Grammar School Index

Southend-on-Sea, Essex · Southend-on-Sea

Southend High School for Boys

83% of places go at essentially the CSSE consortium floor — only the small out-of-catchment allowance requires a genuinely high score.

Southend High Boys shares the CSSE consortium's test, but its catchment system makes it structurally less selective overall than schools like Colchester Royal Grammar or King Edward VI Grammar, which have no priority area at all. CSSE's own official historical guidance sheets show its in-catchment cutoff has sat at or barely above the consortium-wide floor of 303 in six of the last seven years — the large majority (150 of 180 places) clears at close to the minimum. Only the small out-of-catchment allowance (30 places) requires a score approaching the levels CRGS and KEGS demand of their entire intake.

Key facts

Gender
boys
Age range
11-18
Region
East of England
Local authority
Southend-on-Sea
DfE URN
136443
Website
https://www.shsb.org.uk

Admissions

Admissions authority
The school sets its own test and criteria
Entrance test board
The Consortium of Selective Schools in Essex (CSSE), a ten-school consortium formed in 1993.
Test format
Two papers: English (60 minutes plus 10 minutes' extra reading time) and Mathematics (60 minutes), both KS2-curriculum-based with no verbal or non-verbal reasoning, each weighted 50% and age-standardised.
Qualifying / pass mark
No fixed pass mark beyond the CSSE-wide floor of 303. The Published Admission Number is 180: 150 reserved for the in-catchment priority area, 30 for everyone else. For the most recently completed cycle (September 2025 entry), the last-place-offered score was 305 in-catchment and 342 out-of-catchment. Over 2019-2025, the in-catchment cutoff has stayed at or barely above 303 in six of seven years, while the out-of-catchment cutoff has risen from the low 300s toward the low 340s.
Superselective?
No

The large majority of places (150 of 180, about 83%, reserved for the SS0-SS9 priority area) are filled at or barely above the CSSE-wide floor in nearly every year on record — about as unselective as the consortium's rules allow. Only the smaller out-of-catchment allowance (30 places) requires a genuinely high score, which does approach Colchester Royal Grammar's uniform threshold — but CRGS has no priority area at all, so its entire intake clears that high bar, versus roughly a sixth of this school's. Because the school as a whole doesn't require a score well above the floor, it isn't superselective, in clear contrast to schools with no catchment cushioning their majority intake.

Catchment & priority criteria

A real, defined priority area covering postcode districts SS0 through SS9 (Southend-on-Sea, Westcliff, Leigh-on-Sea, Eastwood, Rochford, Shoeburyness, Hockley, Rayleigh, Benfleet and Canvey Island) — unlike Colchester Royal Grammar School, which CSSE's own documents note has none. Up to 150 of the 180 places go to priority-area residents who pass the test.

  1. Looked-after and previously looked-after children who passed the test
  2. In-catchment applicants who passed: up to 15 places first to Free School Meals/Pupil Premium-eligible applicants by rank order, then remaining catchment places by rank order
  3. Out-of-catchment applicants who passed: 10% of remaining places first to Free School Meals/Pupil Premium-eligible applicants by rank order, then the rest by rank order
  4. Tie-break for the final place: preferential-consideration status, then distance to school, then random allocation

Results

YearAttainment 8GCSE 5+ Eng & MathsProgress 8A*–AA*–B
202573.8 (Southend-on-Sea average 52.2, England average 46.1)97.2%Not calculated by DfE — no KS2 baseline data for this cohort nationally46.2%80.1%
A-level (664 entries): the 46.2% A*-A figure is calculated by summing per-subject grade counts from the school's own results document, not a headline figure the school states directly.
202473.9 (Southend-on-Sea average 51.3, England average 45.9)98.3%+0.74 ('well above average') — this cohort predates the COVID-era Progress 8 gap——

Ofsted

Rating
Outstanding
Date
12 June 2024
Report
Read the full report

Sources

  1. 1. DfE Get Information About Schools — URN, status, gender, LA — https://get-information-schools.service.gov.uk/Establishments/Establishment/Details/136443
  2. 2. School's own admissions criteria for entry 2026 — https://www.shsb.org.uk/_site/data/files/users/3/files/0C1326E825395C0B10E0B3844ED149B9.pdf
  3. 3. CSSE Information Guide, 2027 entry — ten member schools, test format, 303 floor, PAN — https://csse.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/CSSE-Information-Guide-2027-Entry.pdf
  4. 4. CSSE's own official historical guidance sheet for 2026 entry — last-place-offered scores by school, 2025 entry cycle — https://csse.org.uk/storage/2025/10/FOR-PUBLICATION-HISTORICAL-GUIDANCE-SHEET-FOR-2026-ENTRY.pdf
  5. 5. CSSE's own combined historical guidance sheets, 2019-2024 entry — https://csse.org.uk/storage/2025/10/Historical-Guidance-Sheets-2019-Entry-to-2024-Entry-1.pdf
  6. 6. Ofsted report, inspected 12 June 2024 — https://files.ofsted.gov.uk/v1/file/50252238
  7. 7. DfE Compare School Performance — 2025 GCSE results — https://www.compare-school-performance.service.gov.uk/school/136443/southend-high-school-for-boys/secondary
  8. 8. DfE Compare School Performance — historic Progress 8 (2023, 2024) — https://www.compare-school-performance.service.gov.uk/school/136443/southend-high-school-for-boys/secondary/progress-measures-for-2023-and-2024
  9. 9. School's own 2025 exam results document — https://www.shsb.org.uk/attachments/download.asp?file=3922&type=pdf

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