Birmingham's King Edward VI Grammar Schools: 2025 Results and the Shared 11+ Test, Explained

If you're weighing up Birmingham's grammar schools for a Year 6 application, here's what you need to know upfront. Eight state grammar schools sit under the King Edward VI Foundation, and every one of them uses the same 11+ consortium test: multiple choice, no writing section at all. Their 2025 results vary a lot, from Camp Hill Girls' 63.8% A*-A at A-level down to Handsworth Boys' 42%. Two of the eight, Bishop Vesey's and Sutton Coldfield Grammar School for Girls, are widely described as super-selectives that sit outside the usual catchment system: any child who qualifies can apply, regardless of address. This roundup pulls together what each school has actually published for 2025, flags the handful of figures we couldn't confirm anywhere official, and clears up where the fee-paying King Edward's School and King Edward VI High School for Girls fit in. Short answer: they don't, not in this list.

Eight schools, one shared test

The King Edward VI Foundation runs eight state grammar schools across Birmingham and Sutton Coldfield, and all eight use the same 11+ entrance test rather than setting their own paper. In practice that usually means a family applying to more than one Foundation school sits the test once, and each school on the list considers that same score. Worth double checking the exact arrangement with the Foundation or the individual school's admissions office though, since that's their call to confirm, not ours. The eight schools are King Edward VI Aston School (boys, 120 places), King Edward VI Camp Hill School for Boys (boys, 120), King Edward VI Camp Hill School for Girls (girls, 120), King Edward VI Five Ways School (co-ed, 180), King Edward VI Handsworth Grammar School for Boys (boys, 150), King Edward VI Handsworth School for Girls (girls, 192), Bishop Vesey's Grammar School in Sutton Coldfield (boys, 192), and Sutton Coldfield Grammar School for Girls (180). All are non-fee-paying grammar schools, selective by test score rather than postcode alone, and all sit inside the same admissions consortium even though each one publishes its own results and sets its own specific admissions criteria.

Inside the 11+ test: no writing, four skills, one age-standardised score

Parents often assume an 11+ paper will include some kind of essay or extended writing task. The King Edward VI Foundation's own site rules that out directly: "There are no sections of writing within the test, all questions are multiple choice and children record their answers on a separate answer sheet." The test itself runs as two papers of roughly 50 to 60 minutes each, with individually timed sections covering English comprehension, verbal reasoning, maths, and non-verbal or spatial reasoning. The scoring is weighted, not averaged flat: English and verbal reasoning together make up 50%, non-verbal reasoning 25%, and maths 25%. Every child's raw score then gets converted into an age-standardised score, which accounts for a child's exact age on the day of the test rather than just comparing raw marks. You'll also see it said that the test moved from CEM to GL Assessment format in recent years. The Foundation's own site doesn't give an exact date for that switch though, so treat that specific detail as widely repeated rather than confirmed.

Qualifying score, priority area, and how places are actually allocated

Reaching the qualifying score gets your child in the running, it isn't a guarantee of a place. Once a child clears the threshold, places at oversubscribed schools go in rank order of age-standardised score, highest first, until the year fills up. For most of the Foundation's schools, a Birmingham-based priority area is also widely reported to play a role alongside the score, meaning where a family lives can still matter even after a child has qualified. That said, we haven't been able to independently confirm this against each school's own admissions policy document (more on that below). You'll sometimes see specific numbers floated online, a qualifying score of 205, a priority score of 224, on tutoring and exam prep sites. We couldn't confirm those exact figures on the Foundation's own site, which states only that each school sets its own admissions policy without publishing the numeric thresholds on the page we could access. So treat any specific number you read elsewhere as an estimate, not an official figure, until you've checked it against the individual school's own admissions policy document.

The two super-selectives: Bishop Vesey's and Sutton Coldfield Girls skip catchment entirely

Two schools in the Foundation work differently from the other six. Bishop Vesey's Grammar School and Sutton Coldfield Grammar School for Girls are both widely described as super-selective with no catchment area at all. If a child meets the qualifying standard, they can apply regardless of where the family lives, and geography only comes into play as a tiebreaker when scores are level. Sutton Coldfield Grammar School for Girls reportedly applies a three-tier priority order on top of that: looked after and previously looked after children first, then pupil premium children up to a cap of 36 places, then everyone else qualifying by rank order of score. That's a genuinely different admissions shape from the other six Birmingham-based schools, where a priority area generally does come into play. One flag here: this catchment contrast is well corroborated across several tutoring and admissions aggregator sites, but we couldn't independently confirm it against either school's own admissions policy PDF. If catchment status could make or break your application strategy, check the current policy document on the school's own site directly.

