Best Grammar Schools in Lincolnshire: GCSE and A Level Results Ranked

Among the best grammar schools in Lincolnshire on GCSE results, The King's School, Grantham has the highest average Attainment 8 score at 72.7, followed by Caistor Grammar School on 69.8, Kesteven and Grantham Girls' School on 68.8 and Bourne Grammar School on 68.6. Those four sit well above the rest of the table, and the first three are in the north and west of the county, in Grantham and the Caistor area.

Fifteen state grammar schools are ranked on one measure, the average Attainment 8 score from the latest DfE key stage 4 performance tables, where each pupil's grades across eight GCSE-level qualifications are totalled with English and maths double-weighted, to a maximum of 90. The table also shows the percentage of pupils achieving grade 5 or above in English and maths and the DfE's average A level grade where published, and schools on the same figure share a rank.

Which grammar schools in Lincolnshire have the best GCSE results?

Average Attainment 8 scores run from 72.7 at The King's School, Grantham down to 52 at Skegness Grammar School. The King's School also records the highest share of pupils at grade 5 or above in English and maths, at 94.9%, and the only A level grade of B+ in the table. Three schools then sit close together: Caistor Grammar School on 69.8, Kesteven and Grantham Girls' School on 68.8 and Bourne Grammar School on 68.6, all with an average A level grade of B.

A second cluster covers Spalding High School on 63, The Queen Elizabeth's High School, Gainsborough on 62.5, Kesteven and Sleaford High School Selective Academy on 61.8, King Edward VI Grammar School, Louth on 61.3 and Queen Elizabeth's Grammar Alford on 60.5. Boston High School and Spalding Grammar School share rank =11 on 58.8, with Carre's Grammar School on 58 directly behind them. The Boston Grammar School on 53.1 and Skegness Grammar School on 52 sit apart from the rest, and The Boston Grammar School has the lowest grade 5 figure in the table at 53.6%.

Boys' schools are spread widely, from The King's School at rank 1 to Spalding Grammar School at =11 and The Boston Grammar School at 14. The girls' schools occupy ranks 3, 6, 8 and =11, led by Kesteven and Grantham Girls' School, whilst the mixed schools fill ranks 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 13 and 15. A level grades follow the GCSE order closely with a few exceptions: The Queen Elizabeth's High School, Gainsborough is 7th on Attainment 8 with C+, whereas Queen Elizabeth's Grammar Alford is 10th with B-, and Carre's Grammar School is 13th with B-, above King Edward VI Grammar School, Louth and Boston High School, which both record C.

How does entry to a Lincolnshire grammar school work?

Most Lincolnshire families register for the 11+ in the summer term of Year 5, sit the test in Year 6 and apply for a Year 7 place through Lincolnshire County Council's co-ordinated admissions scheme. The Lincolnshire Consortium of Grammar Schools lets a child take a single 11+ test and name up to three consortium schools as preferences, with GL Assessment providing Verbal Reasoning and Non-Verbal Reasoning papers on consecutive Saturdays (or the preceding Friday) in September of Year 6.

A standardised score of 220 across the two papers identifies roughly the most able 25% of the age group tested within Lincolnshire's selective areas, and each consortium school applies that score before its own oversubscription criteria. Families living outside the county can also register for the Lincolnshire 11+ and, once results are known, name a Lincolnshire grammar school through their home local authority.

Caistor Grammar School, ranked 2 on 69.8, sits outside the consortium with its own bespoke entrance test and admissions timetable, so a family weighing it against Bourne Grammar School or Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School, Horncastle needs to follow two sets of dates.

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Which Lincolnshire towns have separate boys' and girls' grammar schools?

Boston, Sleaford, Spalding and Grantham each have a boys' and a girls' grammar school with its own single-sex intake, and the city of Lincoln has no grammar school at all. In Grantham, The King's School scores 72.7 and Kesteven and Grantham Girls' School 68.8; in Spalding, Spalding High School scores 63 and Spalding Grammar School 58.8.

In Sleaford, Kesteven and Sleaford High School Selective Academy scores 61.8 and Carre's Grammar School 58, whilst in Boston, Boston High School scores 58.8 and The Boston Grammar School 53.1. The table labels Carre's as co-educational, though the county list describes it as boys aged 11 to 16 with a co-educational sixth form, and the same sixth form arrangement applies at Spalding Grammar School and The Boston Grammar School.

What do the Lincolnshire grammar school results show and not show?

The results show how pupils who passed a selective entrance test went on to perform at GCSE and A level, so every figure compares one selective intake with another. Attainment 8 is the ranking measure because it counts grades across eight qualifications, whereas the grade 5 percentage records only English and maths and can order schools differently: Bourne Grammar School has 92.1% at grade 5 or above against 89.4% at Caistor Grammar School, which ranks one place higher on Attainment 8.

Kesteven and Sleaford High School Selective Academy shows 85.1% at grade 5 or above, ahead of Spalding High School on 75.3%, although Spalding High School ranks 6th and Kesteven and Sleaford 8th. King Edward VI Academy in Spilsby, a bi-lateral school with a grammar stream and a secondary modern stream on one site, does not appear in the table, so the ranking covers the 15 grammar schools with their own published figures.

How the schools are ranked

The ranking covers every state grammar school in Lincolnshire with a published Attainment 8 score in the Department for Education's key stage 4 performance data, ordered from highest to lowest, with schools on the same figure sharing a rank. Every school in the table selects by ability at eleven, so the figures reflect a selective intake as well as the teaching; Progress 8 was not calculated for this cohort.

The data is the Department for Education's own download from Compare school and college performance, so anyone can reproduce the order from the same file; the data year and source are listed in the key facts above.

Admissions guides for the ranked schools

• The King's School, Grantham (ranked 1)
• Caistor Grammar School (ranked 2)
• Kesteven and Grantham Girls' School (ranked 3)
• Bourne Grammar School (ranked 4)
• Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School, Horncastle (ranked 5)
• Spalding High School (ranked 6)
• The Queen Elizabeth's High School, Gainsborough (ranked 7)
• Kesteven and Sleaford High School Selective Academy (ranked 8)
• King Edward VI Grammar School (ranked 9)
• Queen Elizabeth's Grammar Alford - A Selective Academy (ranked 10)
• Boston High School (ranked =11)
• Spalding Grammar School (ranked =11)
• Carre's Grammar School (ranked 13)
• The Boston Grammar School (ranked 14)
• Skegness Grammar School (ranked 15)

Related guides

• Lincolnshire Grammar Schools
• Best grammar schools in the UK by GCSE results
• Grammar schools in England: the full directory
• The 11+ entrance exam explained

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