a circle with a radius of 10.004 miles drawn from the Rugby Water Tower. This circle is split into two:

-Priority area 1 (east Warwickshire): the town of Rugby and its surrounding villages -Priority area 2 (eastern priority circle): the rest of the circle

You'll need to submit evidence to prove that your child lives within the priority areas by the end of December 2023.