Harvey Grammar School Sixth Form Entry 2027

The Harvey Grammar School is a selective boys' grammar school in Folkestone, Kent, whose sixth form welcomes external applicants into 25 Year 12 places for September 2027 entry. Admission requires GCSE grade 5 in English and grade 5 in Mathematics as a minimum, with individual A Level and BTEC courses setting their own higher subject-specific grade on top. Leading Tuition prepares Year 11 students for that exact bar.

Does Harvey Grammar Admit External Boys Into Year 12?

For a boy at a different secondary school, the first real question is whether Harvey Grammar's sixth form is open to him at all. It is. The school's own admissions page states it directly: "The School also welcomes pupils from other schools who apply to join the Sixth Form," and its admissions policy applies "the same admission criteria … to both internal and external applicants" — there is no separate, harder bar for a boy arriving from elsewhere.

The number set aside for those external candidates is 25. Harvey's admissions policy states the figure and the condition attached to it in one sentence: the admission number for external candidates is 25, but "this figure may be exceeded" if the combined total of internal Year 11 students transferring up and external applicants comes in below the school's overall Year 12 figure, which the same policy sets at 150. In practice, 25 is the planning number a family should work to, not a hard ceiling that disappears the moment internal demand runs lower than expected.

This wording is identical in both the 2026 and 2027 admissions policies — the two documents differ only in their approval date, review date and the year named in the policy heading, with the Sixth Form section itself unchanged word for word. A family reading either document is reading the same rule.

The Grade 5/5 Gateway and the Real Subject-by-Subject Bar Above It

Grade 5 in English and grade 5 in Mathematics is the gateway every applicant, internal or external, must clear before anything else on this page matters. Harvey's admissions policy states it without qualification: "GCSE grade 5 in English (Language or Literature) and GCSE grade 5 in Mathematics," adding that "entry criteria for individual subjects must be met in order to access those courses." That second clause does most of the real work, because most A Level and Applied General courses at Harvey ask for more than grade 5.

The school's Sixth Form Prospectus publishes a full course-by-course table, and the range is wide. Mathematics itself needs grade 7. Further Mathematics needs grade 8 — the highest bar on the list. The three sciences each carry a double requirement rather than a single figure: grade 6 in the subject GCSE, plus either a grade 7 on one of the two GCSE papers, or grades of 77 in Combined Science (Trilogy). Most humanities and languages sit at grade 6 — Geography, History, French, Spanish and both Art routes among them. Economics offers an alternative route for a student who has not studied it at GCSE: grade 7 in Mathematics and grade 6 in English instead.

This is why a headline grade-5 floor understates what a place at Harvey actually requires: the subject a student wants to study, not the average across their GCSEs, decides the real bar they need to clear.

Is Harvey's Sixth Form Boys-Only, or Shared With Folkestone Girls?

Search results answer this question inconsistently, so it is worth resolving at the primary sources rather than trusting a summary. Ofsted's own inspection record settles it directly: the field recorded for Harvey at its most recent inspection, "Gender of pupils in sixth-form provision," reads "Boys." The same field for Folkestone School for Girls, from its own most recent inspection, reads "Girls." Harvey's Sixth Form Prospectus states the position in its own words too: "The Harvey enrols Sixth Form students (boys only) in accordance with the criteria below."

Folkestone School for Girls' own KentChoices listing states both halves of the relationship in one sentence: "Over a number of years we have forged Sixth Form links with the Harvey Boys' Grammar School in order to offer an even wider curriculum. As such we only enrol females into our Sixth Form, and the Harvey only enrol males, as we work in partnership with one another for our Sixth Form provision." Harvey admits boys. Folkestone School for Girls admits girls. What the two schools share is subject access between two single-sex sixth forms, not a merged or co-educational one — and Ofsted's own account of Harvey's sixth form matches this precisely, noting that "a small number of sixth-form students attend some of their A-level classes at a neighbouring girls' grammar school."

Folkestone School for Girls names a concrete example of how the link works: Computing. Its own listing explains that boys interested in a subject offered only at its site should apply to Harvey and indicate the interest there, so it can be arranged through the schools' link rather than through separate enrolment at Folkestone. Harvey's own Sixth Form Prospectus confirms the other side of that example — Computing does not appear anywhere on Harvey's own published A Level or Applied General course list, so a Harvey boy who wants it reaches it only through this arrangement, not through Harvey's own curriculum.

How Competitive Are the 25 External Places?

Clearing the grade 5/5 gateway and the relevant subject-specific bar does not guarantee one of the 25 external places on its own. Harvey's admissions policy sets out a published order for ranking qualifying applicants once there are more candidates than places: first, children in Local Authority care or previously in Local Authority care; second, "rank order of merit in GCSE qualifications"; third, distance from home to school as a tie-breaker.

That second step is where most external applicants will actually be decided, since Looked After status affects very few candidates in any given year. A qualifying GCSE profile is therefore not simply a pass/fail test against grade 5/5 — in a competitive year, the strength of that profile relative to other applicants' is what determines who from the qualifying pool gets one of the 25 places.

