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  • South Wilts Grammar School
    Stratford Road
    Salisbury
    Wiltshire
    SP1 3JJ
  • Head: Dr Amanda Smith
  • T 01722 323326
  • F 01722 320703
  • E [email protected]
  • W www.swgs.wilts.sch.uk
  • A state school for boys and girls aged from 11 to 18.
  • Boarding: No
  • Local authority: Wiltshire
  • Pupils: 1,184; sixth formers: 390 (118 boys)
  • Religion: Non-denominational
  • Review: View The Good Schools Guide Review
  • Ofsted:
    • Latest Overall effectiveness Good 1
      • 16-19 study programmes Good 1
      • Outcomes for children and learners Good 1
      • Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Outstanding 1
      • Personal development, behaviour and welfare Good 1
      • Effectiveness of leadership and management Good 1
    • 1 Full inspection 22nd October 2019
  • Ofsted report: View the Ofsted report

What says..

Fearsome reputation for academic rigour borne out by a sense of intellectual endeavour we could almost smell: ‘I was bullied for being clever at my last school,’ one pupil admitted, ‘so I wanted to come to South Wilts because everyone would be a boffin’. An outstandingly academic school and makes no bones about it. Preparation for such stellar performance starts early: pupils work hard from day 1, with an amount of homework which is sometimes baulked at, even by parents. Students are unpretentious, bright and not…

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School associations

State grammar school

What The Good Schools Guide says

Headteacher

Since September 2024, Dr Amanda Smith, previously head at Poole Grammar School for four years. A scientist, she was deputy head at South Wilts before that.

Entrance

By way of the 11+ exam in VR, maths and English in the previous September; passing the exam does not guarantee a place at the school, to which applications are made through the LA once results are known. Girls come from 58(!) local primary schools and several prep schools; those who don’t make it often to go to independent schools. Now has 160 year 7 places.

Sixth form went co-ed in 2020. Six GCSE subjects at grade 5 and above required, including English and maths, and grade 6 in subjects chosen for A levels (grade 7 for chemistry, physics and maths).

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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

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

Who came from where


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