Colyton Grammar School Sixth Form Entry Requirements 2026

Colyton Grammar School's sixth form has no entrance exam, no catchment area, and a flat GCSE grade-7 rule that governs every A-level choice. External Year 12 applicants apply online directly to the school, need 54 points from their best eight GCSEs including grade 5 in English and Maths, and then must clear grade 7 in the GCSE subject they want to study at A-level — with only two named numeric exceptions. The school offers 56 external places for September 2026, already confirmed to continue at 56 for September 2027, and — unlike almost every other selective school families research — has never operated a designated or catchment area at any entry point, not just at sixth form. With GCSE results due on Thursday 20 August 2026 and Colyton's own enrolment following the very next day, this guide sets out exactly what decides an external offer, right through to how a family without a car actually gets a child to a rural East Devon sixth form.

Colyton's own admissions pages are thin and scattered across five separate URLs, and the school's detailed rules sit inside two PDFs — a Sixth Form Admissions Policy and a long, image-heavy Sixth Form Prospectus — that neither Colyton's own site nor any third-party school-guide page currently mines in full. This page opens both, alongside Devon County Council's statutory admissions documents and the Department for Education's Get Information About Schools (GIAS) register, to bring the whole picture together in one place. For the school's Year 7 entry process rather than sixth form, see our separate Colyton Grammar School 11+ guide.

Does Colyton Grammar School's Sixth Form Have an Entrance Test?

There is no entrance exam for the Colyton Grammar School sixth form. External applicants complete an online application directly to the school — there is no written test, no assessment day and no interview built into the standard admissions process. The school's own admission process page states plainly: "There is no entrance exam to join the Colyton Grammar School sixth form but external applicants need to fill in an online application form."

In place of a test, entry is decided against a published academic floor. The minimum requirement is 54 points from your best eight GCSEs (or equivalent), including at least grade 5 in English and Mathematics, using the standard grade-equals-points scale. The school's statutory Sixth Form Admissions Policy caps which subjects can count toward that total: no more than 3 Science GCSEs, 1 Mathematics GCSE and 1 Physical Education GCSE may count in the best eight subjects. This prevents a strong result in a single subject area — three sciences, say — from disproportionately inflating the overall score. Families working with our GCSE tuition support in the run-up to results day are typically focused on exactly this floor and the grade 5 English/Maths requirement sitting inside it.

Crucially, the same 54-point floor applies to everyone. The Admissions Policy states directly: "The minimum entry requirements are the same for both internal and external students." An outside Year 11 student is not held to a higher bar than a Colyton student moving up, and a Colyton student is not given a lower one. Internal students do not submit a formal application at all — completing their subject option choices before the January deadline counts as their expression of interest, and meeting the criteria guarantees them a place. External applicants, by contrast, must apply online and then confirm their actual grades on GCSE results day; if an external applicant does not confirm they intend to take up their place on results day, the offer can be withdrawn and given to someone on the waiting list.

What GCSE Grade Do You Need for Each A-Level? The Grade-7 Rule and Its Exceptions

This is the detail that decides most families' actual subject choices, and it is not published anywhere on Colyton's own website — only inside the Sixth Form Prospectus PDF. Unlike some sibling grammar schools that publish a long subject-by-subject grade table, Colyton's rule is a single flat sentence: "The school will require a GCSE grade of at least grade 7 in any subject to be studied at A Level." That is the whole rule for the great majority of subjects. If you want to study History at A-level, you need grade 7 in GCSE History. If you want French, grade 7 in GCSE French. There is no separate table to check subject by subject — the rule is the same sentence for every course except the two named exceptions below.

The Prospectus states the two numeric exceptions in a single sentence: "The exception to this is that grade 8 is required in Mathematics to study Further Mathematics and grade 7 in Mathematics to study Physics." Read carefully, that means a Physics candidate needs grade 7 in Physics itself (the default rule) and grade 7 in Mathematics as a separate, additional requirement — Maths ability is treated as a genuine prerequisite for A-level Physics at Colyton, not an assumption. Further Mathematics is the only subject with a grade 8 threshold anywhere in the rule.

Music carries its own separate practical bar, on top of the academic grade-7 rule: "To study A Level Music, you should have GCSE Music or equivalent and be at least grade 5 standard or equivalent in performance." This is a graded-music-exam standard (ABRSM or equivalent), not a GCSE grade — so a Music A-level candidate is effectively clearing two different kinds of bar, one academic and one practical.