Folkestone School for Girls, next door, runs a shorter list: Looked After children, then distance — with no GCSE-merit ranking step at all. A boy applying to Harvey and a girl applying to Folkestone School for Girls are not competing under the same rules, even though both schools cap external Year 12 admission at the same number.

Harvey vs Folkestone Girls: What 25 External Places at Each School Actually Means

Both Harvey and Folkestone School for Girls set their external Year 12 admission number at 25, and it is tempting to read that as the two schools being mirror images of each other. They are not. Harvey measures its 25 against an overall Year 12 figure of 150; Folkestone School for Girls measures the same 25 against an overall Year 12 figure of 180 — a larger sixth form built around a proportionally smaller external share than Harvey's.

The GCSE floor differs too, and not just in the headline number. Harvey's gateway is a flat grade 5 in English and grade 5 in Mathematics. Folkestone School for Girls asks for more structure: a minimum of six separately identifiable GCSE subjects averaging grade 5.5 or above, including at least a grade 5 in English and a grade 4 in Mathematics, plus a grade 6 or above in the chosen A Level subject itself. A candidate who clears Harvey's floor comfortably will not automatically clear Folkestone School for Girls' broader one, and the reverse is also true.

Timing differs as well. Folkestone School for Girls' own published window for September 2026 entry ran from 30 January 2026 to 8 May 2026. Harvey, by contrast, had not yet published equivalent dates for its next cycle at the time of research — see the applying section below.

What the Results and Ofsted Say About the Sixth Form Specifically

Harvey's own published 2025 performance figures give a specific answer to what a place is actually worth. The average point score per A Level entry was 33.1, and the average point score per applied general entry was 36.2. Sixth Form retention — the standard measure of students completing Year 12 into Year 13 — was 96%.

Ofsted's most recent inspection, from December 2022, adds a different and earlier retention figure that measures something else entirely: the proportion of Harvey's own Year 11 who choose to stay on into the sixth form at all, rather than the Year 12-to-13 completion rate above. Ofsted recorded that "approximately 85% of pupils stay on to the sixth form," calling retention "extremely high," with 275 pupils on roll in the sixth form out of 1,025 across the whole school at the time of that inspection.

That December 2022 visit was a Section 8 "outstanding school" inspection — a lighter-touch format used to confirm an existing Outstanding grade without issuing fresh scores for individual areas such as sixth-form provision specifically. Folkestone School for Girls' inspection was different in kind, not just in outcome: its fuller April 2024 visit graded areas separately, recording overall effectiveness as Good but sixth-form provision on its own as Outstanding — a distinction a family cannot see just by comparing the two schools' headline Ofsted ratings side by side.

How We Prepare Year 11 Students for Harvey's Specific Grade Bar

Once the entry criteria above are clear, the practical question becomes specific: which GCSE grades, in which subjects, close the gap between where a Year 11 student sits now and the bar their chosen A Level or Applied General course actually needs — whether that is the flat grade 5/5 floor, the grade 7 Mathematics requirement, or the double science bar running to grade 6 plus a strong paper score. Leading Tuition works with Year 10 and Year 11 students on exactly that problem through subject-by-subject GCSE tuition, built around each student's actual course choices rather than a generic revision programme.

Where a student is targeting a subject with an unusually high bar — Further Mathematics at grade 8, or a science requiring grade 6 plus a strong paper score — we work backwards from that published figure so preparation targets the grade the course needs, not a general improvement across every subject. For a family also weighing Folkestone School for Girls' broader six-subject average, we help map a student's actual GCSE profile against both schools' published requirements before Kent Choices applications open.

On Trustpilot we are rated 4.8 out of 5 from 58 reviews. A number of the Kent families we work with at 16+ came to us at an earlier entry point and stayed, and we also prepare students for sixth form entry at other selective Kent grammar schools, including Maidstone Grammar School and Invicta Grammar School. Reviews from parents and students are below, unedited.

Applying as an External Candidate: Route, Timing and What Isn't Published Yet

External applicants apply to Harvey's sixth form through Kent Choices, the county-wide admissions portal. Harvey's own listing is explicit that this route is for external candidates specifically — internal students due to transfer from Year 11 do not use Kent Choices at all, applying instead through the school's own Talisman system.

The one fixed 2026 date currently on record is the Sixth Form Open Evening, held on Tuesday 3 February 2026 from 5pm to 7pm, where families can speak to subject staff and see the Sixth Form Centre. At the time of this research, Harvey's own Kent Choices listing showed both the Applications Open and Applications Close fields reading "waiting for information from school" — there is no published deadline yet for the next external Year 12 cycle, and a family should check the listing directly nearer the time rather than assume a date.

Applicants from overseas face an additional requirement: Harvey's prospectus states they must demonstrate a UK-recognised equivalent standard, which "may involve tests in a range of subjects," and must also provide an academic reference from someone who has known them for more than two years in an educational context.

Families researching Harvey's Year 7 entry route rather than the sixth form should see our separate Harvey Grammar School 11+ guide, which covers the Kent Test, catchment and Year 7 admissions in full; this page covers Sixth Form entry only.

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