Burnham Grammar School Sixth Form Entry Requirements

Burnham Grammar School is a co-educational selective grammar school in Burnham, Buckinghamshire, whose sixth form admits external students on GCSE grades alone: 44 points from the best eight GCSEs for September 2026 entry, rising to 46 for September 2027, with at least a grade 5 in English and Mathematics. There is no 16+ test and no interview. The planned admission number for external Year 12 candidates is 40, within 205 Year 12 places.

The points rule, and which eight GCSEs are allowed to count

Burnham sets one arithmetic test at 16+ and builds everything else on top of it. The Admissions Policy for entry in 2026 puts it in a single clause: "The minimum academic entry criteria are a minimum of 44 points from the student's best 8 GCSEs (or equivalent) including English and Mathematics." Points map straight onto grades, with no weighting and no bonus for separate sciences — a grade 9 is worth nine points, a grade 4 is worth four, and the school prints the full conversion as a nine-column table in the policy itself.

Two restrictions decide whether a strong science candidate clears the bar or misses it. No more than three Science GCSEs and one Mathematics GCSE may be counted among the best eight, and a subject may appear only once. A candidate holding Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics and Further Mathematics has five results that the formula will only accept four of. The fifth is discarded, and its replacement is whatever comes next on the slip — often a weaker humanity or language, and often the reason a total that looked comfortable in the kitchen comes out two or three points short when the school does the sum.

Source: Burnham Grammar School Admissions Policy 2026 v1.00 FINAL and Admissions Policy 2027 v0.01 Final, sections 2, 16 and 17.

What 44 points looks like once the grade 5 floor is taken out

The policy states the aggregate and the subject floor as two separate clauses and never combines them, which is where most readers lose the thread. Alongside the points total, "Students must also achieve at least Grade 5 in English and Mathematics." That floor is not a way of reaching 44; it is a condition that sits underneath it.

Combine the two and the requirement becomes concrete. Take the least generous case a candidate can present while still qualifying: exactly a grade 5 in English Language and exactly a grade 5 in Mathematics. Those two subjects are compulsory members of the best eight, and they contribute ten points between them. That leaves six subjects to supply the remaining 34 points — an average just under six per subject. In practice that means four grade 6s and two grade 5s, or any combination that reaches the same total.

This is the calculation worth doing before results day rather than after it, because it shows how little slack the formula leaves. A candidate on grade 5 in both core subjects who then takes a grade 4 anywhere in the remaining six has to find that point back somewhere else, and the discarded fifth science makes that harder, not easier. A candidate who lifts English and Mathematics to grade 6 each buys back two points and can absorb a weaker result elsewhere. The floor and the aggregate interact, and the school's own documents leave the reader to notice that.

September 2027 entry needs 46 points, and the school explains why

The entry-criteria document currently linked from Burnham's sixth form admissions page is headed "Year 12 Entry Criteria 2026", and it states 44 points. A family planning for the following September will take that figure away and be wrong by two points, because the school has already determined a different one.

The Admissions Policy for entry in 2027 raises the three-A-level threshold to 46 points from the best eight, with the grade 5 floor in English and Mathematics unchanged. The policy's document history is unusually candid about the reason, recording on 25 September 2025 a change made to "Align with other Bucks Grammars" and described as an "Increase in capped points score for continuation or entry into Yr12". This is not a drafting tidy-up. It applies to internal Year 11 students continuing into the sixth form as well as to external applicants, and it is the kind of change that is determined a year in advance and then sits in a policy PDF that almost nobody opens.

Run the same subtraction on the new figure and it lands on a round number. A candidate at exactly grade 5 in English and Mathematics still banks ten points, so the other six subjects must now supply 36 — which is six grade 6s and nothing less. Two points on the headline removes the option of carrying a single grade 5 through the middle of the profile. That is a larger practical change than the arithmetic suggests.

Burnham against its Buckinghamshire neighbours

Buckinghamshire grammar schools use the same best-8 points machinery, and the temptation is to assume the numbers travel with it. They do not, and the three schools nearest this decision are moving in three different directions.

Source: each school's own determined admissions policy for the year of entry named — Burnham 2026 and 2027, Aylesbury Grammar 2027 (determined 5 December 2025), Beaconsfield High 2027.

Read across the rows and the point is plain. Aylesbury Grammar holds at 44 for 2027 while Burnham moves to 46, so a candidate who would clear one will not automatically clear the other in the same year. Beaconsfield High sits two points above Burnham in both years and sets a lower four-subject gate, at 63 rather than 66, which means the two schools disagree about whether a fourth A level should be harder or easier to reach than the neighbouring school makes it. Any figure carried across from a sibling school, a forum, or a page about "Bucks grammar sixth forms" in general is a guess. Read the policy for the school and the year.

