Devon grammar schools & how to get in.
Devon has 7 grammar schools — three in Plymouth, three in Torbay and Colyton Grammar in the east. Unusually, every one is super-selective: places go on test score, not where you live. This page explains the tests and lets you compare all 7.
Compare your commute to every Devon grammar
See your distance and drive time to each school, plus full results and details — free, no account needed.
Distances and commute times, free to check. (Devon grammars admit on score, so there are no catchment areas.)
How Devon grammar admissions work.
Devon’s grammars don’t share one test. Plymouth’s three — Devonport High for Boys, Devonport High for Girls and Plymouth High for Girls — use the Plymouth test; Torbay’s three — Torquay Boys’, Torquay Girls’ and Churston Ferrers — use the Torbay test; and Colyton Grammar in East Devon runs its own.
You register and sit the relevant test in the autumn of Year 6, then apply through your home council by 31 October. Offers go out on 1 March.
Where the schools differ from most of England is what happens above the pass mark.
All admitted on score.
All 7 Devon grammars are super-selective: among children who reach the qualifying standard, places go to the highest scorers, and where you live makes no difference. There are no catchment areas — a child from Exeter competes on the same footing as one next door.
That makes the test score, not your postcode, the deciding factor — though distance and commute still matter for daily life, especially with three schools clustered in Plymouth and three in Torbay.
GrammarBound shows each school’s distance, results and details — open the map or check your postcode above.
Every Devon grammar school, by area.
All 7 grammar schools across Plymouth, Torbay and East Devon. Each links to a plain-English admissions guide.