Gloucester, Gloucestershire · Gloucestershire
Ribston Hall High School
No published Qualifying Group beyond its own admission number — like most of the Gloucestershire consortium, but structurally lighter than Pate's.
Ribston Hall has taught girls since 1921, with a co-educational sixth form since 1990. It shares the Gloucestershire consortium's GL Assessment test with six other schools, but — like Denmark Road, The Crypt, Sir Thomas Rich's and Marling — its own admissions policy sets no enlarged 'Qualifying Group' beyond its 150-place admission number, unlike Pate's, which explicitly ranks the top 250 candidates against the same-sized intake. It has no catchment area, and its full 100-place buffer for looked-after and Pupil Premium children sits closer to typical practice for the consortium's 'standard six' schools than to Pate's outlier model.
Key facts
- Gender
- girls
- Age range
- 11-18
- Region
- South West
- Local authority
- Gloucestershire
- Established
- 1921
- DfE URN
- 136767
- Website
- https://www.ribstonhall.gloucs.sch.uk
Admissions
- Admissions authority
- The school sets its own test and criteria
- Entrance test board
- GL Assessment, confirmed for the September 2027 entry cycle. Switching to Future Stories Community Enterprise (FSCE) from September 2028 entry — the school's own materials specify this applies to the current Year 4 cohort, not the live 2027 cycle.partly verified
GL Assessment for the current cycle is well-confirmed by the school's own site; the FSCE transition timing is confirmed by the school's own news page.
- Test format
- Two multiple-choice papers, about 45 minutes each, sat the same day as all seven Gloucestershire consortium schools: Paper 1 covers verbal skills; Paper 2 covers non-verbal reasoning and mathematical knowledge.
- Qualifying / pass mark
- No fixed pass mark. The Published Admission Number is 150; the qualifying standard is set only after all scripts are marked, as a rank-order cutoff. Unlike Pate's, Ribston Hall publishes no equivalent 'Qualifying Group' figure — only a 100-place buffer below the qualifying standard used for its looked-after-children and Pupil Premium priority categories. A separate Cognitive Ability Test (minimum mean score 110) applies only to in-year applicants joining outside the normal Year 7 round.
- Superselective?
- Nopartly verified
Based on commercial 11+ guides rather than official comparative data — neither Ribston Hall nor Pate's publishes historical cutoff scores.
Structurally matches the five 'standard' Gloucestershire consortium schools rather than Pate's: same PAN-based rank order with no disclosed enlarged qualifying pool. Independent 11+ guides consistently single out Pate's alone as needing a markedly higher score; Ribston Hall is described only as 'usually oversubscribed', which is true of every consortium grammar and isn't evidence of superselective status on its own.
Catchment & priority criteria
None — the school states this explicitly. Priority runs through the criteria below, with straight-line distance used only as the final tie-break.
- Looked-after and previously looked-after children who met the qualifying standard, or rank within 100 places below it
- 30 places reserved for Pupil Premium-eligible candidates meeting the same standard: Gloucester-postcode (GL1-GL4) applicants first, then all others
- All remaining places by rank order within the qualifying standard
Results
| Year | Attainment 8 | GCSE 5+ Eng & Maths | Progress 8 | A*–A | A*–B |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | — | — | — | 28.8% (11 A* + 35 A of 160 entries) | 48% |
| The school's own results document left its Attainment 8 line blank, and its combined-subjects summary table appears to show entry counts rather than pupil percentages for this year — neither figure is reported here rather than risk a misleading number. Progress 8 wasn't available (no KS2 baseline for this cohort nationally). | |||||
| 2024 | — | 98% at grade 4+ (the school's own figure for this year is the grade-4+ 'standard pass' measure, not confirmed to match DfE's grade-5+ headline measure) | — | 16.7% (8 A* + 20 A of 168 entries) | 39.2% |
| Attainment 8 and Progress 8 were both left blank in the school's own results document for this year and weren't independently confirmed elsewhere. | |||||
Ofsted
- Rating
- Under Ofsted's post-2025 report-card framework: 'Strong standard' in Achievement, Attendance and behaviour, Curriculum and teaching, and Personal development and wellbeing; 'Expected standard' — the middle band — in Inclusion, Leadership and governance, and Post-16 provision. Safeguarding met. The prior inspection (2022, old framework) rated the school Good overall.
- Date
- 12 May 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/136767
- 2. Determined Admissions Policy, entry 2027-2028 — https://www.ribstonhall.gloucs.sch.uk/attachments/download.asp?file=129&type=pdf
- 3. School's own admissions page for September 2027 entry — https://www.ribstonhall.gloucs.sch.uk/become-a-student-here/admissions-for-september-2027
- 4. School's own news article confirming the FSCE transition applies from September 2028 entry — https://www.ribstonhall.gloucs.sch.uk/news-and-events/news/update-to-admission-test-arrangements
- 5. Ofsted report, inspected 12 May 2026 — https://files.ofsted.gov.uk/v1/file/50306134
- 6. School's own history page — founded 1921 — https://www.ribstonhall.gloucs.sch.uk/our-school/history
- 7. School's own GCSE results 2024/25 — https://www.ribstonhall.gloucs.sch.uk/attachments/download.asp?file=136&type=pdf
- 8. School's own A-level results 2025 — https://www.ribstonhall.gloucs.sch.uk/attachments/download.asp?file=137&type=pdf
- 9. Comparator: Pate's Grammar School's determined admissions policy — https://gloucestershire.gov.uk/media/jxmc0brf/pates-1.pdf
Last updated 2026-08-30. Spotted something wrong? Tell us.