The fourth A level, and the 66-point gate that has not moved

Most students at Burnham take three A levels. The Head of Sixth Form's welcome letter mentions that a minority take four and that there is "a higher capped GCSE points target" for doing so, without saying what it is. The policy does: 66 points from the best eight, in both the 2026 and the 2027 documents.

That is an average of a shade over eight points per subject across eight GCSEs — the territory of four grade 9s, two grade 8s and two grade 7s, or something close to it. The gap between the three-subject and four-subject gates is therefore more than twenty points in both years, which is not a nudge upward but a different category of candidate. The school also records when it set the figure: on 20 September 2022, for "Suitability to study 4 A levels", it raised the capped points score from 60 to 66. The three-subject threshold moved in 2027 and the four-subject one did not, so the two are converging slightly.

Subject grades, where offers are actually refused

Clearing the aggregate does not produce an offer. Burnham publishes a subject-by-subject table, and several of its thresholds sit well above the average implied by 44 or 46 points. A candidate can pass the points rule and still be refused every course applied for.

Source: Burnham Grammar School, Year 12 Entry Criteria 2026, reproduced in full in the Sixth Form Information Booklet.

Three things in that table are worth reading twice. Mathematics wants a 7 and Physics wants the same 7 on top of its science profile, so the Physics and Mathematics pairing that many applicants assume is standard is in practice gated on a single GCSE result. Further Mathematics wants a grade 8, which is a full grade above the A level Mathematics requirement at the same school. And students who have not taken triple science are told they "will be expected to complete extra study and testing at the start of the course" — an accepted route, but not a quiet one.

Several courses accept candidates who did not take the GCSE at all, on stated conditions rather than at discretion. Drama will consider a student without GCSE Drama who holds a grade 6 in English Literature and can show practical involvement in a production or a drama club. Music will consider a student without GCSE Music where regular participation in an extra-curricular ensemble is in place. Computer Science will consider a student without the GCSE who can demonstrate programming skill in an appropriate language. These are written down, which means they can be prepared for.

Forty external places, 205 in the year group, and the sentence that lets the school go further

Burnham's planned admission number for external Year 12 candidates is 40, against 180 at Year 7. Read on its own, 40 looks like a hard ceiling. The next clause says otherwise: "For entry into Year 12, the total number of places available is 205," and current Year 11 students are not admitted under the policy at all — they transfer if they meet the criteria and want to. The school then reserves room to move, stating that "it may be possible to admit more than 40 external candidates to Year 12 (i.e., over PAN) once the number of current Year 11 students transferring to Year 12 is known."

The practical reading is that the external number floats. Every internal student who decides against the sixth form, or who misses the same threshold, releases capacity inside the 205. The Head of Sixth Form describes a sixth form of around 370 students joined by about 40 new entrants in Year 12, which is consistent with the planned number being close to the typical outcome rather than a cap that binds hard every year. The school's own history records the last deliberate change: on 20 September 2022 the external Year 12 number rose from 30 to 40, with the reason given simply as "New Building".

Context for how tight the site is: the Department for Education's establishment register lists Burnham Grammar School, URN 137564, with 1262 pupils against a school capacity of 1078. A school already running above its recorded capacity has a reason to be careful about how far over 40 it goes, and no obligation to publish where it lands.

If more candidates qualify than there are places

Because every external candidate offered a place has cleared the same threshold, the threshold cannot be what separates them. The policy sets a seven-step order of priority: looked-after and previously looked-after candidates first; then Pupil Premium candidates living in the school's catchment area; then siblings of current students; then siblings of former students; then qualified children of staff; then candidates with exceptional medical or social needs supported by written professional evidence; then all other candidates.

Most external applicants land in the last of those seven categories, which is where the tie-break decides everything. Burnham's tie-break is the GCSE capped points score again — "the tie breaker to the oversubscription criteria for Year 12 will be GCSE capped points score calculated as described above, provided their course preferences can be met." The same number that opens the door is then used to rank the people standing in it. Points above 44 are not surplus; they are the ranking.

Only where two candidates hold identical capped points scores does geography enter, and even then it is a last resort: places go by distance to applicants living within the catchment area first, and then by distance to those outside it.

Does catchment matter at 16+? Only in two places

This is where a Buckinghamshire family is most likely to import the wrong rule. At 11+, the county runs a coordinated selective system in which catchment is a live and often decisive part of the allocation. At 16+ it is not an eligibility condition at all. A candidate living outside Burnham's catchment area is fully eligible, applies on the same form, and is judged on the same criteria.

Catchment appears exactly twice in the Year 12 arrangements. It qualifies the Pupil Premium category, which is reserved for candidates "living in the catchment area of the school as at and continuously from 1 September of the year preceding entry to Year 12" — so an out-of-catchment Pupil Premium candidate does not get that priority. And it breaks ties at the very end, after capped points scores have been compared. Everything between those two points is blind to where you live.

