Ribston Hall High School is a selective girls' grammar school in Gloucester with a co-educational sixth form and a current roll of about 906. The school has a clear curriculum language: cognitive fluency, personal character, compassion and tolerance. In practice, that means academic ambition is tied to confidence, judgement, social conscience and personal growth rather than being treated as a separate strand.
The Key Stage 3 curriculum is broad, covering English, mathematics, science, French and Spanish, history, geography, religious studies, art and design, food, music, computer science, PE, dance, drama and PSHE. At GCSE, pupils continue the core academic subjects and choose from options including art, dance, food, drama, geography, history, computer science, music, religious studies, PE, psychology and languages. Sixth formers can choose from a wide A-level list that includes food science and nutrition, politics, philosophy and ethics, sociology, dance and the core academic subjects.
Ribston's sixth form has one of the more distinctive public offers in the Gloucestershire grammar group. Students use a dedicated sixth-form building with common room and cafe, and the Ribston Baccalaureate, accredited by the National Baccalaureate Trust, combines A levels, EPQ-style personal project work and personal development across enrichment, leadership and community engagement. Leadership roles include Head Student, House Captain, Prefect, Peer Mentor and Subject Captain, with student-led societies such as History, FemSoc and MedSoc.
For Year 7 entry, the published admission number is 150. Ribston uses the Gloucestershire grammar test with GL Assessment material across verbal, non-verbal, English and mathematics skills. Allocation is by rank after the qualifying standard, with priority for looked-after and previously looked-after children and up to 30 Pupil Premium places, including a GL1-GL4 priority within that group; distance is used to separate equal scores. Recent official benchmarks record Ofsted Good, Progress 8 of +0.24, 95.9% grade 5+ in English and maths and 16.3% AAB or better at A level.
