Gloucester, Gloucestershire · Gloucestershire
Sir Thomas Rich's School
Started life in 1668 as a residential Blue Coat charity school for 20 poor boys — boarding ended in 1882, when the dormitories became classrooms.
Sir Thomas Rich's began as the Blue Coat Hospital, a residential charity school for 20 poor boys, funded by a 1666 will and opened in 1668 — its own commissioned history records the dormitories being converted into classrooms when an 1882 Endowed Schools Act reorganisation turned it into a day school, which it has remained ever since. It teaches boys 11-16 with a genuinely co-educational sixth form (Ofsted's own report confirms both boys and girls join externally at 16). It's one of Gloucestershire's seven consortium grammar schools, running the same rank-order admissions mechanism as [The Crypt](/schools/the-crypt-school/) and [Pate's](/schools/pates-grammar-school/) — no catchment, no sibling priority — though independent guides consistently place it below Pate's in effective selectivity.
Key facts
- Gender
- boys
- Age range
- 11-18
- Region
- South West
- Local authority
- Gloucestershire
- DfE URN
- 136306
- Website
- https://strschool.co.uk/
Admissions
- Admissions authority
- The school sets its own test and criteria
- Entrance test board
- The shared Gloucestershire Grammar Schools' entrance test, administered jointly with the other six consortium schools. Independent guides consistently name GL Assessment as the marking provider, though the schools' own joint admissions booklet calls it only 'an independent company appointed by Gloucestershire Grammar Schools' without naming it.partly verified
GL Assessment is named consistently by independent 11+ guides, but the schools' own joint consortium admissions booklet deliberately doesn't name the provider.
- Test format
- Two papers of about 45-50 minutes, sat the same day as all seven consortium schools: verbal ability (comprehension, vocabulary, verbal reasoning), numerical reasoning, and non-verbal reasoning, standardised per paper and combined into one rank-order score — explicitly not a pre-defined pass mark.
- Qualifying / pass mark
- No fixed pass mark. The Published Admission Number is 155 for September 2027 entry (raised from 150 the prior two years); the 'qualifying standard' is a rank-order cutoff recalculated each year by the Admission Committee once that cohort's results are in, with a lower standard applying to Pupil Premium/looked-after boys.
- Superselective?
- Nopartly verified
Based on converging secondary/tutoring-industry sources rather than official published scores, since no consortium school pre-announces a cutoff.
Uses the same rank-order mechanism as its Gloucestershire consortium partners with no separately published national benchmark. Multiple independent 11+ guides consistently place it toward the less competitive end of the seven-school consortium — commonly citing roughly 75%+ on practice papers as 'on track', against 85%+ typically cited for Pate's, described elsewhere as the most competitive of the seven. Its PAN also rose from 150 to 155 for the current cycle, which if anything eases selection pressure slightly. No school in the consortium publishes an exact cutoff score, so this rests on converging secondary sources rather than official data.
Catchment & priority criteria
None — no geographic catchment or distance-based priority category. Places go by test rank order, subject only to looked-after-children, Pupil Premium, and (newly added for 2027-28) staff-children carve-outs. Distance is used only as the final tie-break between identical scores. There is no sibling priority either.
- Looked-after and previously looked-after children who met the qualifying standard
- Pupil Premium-eligible boys who met the qualifying standard
- Children of staff (2+ years' service, or a skill-shortage appointment) who met the qualifying standard — new for 2027-28 entry
- All other qualifying boys, by rank order of score
Results
| Year | Attainment 8 | GCSE 5+ Eng & Maths | Progress 8 | A*–A | A*–B |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 76.9 (England average 45.9) | 98.7% (England average 45.9%) | +0.91 (England average -0.03) | 48% (school-reported, 'best 3' basis) | 84% (school-reported, 'best 3' basis) |
| A-level via DfE: average point score 44.30, value-added +0.2, both above the national average. The school's own self-reported 'best 3' A-level figures (48% A*-A, 84% A*-B) use a different basis than DfE's official measure. | |||||
| 2025 | 77.1 (England average 45.9) | 98.7% (England average 45.2%) | Not calculated by DfE — no KS2 baseline data for this cohort nationally | — | — |
| A-level via DfE: average point score 44.04, value-added +0.2, both above the national average. | |||||
| 2026 | — | — | — | 58% (school-reported) | — |
| School-reported only, not yet on DfE's validated tables: ~99% grade 4+ at GCSE, 52% grades 8-9; 99.3% A-level pass rate, 3.1 A-levels per candidate average. This cohort's KS2 baseline was also cancelled, so it won't carry a Progress 8 score either. | |||||
Ofsted
- Rating
- Under Ofsted's post-2025 report-card framework (no single overall grade): 'Strong standard' — the second-highest of five bands — in all seven evaluated areas (Achievement, Attendance and behaviour, Curriculum and teaching, Inclusion, Leadership and governance, Personal development and wellbeing, Post-16 provision). Safeguarding standards met. The prior inspection (2021, old framework) rated the school Good overall.
- Date
- 9 December 2025
- Report
- Read the full report
Sources
- 1. DfE Get Information About Schools — URN, status, gender, boarding provision, capacity, LA — https://get-information-schools.service.gov.uk/Establishments/Establishment/Details/136306
- 2. Ofsted report, inspected 9 December 2025 — https://files.ofsted.gov.uk/v1/file/50294829
- 3. Determined Admissions Policy for 2027-28 entry — https://www.gloucestershire.gov.uk/media/10efpvz3/sirtho-1.pdf
- 4. Gloucestershire Grammar Schools (G7) joint admissions information booklet, September 2027 entry — https://strschool.co.uk/uploads/G7_information_booklet_2027_4cbbd9f391.pdf
- 5. School's own Year 7 admissions page — https://strschool.co.uk/admissions/year7
- 6. School's own exam results page — https://strschool.co.uk/about/examresults
- 7. The History of Sir Thomas Rich's School, Gloucester (school's own commissioned history) — founding, boarding institution 1668-1882, conversion to day school — https://strschool.co.uk/uploads/The_History_of_Sir_Thomas_Rich_s_School_1f12ba2159.pdf
Last updated 2026-08-30. Spotted something wrong? Tell us.