The story behind GrammarBound.
GrammarBound maps the real catchment areas of every grammar school in England — boundaries taken from each school's published admissions policy and checked by hand, not straight-line estimates. It's built and maintained by one person: me, Joe.
Who built this
I'm Joe. I went to a grammar school in Kent, where I had the most wonderful time and made friends for life. That experience is a big part of who I am, and I want other children to have the chance at it too.
Years later, as a parent, I started thinking about a house move and quickly hit a wall: I wanted to know which grammar schools we'd actually be in catchment for, and every tool I could find only showed estimates — usually a straight-line circle around the school — rather than the real boundaries that admissions are decided on. The real boundaries are wards, parishes and carefully-worded distance rules buried in each school's admissions policy. So I built the tool I wanted to exist.
My background is in the detail this needs: an undergraduate degree in physics, a master's degree in artificial intelligence, and a day job as a product owner. GrammarBound is an independent project — just me, not a company.
Why GrammarBound exists
Where your family lives can decide whether your child is eligible for a particular grammar school — and families make real, expensive decisions on the back of it. A straight-line radius can be wrong by miles: two homes the same distance from a school can sit on opposite sides of a catchment boundary. Getting the geography right is the whole point, and it's what most tools get wrong.
How the catchments are mapped
Every catchment on GrammarBound comes from the source that actually governs admissions — the school's (or local authority's) published admissions policy and arrangements. For each of the 163 grammar schools in England, I read that policy and translate its rules into a boundary on the map in one of two ways:
- Named-area boundaries — where a school's priority area is defined by named wards, parishes or districts, the catchment is drawn as the real polygon of those areas, built from official Office for National Statistics (ONS) boundary data.
- Distance boundaries — where a school admits by distance, the boundary is drawn at the furthest distance offered a place in the most recent admissions round, as published by the school or local authority.
Every boundary is verified by a human against the published policy — not generated automatically and left unchecked. School details are then cross-checked against official Department for Education (DfE) performance data and Ofsted reports, and postcode searches are resolved using the open postcodes.io service.
Data sources
- School and local-authority published admissions policies and arrangements (the source of truth for every catchment and tie-break rule).
- Office for National Statistics — ward, parish and district boundary data.
- Department for Education — school performance and pupil data.
- Ofsted — inspection grades and reports.
- postcodes.io — postcode geocoding.
Coverage is now complete: all 163 grammar schools in England are mapped, and the data is maintained and re-checked as schools publish updated arrangements each year. Last reviewed: June 2026.
An honest note
GrammarBound is an analytical research tool to help you understand the geography of grammar-school admissions — it isn't an official source and it can't guarantee a place. Admissions arrangements change, and edge cases exist. Always confirm the current criteria directly with the school or local authority before making a decision or submitting an application.
Contact
Questions, corrections or feedback are very welcome: hello@grammarbound.co.uk