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Bishop Wordsworths Grammar School
  • Bishop Wordsworth's Grammar School
    Exeter Street
    Salisbury
    Wiltshire
    SP1 2ED
  • Head: Matthew Morgan
  • T 01722 333851
  • F 01722 325899
  • E [email protected]
  • W www.bishopwordsworths.org.uk
  • A state school for boys aged from 11 to 18.
  • Boarding: No
  • Local authority: Wiltshire
  • Pupils: 1,200 ; sixth formers: 400
  • Religion: Church of England
  • Open days: Virtual webinars tours – details available via the school website
  • Review: View The Good Schools Guide Review
  • Ofsted:
    • Latest Overall effectiveness Outstanding 1
      • 16-19 study programmes Outstanding 1
      • Outcomes for children and learners Outstanding 1
      • Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Outstanding 1
      • Personal development, behaviour and welfare Outstanding 1
      • Effectiveness of leadership and management Outstanding 1
    • 1 Full inspection 15th November 2022
  • Ofsted report: View the Ofsted report

What says..

‘Salisbury is like a big village and this school is woven into the local tapestry,’ says Dr Smallwood. No other state academy in England enjoys the privilege of residing inside a cathedral close. ‘Exceptional’ and ‘exemplary’ are the words we heard most often from parents with regards to pastoral care. ‘They want the boys to excel without falling apart,’ a parent told us. Plenty of kit washing will be the norm...

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What the school says...

Bishop Wordsworth's School offers a high quality education for boys in South Wiltshire & West Hampshire. Quality of learning and teaching is very high across the full range of the curriculum and results are very strong compared to other selective schools in terms of both grades and value added. The school is in the Cathedral Close, and many school events are held in the Cathedral each year.

Sport and Music are both very active and strong. Many pupils gain representative honours at county, regional and even national levels in a number of sports, especially rugby. From September 2020 the Sixth Form has become coeducational; there are currently approximately 30% girls in Year 12 and 13.
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School associations

State grammar school

Sports

Polo

Fencing

Sailing

What The Good Schools Guide says

Headmaster

Since September 2024, Matthew Morgan, previously head at Sir Thomas Rich's school, Gloucester.

Entrance

Yes, the school is very much oversubscribed, but with the increase to five forms of entry, not nearly as fearsome odds as one might imagine. The 11+ exam comprises CEM tests in maths and English taken in the September of year 6. Parents must register their child with the school in July of year 5. Those meeting the ‘pass mark’ of 70 per cent are of the accepted standard to apply but are not guaranteed a place; those on pupil premium or similar have a reduced pass mark. Several 11+ open afternoons or tours by appointment any time.

A mix of around 50 state and independent feeder primaries including St Mark’s, Harnham, Chafyn Grove and Leehurst Swan. Around...

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Please note: Independent schools frequently offer IGCSEs or other qualifications alongside or as an alternative to GCSE. The DfE does not record performance data for these exams so independent school GCSE data is frequently misleading; parents should check the results with the schools.

Who came from where

Who goes where

Special Education Needs

A qualified Learning Support Co-ordinator works full time to support boys with barriers to learning at any level within school. Provision is focused on helping those who face difficulties with hand writing, spelling, organisation etc. 09-09

Condition Provision for in school
ASD - Autistic Spectrum Disorder
Aspergers Y
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorders Y
CReSTeD registered for Dyslexia
Dyscalculia
Dysgraphia
Dyslexia Y
Dyspraxia
English as an additional language (EAL)
Genetic
Has an entry in the Autism Services Directory
Has SEN unit or class
HI - Hearing Impairment
Hospital School
Mental health
MLD - Moderate Learning Difficulty
MSI - Multi-Sensory Impairment
Natspec Specialist Colleges
OTH - Other Difficulty/Disability
Other SpLD - Specific Learning Difficulty
PD - Physical Disability
PMLD - Profound and Multiple Learning Difficulty
SEMH - Social, Emotional and Mental Health
SLCN - Speech, Language and Communication
SLD - Severe Learning Difficulty
Special facilities for Visually Impaired
SpLD - Specific Learning Difficulty
VI - Visual Impairment

Interpreting catchment maps

The maps show in colour where the pupils at a school came from*. Red = most pupils to Blue = fewest.

Where the map is not coloured we have no record in the previous three years of any pupils being admitted from that location based on the options chosen.

For help and explanation of our catchment maps see: Catchment maps explained

Further reading

If there are more applicants to a school than it has places for, who gets in is determined by which applicants best fulfil the admissions criteria.

Admissions criteria are often complicated, and may change from year to year. The best source of information is usually the relevant local authority website, but once you have set your sights on a school it is a good idea to ask them how they see things panning out for the year that you are interested in.

Many schools admit children based on distance from the school or a fixed catchment area. For such schools, the cut-off distance will vary from year to year, especially if the school give priority to siblings, and the pattern will be of a central core with outliers (who will mostly be siblings). Schools that admit on the basis of academic or religious selection will have a much more scattered pattern.

*The coloured areas outlined in black are Census Output Areas. These are made up of a group of neighbouring postcodes, which accounts for their odd shapes. These provide an indication, but not a precise map, of the school’s catchment: always refer to local authority and school websites for precise information.

The 'hotter' the colour the more children have been admitted.

Children get into the school from here:

regularly
most years
quite often
infrequently
sometimes, but not in this year


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