Gloucester, Gloucestershire · Gloucestershire

Denmark Road High School

Keeps sibling priority and a soft Gloucester-postcode preference that Pate's doesn't have — a gentler version of the same Gloucestershire consortium mechanism.

Denmark Road shares the Gloucestershire consortium's test with Pate's, The Crypt, Sir Thomas Rich's, and three other schools, but its admissions policy is structured more gently than Pate's: it keeps sibling priority (which Pate's dropped entirely) and gives a soft priority band to Gloucester postcodes GL1-4, rather than drawing a chunk of its intake nationally the way Pate's does. Its own founding year is genuinely unclear — the school's site, GIAS, and Wikipedia each point to a different date — so we're not picking one.

Key facts

Gender: girls
Age range: 11-18
Region: South West
Local authority: Gloucestershire
DfE URN: 136666
Website: https://www.denmarkroad.org/

Admissions

Admissions authority: The school sets its own test and criteria
Entrance test board: Widely reported as GL Assessment, shared across Gloucestershire's seven-school consortium, though neither the school's nor the council's own policy names the provider directly. Switching to Future Stories Community Enterprise (FSCE) from the test sat in summer 2027 — affecting September 2028 entry, not the current cycle.partly verified
GL Assessment is named consistently by independent 11+ guides, but neither the school's nor the council's own policy documents name a provider directly.
Test format: Two multiple-choice papers, sat once, covering verbal ability, numerical reasoning and non-verbal reasoning, on the same day as all seven consortium schools.
Qualifying / pass mark: No fixed pass mark. The Published Admission Number is 150; the 'Qualifying Standard' is set annually by the Admissions Committee 'having regard to' that year's standardised scores, with no fixed ratio or per-paper minimum published (unlike Pate's, which explicitly fixes a top-250 Qualifying Group and per-paper minimums for its own 150 places). A separate, lower 'Priority Standard' applies only to applicants with a Gloucester postcode (GL1-GL4).
Superselective?: Nopartly verified
A structural comparison against Pate's own determined policy plus consistent secondary-source characterisation of Pate's as the consortium outlier — not a direct numeric comparison, since no primary source gives Denmark Road's own cutoff relative to its other consortium peers.

Catchment & priority criteria

No formal catchment area, but a soft priority band applies to Gloucester postcodes GL1-GL4, where a lower 'Priority Standard' (rather than the full Qualifying Standard) can qualify a candidate for one specific priority category.

Looked-after and previously looked-after children who met the Qualifying Standard
In-Gloucestershire Pupil Premium-eligible applicants, up to a cap matching the national Pupil Premium rate of the school's admission number
Out-of-Gloucestershire Pupil Premium-eligible applicants, filling any remaining share of that same cap
Children of staff (2+ years' service, or a skill-shortage appointment)
Applicants meeting the Qualifying or lower Priority Standard who live in Gloucester (GL1-GL4) — looked-after children first, then those with a sibling at the school, then by rank
Applicants with a sibling at the school
All other qualifying applicants, by rank order of score

Results

Year	Attainment 8	GCSE 5+ Eng & Maths	Progress 8	A*–A	A*–B
2025	72.9 (England average 46.0)	94.2% (England average 45.4%)	Not calculated by DfE — no KS2 baseline data for this cohort nationally	—	—
A-level (122 entrants): average grade B- (37.31 points/entry, England average B-/35.0), value-added score -0.08 ('average') — the first year DfE could publish a post-COVID A-level progress score.
2024	77.0 (England average 45.9)	98.0% (England average 45.9%)	+0.93 (the school's own site separately states +0.94 for the same year — a minor rounding difference, not a substantive conflict)	—	—
A-level (99 entrants): average grade B (40.18 points/entry).

Ofsted

Rating: Under Ofsted's post-2025 report-card framework: 'Strong standard' — the second-highest of five bands — across every evaluated area (Achievement, Attendance and behaviour, Curriculum and teaching, Inclusion, Leadership and governance, Personal development and wellbeing, Post-16 provision), with safeguarding met. This supersedes a 2021 'Good' rating under the old framework that some secondary sources still repeat.
Date: 24 February 2026
Report: Read the full report

Sources

1. DfE Get Information About Schools — URN, status, gender, capacity, LA — https://www.get-information-schools.service.gov.uk/Establishments/Establishment/Details/136666
2. Admissions Policy, Year 7-11 entry 2027 — https://www.gloucestershire.gov.uk/media/q4ocfido/denmar-1.pdf
3. Comparator: Pate's Grammar School's determined arrangements for September 2026 entry — https://www.gloucestershire.gov.uk/media/oxvnhfgb/pates-determined-admissions-policy-for-september-2026-entry.pdf
4. School's own admissions 2027 page — test date, no-catchment statement — https://www.denmarkroad.org/join-us/admissions/admissions-2027-1
5. School's own news page confirming the incoming FSCE test-provider change from 2028 entry — https://www.denmarkroad.org/news-dates/latest-news/item/63/update-to-admissions-test-arrangements
6. Ofsted report, inspected 24 February 2026 — https://files.ofsted.gov.uk/v1/file/50302646
7. DfE Compare School Performance — 2025 A-level results — https://www.compare-school-performance.service.gov.uk/school/136666/denmark-road-high-school/16-to-18/advanced-level-qualifications
8. Achieve Learning's Gloucestershire 11+ parents' guide — characterises Pate's as the consortium outlier — https://achievelearning.co.uk/grammar-schools-in-gloucestershire-a-parents-11-guide/

Last updated 2026-08-30. Spotted something wrong? Tell us.