Altrincham, Greater Manchester · Trafford

Loreto Grammar School

Faith status decides admission before the test score does — and unlike Altrincham Boys' or Urmston, it doesn't publish a numeric score at all.

Loreto is a Roman Catholic girls' academy under the Sisters of Loreto, and its admissions look structurally different from the rest of the Trafford grammar schools covered in this index. It isn't part of the shared five-school consortium test — it sits its own separate exam — and instead of the standardised score threshold used by Altrincham Grammar School for Boys and Urmston Grammar (334 general, 324 Pupil Premium), Loreto ranks applicants through a run of faith-based priority categories first, with test performance mattering only as a qualifying hurdle and then a tie-breaker within each category. That makes a direct 'superselective' comparison to its non-denominational neighbours genuinely not possible.

Key facts

Gender: girls
Age range: 11-18
Region: North West
Local authority: Trafford
Established: 1909
DfE URN: 138464
Website: https://www.loretogrammar.co.uk/

Admissions

Admissions authority: The school sets its own test and criteria
Entrance test board: GL Assessment supplies the English and Verbal Reasoning papers; Mathematics is set, sat and marked internally by the school. Not the same test as the five-school non-denominational Trafford consortium (Altrincham Boys and Girls, Sale, Stretford, Urmston).
Test format: Three papers in one morning: English (GL Assessment), Verbal Reasoning (GL Assessment), and Mathematics (set internally by the school) — no non-verbal reasoning paper. Sat on a different date from the wider Trafford consortium's shared sitting.
Qualifying / pass mark: No numeric standardised score is published — confirmed both by the school's own admissions policy, which refers only to an unquantified 'qualifying score', and independently by a specialist 11+ guide stating the school doesn't disclose raw marks. Selection instead runs through faith-based priority categories; within any oversubscribed category, Pupil Premium-eligible girls come first, then highest exam marks, then distance as a final tie-break.partly verified
That no numeric score is published is a confirmed, sourced finding rather than a research gap — but it also means no cutoff figure can be given even for context.
Superselective?: Not establishedverify with school
No numeric score exists to compare against Altrincham Boys'/Urmston's — a structural absence rather than a missed lookup.

Catchment & priority criteria

No simple postcode catchment. Priority instead depends on being a baptised Catholic girl attending an 'associated' primary school within one of two nominated Local Pastoral Areas spanning parishes across Altrincham, Sale, Partington, Stretford, Urmston, Flixton and nearby areas — a full list of parishes and their associated primary schools is published in the school's admissions policy.

All categories require passing the entrance examination first.
Baptised Catholic looked-after and previously looked-after girls
Baptised Catholic girls with a sister already at the school
Baptised Catholic girls at an associated primary school within a nominated parish area
Other baptised Catholic girls
Other looked-after and previously looked-after girls (any faith)
Baptised girls of other denominations
All other girls
Within any oversubscribed category: Pupil Premium-eligible girls first, then highest exam marks, then distance to school

Results

Year	Attainment 8	GCSE 5+ Eng & Maths	Progress 8	A*–A	A*–B
2025	73.7	sources conflict — 92.4% per one DfE-data aggregator, 97.5% per a separate source describing the same measure; not resolved	Not calculated — no KS2 baseline data for this cohort nationally	49% (68 A* + 137 A of 419 entries)	79% (330 of 419 entries)
A-level figures computed directly from the school's own published results PDF and cross-confirmed against its own results announcement: 419 total entries.
2024	—	—	—	55.1% (59 A* + 107 A of 301 entries)	87.0% (262 of 301 entries)
GCSE headline figures for this year are not used — the only Attainment 8 figure found (73.7) is identical to 2025's from a different source, strongly suggesting the two years were conflated rather than reflecting genuine 2024 data. A-level figures are solid, computed directly from the school's own results PDF (301 entries).

Ofsted

Rating: Outstanding
Date: 28 September 2022
Report: Read the full report

Sources

1. DfE Get Information About Schools — URN, status, gender, religious character, LA — https://get-information-schools.service.gov.uk/Establishments/Establishment/Details/138464
2. Ofsted report, inspected 28 September 2022 — https://files.ofsted.gov.uk/v1/file/50198372
3. School's official Admissions Policy, 2026 entry — admissions authority, priority categories, test format, PAN, pastoral areas — https://passelevenplus.co.uk/app/uploads/2025/10/Loreto-Grammar-School-Admissions-Policy-2026-Entry.pdf
4. School's own current admissions page — September 2027 entry test date and process — https://www.loretogrammar.co.uk/Admissions/Open-Day-2026/
5. School's own examination results and statistics page — https://www.loretogrammar.co.uk/Curriculum/Examination-Results-Statistics/
6. School's own 2025 A-level results PDF — https://www.loretogrammar.co.uk/docs/Examination_results/A_Level_results_2025.pdf
7. School's own 2024 A-level results PDF — https://www.loretogrammar.co.uk/docs/Examination_results/A_Level_results_2024.pdf
8. Independent confirmation the school doesn't publish raw scores — https://exampapersplus.co.uk/advice/11-plus-year-6/loreto-grammar-school-11-plus-11-exam-information/

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