Brixham, Devon · Torbay
Churston Ferrers Grammar School Academy
Fully selective, but not 'highest score wins' — a large share of places go by a 'Social Justice Priority' category ahead of higher-scoring children outside it.
Churston Ferrers has held grammar status continuously since 1957. It shares a single GL Assessment test — sat once, on one day — with Torbay's two other grammar schools, Torquay Boys' and Torquay Girls', but each school independently sets its own qualifying score and admissions criteria from that shared result. What makes Churston distinctive isn't its selectivity but its allocation method: rather than simply taking the highest scorers until places run out, it reserves a large share of its intake for Free School Meals/Pupil Premium children, staff children, and pupils from 15 named local primary schools — ahead of higher-scoring children outside those groups. Only part of the intake goes by pure score rank.
Key facts
- Gender
- co-ed
- Age range
- 11-18
- Region
- South West
- Local authority
- Torbay
- Established
- 1957
- DfE URN
- 136388
- Website
- https://www.churstongrammar.com/
Admissions
- Admissions authority
- The school sets its own test and criteria
- Entrance test board
- GL Assessment sets and marks the papers, administered under a shared 'Torbay Selection Tests' arrangement with Torquay Boys' and Torquay Girls' Grammar Schools — the same papers, on the same day. Each school then independently sets its own qualifying score from the results.
- Test format
- Two GL Assessment papers, English and Maths only — no verbal or non-verbal reasoning. Sat in one sitting, age-standardised, with a catch-up sitting for illness. Families are told only a yes/no eligibility outcome, never the numeric score.
- Qualifying / pass mark
- verify with schoolverify with school
Not a research gap — the school deliberately doesn't publish a numeric pass mark or disclose scores, even to successful families. The qualifying score is set at the school's discretion each year from that year's results.
- Superselective?
- No
Several lines of evidence point away from superselective: a fellow Torbay consortium school's own materials describe the standard as roughly the top 25% of the ability range (the traditional grammar threshold, not a superselective one); Torbay is a genuinely high-selection area overall (31% of its secondary pupils attend one of its three grammar schools, per Comprehensive Future) rather than a tiny-elite-from-a-huge-catchment model; and the school's own admissions policy deliberately reserves places for disadvantaged and local children ahead of high scorers, the opposite of typical superselective practice — its 10.2% FSM-eligible rate is well above the under-3% Sutton Trust found typical of superselectives.
Catchment & priority criteria
No defined geographic catchment area — the school states this explicitly. Instead, priority runs through a named group of 15 Torbay-area primary schools, concentrated in Brixham and Paignton; roughly 80% of offered places have historically gone to children from these feeder schools, though attending one isn't required to apply.sources conflict
For the prior (September 2026 entry) cycle, the school's own policy stated a PAN of 150, but Torbay Council's published allocation-outcome page for that same cycle sums to 160 across its criteria. The current, live 2027-28 policy states 160 unambiguously with no conflicting figure — this discrepancy affects only the historical cycle, not the current one.
- Children with an Education, Health and Care Plan naming the school (admitted before other criteria apply)
- Looked-after and previously looked-after children who reached the qualifying score
- Eligible children scoring at or above the 75th-ranked child's score
- Social Justice Priority, in order: Free School Meals/Pupil Premium/Service Premium children, then staff children, then children from the 15 named feeder primary schools, then remaining ties by score
- All other eligible children, by score rank
- Sibling priority was removed from this cycle's policy — the school considered it unfair to a higher-scoring non-sibling child
Results
| Year | Attainment 8 | GCSE 5+ Eng & Maths | Progress 8 | A*–A | A*–B |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 71.2 | 90% | Not published — the school states no Progress 8 scores exist for 2025 or 2026 (nationwide COVID-era KS2 baseline gap) | 45% | — |
| The school describes these as the best GCSE and A-level results in Torbay for 2025. | |||||
| 2023 | 69.7 (from a secondary aggregator, not independently re-confirmed) | — | +0.62 | — | — |
Ofsted
- Rating
- Good
- Date
- 18-19 October 2022
- Report
- Read the full report
Sources
- 1. DfE Get Information About Schools — URN, status, gender, capacity, LA — https://get-information-schools.service.gov.uk/Establishments/Establishment/Details/136388
- 2. Current determined Admissions Policy 2027-28 — https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PJT6_ielCTJKdA2rUe6OqSy7DXwaFizI/view
- 3. School's own entry requirements page — test board, non-disclosure of pass mark — https://www.churstongrammar.com/entry-requirements
- 4. School's own admissions process page — https://www.churstongrammar.com/admissions-process
- 5. School's own history page — founded 1957 — https://www.churstongrammar.com/history
- 6. Ofsted report, inspected 18-19 October 2022 — https://files.ofsted.gov.uk/v1/file/50201145
- 7. School's own academic results page — 2025 and 2023 figures — https://www.churstongrammar.com/academic-results
- 8. Torbay selective-system overview — 31% of Torbay secondary pupils in grammar schools — https://comprehensivefuture.org.uk/selective-education-guide-torbay/
- 9. Torquay Girls' Grammar School — confirms shared Torbay test arrangement and 'top 25%' benchmark — https://www.tggsacademy.org/tggsadmissionstest
Last updated 2026-08-30. Spotted something wrong? Tell us.