Alcester Grammar School

Alcester Grammar School is a co-educational selective grammar school on Birmingham Road in Alcester, serving pupils from Year 7 through to sixth form. Alcester comes across as high-attaining but deliberately humane: the curriculum is described as rich and ambitious, while the values work centres on being an engaged learner and what AGS calls a decent human being. With about 1,294 pupils, it is one of the larger Warwickshire grammar schools, but the school presents itself as a community where personal development and pastoral strands sit alongside academic expectations.

The lower-school curriculum keeps a strong academic core. Key Stage 3 is described as a three-year programme built close to the National Curriculum, with PSHE, mathematics, double English, triple science, a modern foreign language and humanities supported by creative and practical subjects such as drama, music, art, design technology, computing, food and nutrition, business and PE. In sixth form, AGS is unusually explicit about flexibility: students choose from 23 A-level subjects, with no option blocks for most combinations, and the EPQ available for those who want an extended research route.

School life has the feel of a busy all-round grammar rather than a purely exam-focused institution. The school-published careers pages describe provision from the lower school through sixth form, including GCSE options support, Unifrog and Gatsby benchmark work. Pupils also have routes into Duke of Edinburgh and the creative, musical and sporting activity families would expect from a large selective school. The sixth-form welcome is also revealing: high academic standards are paired with support, guidance and respect as explicit expectations.

Year 7 admission is through the shared Birmingham and Warwickshire entrance test, with 150 places published for entry. The test is age-standardised and covers verbal, numerical and non-verbal ability across two papers; Warwickshire then applies priority-area, pupil-premium, looked-after and score-based rules set out in the admissions policy. The outcome record is strong: Ofsted judged the school Outstanding in December 2022, GOV.UK shows +0.56 Progress 8 and 100% grade 5+ in English and maths, and the 16 to 18 measures show 18.5% of A-level students achieving AAB or better.