Birmingham grammar schools & how to get in.
Birmingham and the wider West Midlands have 11 grammar schools — including the well-known King Edward VI foundation. Some are super-selective (admitted on score alone); others combine the test with a catchment area. The tests differ too. This page explains how it works and lets you check your postcode against every one.
Check your postcode against every West Midlands grammar
See which schools you fall inside the catchment of, which admit on score alone, and your distance to each — free, no account needed.
Real, published boundaries and the latest distance cut-offs — not straight-line estimates.
How West Midlands grammar admissions work.
There isn’t one West Midlands test. Birmingham’s grammars — the King Edward VI foundation (Aston, Camp Hill, Five Ways, Handsworth) plus the Sutton Coldfield schools — use the shared Birmingham consortium 11+; Walsall’s Queen Mary’s schools and Wolverhampton Girls’ High run their own. You register in the spring or summer of Year 6, sit the relevant test that September, then apply through your home council by 31 October.
Offers go out on 1 March. Demand is high — the King Edward VI schools are among the most applied-to in the country — so qualifying alone rarely secures a place.
How the remaining places are allocated depends on each school’s model.
Two models — score, or catchment.
About 4 of the 11 are fully super-selective: places go to the highest scorers and where you live is irrelevant — Sutton Coldfield Grammar for Girls, Walsall’s two Queen Mary’s schools and Wolverhampton Girls’ High.
The other 7 use the test as a gateway and then prioritise a catchment: the six King Edward VI schools in Birmingham use ward-based areas, and Bishop Vesey’s in Sutton Coldfield a distance radius. Several Birmingham grammars also reserve places for Pupil-Premium-eligible children at a slightly lower score — a widening-access route worth checking per school.
GrammarBound maps the catchment-based schools’ areas and the latest distances — open the map or check your postcode above.
Every West Midlands grammar school, by area.
All 11 grammar schools across Birmingham, Sutton Coldfield, Walsall and Wolverhampton. Each links to a plain-English admissions guide.