Apply to Marling School, in plain English.
Marling is a selective boys' grammar in Stroud that fills all 150 Year 7 places in rank order of the shared Gloucestershire Grammar Schools' test score — there is no catchment area. In 2025 it drew around 410 applications for 150 places. You must register for the test by 26 June 2026, then name the school on your council's Common Application Form by 31 October 2026.
The three things to know first.
If you read nothing else on this page, read these.
One shared test, used by all seven Gloucestershire grammars — register by 26 June 2026.
Marling uses the Gloucestershire Grammar Schools' Entrance Test (the G7 test), set by GL Assessment for 2027 entry. You register once and the same score is used by every G7 school you apply to. The test is sat on Saturday 12 September 2026; registration closes on 26 June 2026 and each child may take the test only once.
Places go in rank order of test score — there is no catchment.
The school doesn't have a designated area, and accepts applications from outside Gloucestershire. After looked-after children and Pupil Premium families (see the criteria below), every remaining place is offered to the highest-scoring boys in rank order, wherever they live. Meeting the qualifying standard does not guarantee a place — it only makes your son eligible to be ranked.
Pupil Premium gives priority; a trust feeder primary is a tie-break — flag eligibility at registration.
Boys from families eligible for Pupil Premium (broadly, registered for free school meals at any point in the previous six years) who reach the required standard are ranked ahead of other qualifiers. Where two boys are otherwise equally ranked, attending a Cotswold Beacon Academy Trust primary then living closer to school break the tie. There is no sibling, staff, faith or Service Premium priority.
Five steps — starting now.
If more boys qualify than there are places, these 3 criteria decide.
Only boys who meet the qualifying standard are considered. They are then placed in these priority groups; within each group, the highest test score comes first. Tap any criterion to see the exact wording.
In plain English: Boys who are or were in council care (including those adopted from care or under a special guardianship / child arrangements order, and children who were in state care outside England) get the highest priority, provided they meet the qualifying standard. This group is small in practice.
What the document says: Any 'looked after child' or child who was previously looked after but immediately after being looked after became subject to an adoption, child arrangements, or special guardianship order (including those who appear to the admission authority to have been in state care outside of England and ceased to be in state care as a result of being adopted) who have met the qualifying standard.
In plain English: Boys attracting Pupil Premium funding — broadly, those registered for free school meals at any point in the six years before the test — who reach the required standard are ranked ahead of other qualifying boys. You must send the school verifiable evidence of eligibility before test day; the school checks it with the local authority. This criterion applies to Pupil Premium only — there is no Service Premium priority at Marling.
What the document says: Any candidate attracting Pupil Premium funding (those who have been registered for free school meals at any point in the six years prior to the test day) who have met the qualifying standard.
In plain English: Every remaining place goes to the highest-scoring qualifying boys in rank order, regardless of where they live. There is no catchment area. Where boys have exactly the same score, a tie-break decides (see the note below the criteria).
What the document says: Other candidates who have met the qualifying standard in test rank order. Where there are a number of equally ranked candidates, the tie-break criteria will be used to determine the rank order.
Tie-breaker: if two boys have an equal combined score, the higher rank goes first to a boy who attended a Cotswold Beacon Academy Trust feeder primary (from registration until at least the December of Year 6), and then to the boy living closest to the school, measured in a straight line from home to the school's address point using Ordnance Survey software. If that still cannot separate them, places are decided by supervised random allocation.
No geographic boundary. Rank order decides everything.
Marling has no catchment area and no geographic restriction — the policy says the school does not have a set catchment area, and it accepts applications from outside Gloucestershire. After looked-after children and Pupil Premium families are placed, every remaining place goes to the highest-ranking qualifying boys by combined standardised test score — regardless of where they live. A boy in Gloucester, the Cotswolds or the Forest of Dean competes on exactly the same terms as one in Stroud. The circle drawn on our map is illustrative only — it is not a real boundary.
Distance is used only as a tie-breaker between two boys with identical scores, and only after the trust feeder-primary tie-break: the one living closer (straight-line, by Ordnance Survey software) ranks higher, and if still tied, a supervised random draw decides. For everyone else, home address has no bearing on the outcome.
See Marling's location on the GrammarBound mapTwo boys ranked by score — not by where they live.
Both boys are in criterion 3 (everyone else, by rank). Child A scored 342 and lives far from school; Child B scored 329 and lives close by. Child A ranks above Child B because score — not proximity — decides. Distance would only matter if their scores were exactly equal.
You have two routes, and you can use both.
Waiting list
If the school is oversubscribed, a Year 7 waiting list is held and prioritised by the same oversubscription criteria in rank order (the feeder-primary and distance tie-breaks apply if needed), irrespective of when you applied. Each time a boy is added, the list is re-ranked. Only boys who met the qualifying standard can join it. The list is held until 31 December of Year 7.
Request via the school's Admissions Office, following the LA's waiting-list process.
Appeal
You have the right to appeal to an independent appeals panel. For a selective school the panel must be satisfied your son met the qualifying standard, so successful appeals are uncommon. A child who did not sit the autumn test can request a late test if applying through their local authority. Appealing does not remove your son from the waiting list.
Joining Year 12 from outside.
Marling admits a minimum of 50 external students into Year 12 alongside its own Year 11. The sixth form is co-educational — girls are welcome, even though Years 7–11 are boys only.
The grade floor.
You need a minimum of 50 points across your best 8 GCSEs in separate subjects (the numerical grade is the point score), with at least grade 5 in both GCSE English Language and Mathematics. Individual A-level subjects also set their own GCSE entry grades, listed in the Sixth Form Curriculum Guide. The same requirements apply to internal and external applicants.
Apply direct to the school.
A minimum of 50 external places are available for September entry, with the Year 12 cohort capped at around 200. Apply directly to Marling via the sixth form website; the Year 7 admissions criteria do not apply to sixth-form entry. You will be invited to an advisory discussion, and conditional offers are confirmed once GCSE results are in. Where external places are oversubscribed, priority goes to looked-after children, then Pupil Premium, then the highest average GCSE score. There is a right of appeal if a place is not offered.