The narrowing was deliberate and it is dated. The policy's document history records a change on 21 October 2024 for "Alignment of PP Changes with other Bucks Grammars for greater clarity", consisting of the "Removal of out of catchment PP preference rule and clarification of PP consideration date". The catchment area itself is defined not by the school but in the Buckinghamshire County Scheme, and the council publishes a checker by address.

No test, no interview — unlike every other year of entry at this school

Neither the 2026 nor the 2027 Admissions Policy uses the word "interview" anywhere. There is no 16+ entrance paper, no aptitude test and no admissions conversation that carries weight. An external candidate submits an application form, states subject choices, and is measured against grades.

That is worth stating explicitly because it is unusual within this school rather than typical of it. Entry at Year 7 requires a qualifying score of 121 in the Buckinghamshire Secondary Transfer Test or a successful Selection Review, which is a different exercise altogether and the subject of our Burnham Grammar School 11+ guide. Entry at Years 8 and 9 goes through the county's late transfer testing round. Entry at Years 10 and 11 is run by the school and, since a change recorded on 20 September 2022 "to ensure academic suitability at KS4", requires CAT tests plus a reading and writing test. Year 12 is the only point of entry to Burnham Grammar School at which a child is not sat down in front of a selective paper.

The administrative route differs too. Admissions for Years 7 to 9 are handled by Buckinghamshire Council; Year 10 and Year 12 are handled by the school. Sixth form applications from external candidates go directly to Burnham on its own form, not through the local authority's coordinated scheme, and the online form is explicitly labelled for external students only.

The application calendar, and two dates the school contradicts itself on

Applications for entry in September 2026 closed on 23 January 2026, and the school's admissions page now says so. That round is finished, and the value in it is the shape it gives the next one.

Source: Burnham Grammar School, BGS Sixth Form Information Booklet 2025/2026, timeline page.

Two of the school's own published dates disagree with each other, and both are the kind of thing that costs a family a deadline.

The first is the Open Evening. The sixth form admissions page states "Sixth Form Open Evening: Thursday 20th November 2026 - 5.30pm to 8.30pm" and gives the same date for applications opening. The prospectus timeline puts both on 20 November 2025. The prospectus is right and the web page is a stale label: 20 November 2025 was a Thursday, and 20 November 2026 is not. The same page then prints a closing date of Friday 23 January 2026, which would be two months before an open evening it dates to November 2026 — an ordering that cannot be true.

The second is the 2027 deadline. The 2026 policy sets the closing date as "the fourth Friday in January (23 January 2026)", and that is internally consistent. The 2027 policy changes the rule to the third Friday in January but prints "(16 January 2026)" beside it, carrying a date from the previous cycle. The rule governs, the worked date does not, and 16 January 2026 was the third Friday of January 2026 rather than of January 2027. A family working to that bracketed date would be planning around the wrong year.

Where a determined policy and a web page disagree, the determined policy governs — it is the document the school is legally bound by and the one an appeal panel will read. The practical advice is to take the rule from the policy for your year of entry, then confirm the exact calendar date with the school in writing before the autumn.

Applying with overseas or Scottish qualifications

A formula built on grades 1 to 9 has no obvious answer for a student arriving with Scottish Highers, an international system, or a mixture. Burnham names the body that decides: applications "from students who have obtained qualifications abroad, including Scottish Highers, will be considered by a Governors Admissions Appeals Committee chaired by a member of the SLT."

Two things follow. There is a defined route rather than a refusal, and it is a committee decision rather than an office conversion table, so the case has to be made in writing and made early. And because the minimum academic entry criteria are stated to be "the same for internal students and external candidates", a converted profile still has to satisfy both the aggregate and the subject-level requirements, not just the headline.

What to do with all of this

If you are working towards Burnham's sixth form from another school, three things settle the question and none of them is a test. Confirm which year of entry you are applying for and read that year's determined policy rather than the entry-criteria PDF on the website, because the two currently disagree by two points. Do the best-8 sum yourself, taking out the discarded fifth science and remembering that English and Mathematics are compulsory members of the eight; our GCSE resources cover the subjects that most often move that total. Then check the subject thresholds for the specific A levels you want, because Mathematics at 7, Further Mathematics at 8 and Physics at 7,6,6 plus a Mathematics 7 refuse more applicants than the aggregate ever does.

Everything above is drawn from documents Burnham publishes itself. Where the school's pages contradict one another, this page says which one governs and why, rather than picking the convenient number. Admissions policies are determined annually, so before you rely on any figure here, open the policy for your own year of entry on the school's policies page and check it has not moved again.

Frequently asked questions

Reviewed against Burnham Grammar School's determined Admissions Policy 2026 (v1.00 FINAL), Admissions Policy 2027 (v0.01 Final), Year 12 Entry Criteria 2026, BGS Sixth Form Information Booklet 2025/2026 and the school's sixth form admissions pages, together with the Department for Education establishment register, in August 2026. Admissions arrangements are determined annually — check the school's policies page for the document covering your year of entry.