The same Admissions Policy text that sets the 54-point floor also confirms this per-subject rule applies without distinction between groups: "The same academic criteria will be applied to all students, whether they are internal students seeking progression or external applicants seeking admission." A family transferring in from outside faces exactly the same grade-7 hurdle, subject by subject, as a Colyton Year 11 student who has been at the school since Year 7. Once a place is confirmed, our A-level tuition covers the specific subjects Colyton offers, including the additional Mathematics grade Physics demands.

Is There a Catchment Area at Colyton Grammar School? No — Not at 11+, Not at 16+

Most families researching a grammar school carry an unspoken assumption over from other schools they have looked at: that somewhere in the admissions criteria there is a catchment area or designated area, giving priority to families who live closest. Colyton Grammar School has never had one, at any entry point. Devon County Council's own statutory guidance on school admissions publishes a list of schools that do not operate a designated or catchment area — and it names Colyton Grammar School explicitly: "The following schools do not operate admissions catchment or designated areas: ... Colyton Grammar School ..."

This is not a sixth-form-specific policy change. Colyton's Year 7 (11+) admissions policy contains no designated-area or catchment priority criterion at all. Entry at Year 7 is ranked purely on test score, with the only priority categories being EHCP, Looked After Children, and Pupil Premium or Service Premium status — Devon's own Year 7 admissions text runs straight from those categories to "rank order based on the total score achieved in the tests," with no residence-based step in between. So a family assuming that sixth form is simply where the catchment "drops away" — as happens at many grammar schools — has the wrong model entirely: there was never a catchment to drop.

The Published Admission Number (PAN) for Year 12 external entry in September 2026 is 56 — the school's own words: "This is the number of places which will be offered on an annual basis to eligible external applicants." Sixth form entry is not subject to Devon County Council's coordinated admissions scheme at all: "Entry to the Sixth Form is not subject to coordination by the Devon Local Authority." Every application, whether for Year 7 or Year 12, goes straight to the school, never through the council.

Where those 56 places are oversubscribed, external applicants are ranked in a fixed order: first, any applicant with an Education, Health and Care Plan naming the school; then Looked After Children or previously Looked After Children; then children receiving Pupil Premium or Service Premium funding; and finally, predicted Best 8 GCSE score. Where a specific A-level subject — rather than the whole-school sixth form admission — is oversubscribed, a separate, narrower priority order applies: students already progressing up from Colyton's own Year 11 are ranked first, then external and internal students alike are ranked by Best 8 GCSE score.

Distance is not entirely absent from Colyton's system, but it plays a much smaller role than a "catchment" implies: it is used only as a last-resort tie-break for the very last available place, when two applicants are tied on every other criterion. The tie-break method is specific — "measuring a straight line from the main school Reception front door to the house address of the applicant, using Devon's Geographical Information System" — but it only ever activates once every other ranking factor has failed to separate two candidates.

Why Is Colyton the Only State Grammar School in the Devon Local Authority?

Third-party guides commonly describe "Devon" as having several grammar schools, sometimes citing a figure around seven. That figure is real, but it blends three separate local authority areas into one count. Filtering the Department for Education's Get Information About Schools (GIAS) register to Local Authority = Devon (local authority code 878) and Admissions Policy = Selective, among open establishments, returns exactly 3 results: Colyton Grammar School, Exeter School, and The Maynard School. Of those three, only Colyton is a state-funded school — its GIAS record lists it as "Secondary, Academy converter." Exeter School and The Maynard School are both listed as "Other independent school," meaning they are fee-paying and outside the state selective system entirely.

That makes Colyton Grammar School the only state-funded secondary school with a Selective admissions policy within the Devon local authority area, as GOV.UK's own register defines it. Devon's other well-known grammar schools — Torquay Boys' and Torquay Girls', Churston Ferrers, and the Devonport-area schools in Plymouth — sit in the separate Torbay and Plymouth unitary local authorities, not Devon. That is a genuinely different local authority boundary from the county-wide "Devon" that most people picture, and it is the reason the commonly repeated grammar-school count for the area does not match what a filtered GIAS search actually returns.

The GIAS establishment record for Colyton also confirms the school's basic profile: age range 11 to 18, mixed gender of entry, a whole-school capacity of 1085 against a current roll of 1083 — a school running close to full. Its own Sixth Form Prospectus makes a striking claim about outcomes at the top end: "The percentage of our sixth form going on to study at Oxford and Cambridge each year is amongst the highest of all schools nationally, state or independent." The 2025 leaver cohort's headline figures back that up: 70% of leavers went on to a Sutton Trust Top University, 79% achieved their first-choice university place, 28 students were accepted to study at Oxford or Cambridge, 10 to study Medicine, Veterinary Medicine or Dentistry, and 2 to degree apprenticeships.