2025 results at a glance

Here's what each school has published for 2025, with a note wherever a headline figure simply wasn't available anywhere official.

Where a figure is marked unverified or not published, that's because we couldn't confirm it by reading the school's own results page or PDF directly. Either the page returned an error, or the school simply hasn't published that specific headline percentage. We'd rather tell you that plainly than quote a number we can't stand behind.

Five Ways, Handsworth and Camp Hill Girls: the clearest 2025 headlines

Three schools published particularly clean, exact figures for 2025. King Edward VI Five Ways School, the Foundation's only co-educational school and its largest with 180 places, came in at 52% of A-level grades at A*-A and 81% at A*-B, alongside 52% of GCSE grades at 9-8 and 75% at 9-7. The school also flagged a strong year for university outcomes: 12 students heading to Oxbridge, 24 to medicine courses, and over 90% securing their first-choice place. King Edward VI Camp Hill School for Girls posted the strongest A-level outcome of the group, 63.8% A*-A, plus an Attainment 8 score of 80.4 at GCSE and 98% of pupils achieving a strong pass in English and maths. Over at King Edward VI Handsworth Grammar School for Boys, this was the school's best proportion of top GCSE grades since the 2018 grading reform: 65% of grades at 7 or above, with 36 students, more than a third of the year group, achieving all A*-A at A-level. Its sister school, King Edward VI Handsworth School for Girls, published matching detail: 42% A*-A at A-level and 44% of GCSE grades at 9-8.

Camp Hill Boys and Aston: context matters when comparing numbers

Two schools are worth reading with a bit more care rather than taking the headline percentage at face value. King Edward VI Camp Hill School for Boys explains in its own results document that a change to the school's admissions policy from September 2020 affected the intake for this particular GCSE cohort, which is the likely reason its 2025 figures, 27.8% at grade 9 and 70.4% at grade 9-7, sit below its 2024 figures of 51% and 88%. The school's own reported progress score for the cohort was positive, +0.86, which points to solid progress against a different starting point rather than any decline in teaching. King Edward VI Aston School, meanwhile, states on its own site that its proportion of A*-B grades has risen for three years running, and reports strong adjacent metrics, 97.15% of pupils achieving grade 5 or above in English and maths, an Attainment 8 score of 71.08, and 82.14% EBacc entry, but it doesn't publish an exact overall A*-A or grade 9-7 percentage anywhere we could find. If a school you're considering only gives you a qualitative statement rather than a number, it's worth asking directly for the specific figure before you draw any conclusions.

Don't confuse them: King Edward's School and King Edward VI High School for Girls are separate, fee-paying schools

This is one of the most common mix-ups families make, and it's an easy one given the shared name. King Edward's School (KES) and King Edward VI High School for Girls (KEHS), both in Edgbaston on a shared 50-acre site, are part of the same historic King Edward VI Foundation as the eight grammar schools above, but they're entirely separate in every practical sense. Both are independent, fee-paying schools with their own admissions process and their own entrance exam, written and marked by their own teachers, nothing to do with the shared consortium test the eight state grammar schools use. KEHS fees for 2026/27 are set at £6,260 per term, £7,512 including VAT, with a means-tested bursary scheme that covers families earning under £20,000 a year in full and applies a sliding scale up to £72,000. If your child is sitting the shared King Edward VI Foundation test for one of the eight state grammar schools, they won't automatically be considered for KES or KEHS. Those need a completely separate registration and a different exam.

Preparing for a test with no writing paper

Because the Foundation's 11+ is entirely multiple choice across English comprehension, verbal reasoning, maths, and non-verbal reasoning, there's real value in your child getting comfortable with the format itself, not just the content. Timed, mixed-format practice across all four areas tends to matter more here than long-form writing practice, since writing simply isn't tested. Our free 11+ practice app is built around exactly that mix: short adaptive sessions across verbal reasoning, non-verbal reasoning, maths and comprehension, so your child can build real fluency in the skills this particular test rewards, without spending time on a writing section that was never going to appear on the paper.

Frequently asked questions

Written by Arielle Phoenix SEO & Organic Marketing Manager at Pip

Arielle handles SEO and AEO growth at Pip, with over 10 years in the digital marketing space working with brands and founding her own projects.

LinkedInX (Twitter)