Getting to a Rural East Devon Sixth Form: Transport, Boarding and Financial Support

Colyton sits in rural East Devon, and because there is no catchment restricting who can apply, the practical question of how a student without a car actually gets to school every day is a real one — and it is a gap nobody else covers. The Department for Education's official register is direct on one point: Colyton Grammar School has "No boarders." There is no residential option at any age, so every sixth former, internal or external, is either driven, walks, cycles, or relies on public or private transport.

The school does not run its own school-bus fleet. Instead, it publishes contact details for four independent coach and bus operators serving the school — AVMT, Rooster Bus, Dartline and Hatch Green — alongside a downloadable PDF of specific routes and run times. The school is explicit that this is not something it manages directly: "The school does not organise the bus routes, please contact Devon County Council/the companies themselves for more information." Families are pointed toward the operators or the council rather than the school's own admissions office for anything transport-related.

Devon County Council's transport policy is worth understanding alongside the admissions rules, because it treats designated areas differently for transport than for admission. For further education colleges and school sixth forms specifically, Devon "recognises designated areas for transport purposes and supports transport where a student is unable to make other arrangements independently or with the support of their establishment" — even though, as established above, Colyton itself has no designated area to be recognised against. Separately, Devon guarantees free transport for any child attending their nearest available secondary school who lives more than three miles away — a general entitlement that is not specific to Colyton but is worth checking against your own address.

On cost, Colyton is straightforward: as a state-funded selective academy, "there are no tuition fees for the School's Sixth Form." The school also confirms bursary support is available for those who need it: "We believe that students should be given every opportunity to reach their full potential, which is why we can offer financial support in the form of bursaries to students who are eligible." Families with specific transport or financial concerns should raise them with the school directly alongside their application, rather than assuming a lack of nearby transport rules a place out.

For comparison, our guide to Caistor Grammar School's sixth form covers another rural, selective sixth form with a similar coach-dependent catchment and no boarding — useful reading if you are weighing a rural grammar school place against travel logistics more generally.

Key Dates: The Live 2026/27 Cycle and What Comes Next

As of this page's most recent research (12 August 2026), Colyton's September 2026 sixth form entry cycle is still running — it has not closed. GCSE results and enrolment for the current cycle are still ahead, not behind. The table below sets out the full published timetable, drawn from the school's live Sixth Form Overview webpage.

A discrepancy worth flagging directly rather than quietly picking one version. The live Sixth Form Overview webpage (captured 12 August 2026) states the October open event as "Thursday 2nd October 2025 Sixth Form Open Evening." The school's own PDF Sixth Form Admissions Policy for Year 12 entry 2026-27 (approved 10 February 2025) gives a different date for what appears to be the same event: "Thursday 9 October 2025 Sixth Form Information Evening." Every other date in the PDF — the 28 January 2026 deadline and the 31 March 2026 offer date — matches the live website exactly, so this is an isolated inconsistency on the October date alone, not a wider disagreement. Because the live website is the more recently maintained version of the two sources, it should be treated as the more current reference, but given that this event has already passed by the time you are reading this, the practical takeaway is simpler: for any date still ahead of you, confirm directly with the school rather than relying on either published source alone.

Applications must go to the school directly, never to Devon County Council: "Applications must be made to Colyton Grammar School and NOT to Devon Local Authority." Late applications are still considered, provided they are submitted by 1 September 2026, once on-time applications have been processed first.

Looking beyond the current cycle, Colyton's Sixth Form Admissions Policy for 2027-28 entry has already been published — unusually early. It confirms the same structure will continue: the Published Admission Number for Year 12 in September 2027 is 56, and the closing date for external applications for that later cycle is already set at 27 January 2027. The wider live "Key Dates" timeline for the 2027/28 cycle — equivalent to the Open Evening and offer-date rows in the table above — had not yet been published on the school's website as of this page's research date, but the core numbers that matter most for planning ahead, the place count and the closing date, are already confirmed.

Frequently Asked Questions About Colyton Grammar School Sixth Form Entry

Sources: Colyton Grammar School — Admission Process, Devon County Council — School Designated Areas, GOV.UK Get Information About Schools — Colyton Grammar School. Facts drawn from the school's own Sixth Form Admissions Policy and Sixth Form Prospectus PDFs, retrieved 12 August 2026 — always confirm live dates directly with the school before applying.