Plymouth High School for Girls Sixth Form 2027 Entry

Plymouth High School for Girls is a selective grammar school in Plymouth whose sixth form is genuinely co-educational, reaching 246 students in Ofsted's April 2024 inspection even though the school admits only girls at age 11. External candidates need an average GCSE point score of 6 across their best 8 GCSEs, including grade 6 in Maths and English, and every applicant is interviewed rather than tested.

This page sets out exactly what that co-educational sixth form requires and how it is entered: the subject-specific GCSE floors PHSG applies beyond its general threshold, the route open to a student whose average score falls just short, and the interview and timeline the school actually runs — drawn from the school's own admissions pages, its current subject booklet and its April 2024 Ofsted report, rather than from a summary of any of them.

Is Plymouth High School for Girls' Sixth Form Actually Co-Educational?

Girls-only in name, and girls-only at age 11: Plymouth High School for Girls takes 600 girls across Years 7 to 11, all of whom sit its selective 11+ entry. Its sixth form is a different intake entirely. The school's own homepage states plainly that its Sixth Form “is open to both girls and boys and has grown in numbers to over 200” — a detail a reader would not guess from the school's name.

The clearest confirmation sits inside Ofsted's own inspection record. Ofsted's report of the 17th and 18th April 2024 inspection carries two separate gender fields in its School Details table: “Gender of pupils” is recorded as Girls — describing the age-11 register, Years 7 to 11 — while a second, sixth-form-specific field, “Gender of pupils in sixth-form provision”, is recorded as Mixed. The Department for Education's Get Information About Schools register shows only the first of those two fields: its “Gender of entry” reads Girls, because GIAS records the age-11 admission intake and has no separate field for sixth-form gender at all. Neither register is wrong; they simply describe two different intakes at the same school, and only Ofsted's report distinguishes them.

External transfer is confirmed too. PHSG's own Key Stage 5 admissions page states that the school “welcomes applications from students transferring from other schools” and that its admission arrangements “apply equally to those seeking admission from Year 11 within the school to those seeking transfer from other schools.” A student moving from another secondary school into PHSG's Year 12 is assessed on exactly the same basis as a PHSG Year 11 pupil progressing internally.

What GCSE Grades Does PHSG Actually Require, Subject by Subject?

PHSG's general entry requirement, stated on its Key Stage 5 admissions page, is “an overall average point score at GCSE of 6 or higher from the student's best 8 GCSEs (including at least a 6 grade in Maths and English)”. That average is only the first filter. The school's current GCE Advanced Level Subject Booklet sets a further, subject-specific floor for several A-level courses — figures that do not appear on either of PHSG's summary admissions pages and only show up if you read the booklet itself, subject by subject.

Two of those floors sit above the general grade-6 threshold. A student averaging exactly 6 across their best 8 GCSEs but holding only a grade 6 in Mathematics cannot take A-level Mathematics at PHSG on that grade alone — the subject itself asks for grade 7 — and Further Mathematics asks for grade 8. Physics carries the most compound requirement on the list: a 6-6 in Combined Science, or a 6 in Physics plus another science, and a minimum grade 7 in Mathematics on top. A family planning a PHSG application around a specific A-level combination needs to check the subject floor as well as the headline average, not instead of it.

What Happens If the Average Score Falls Just Short of 6?

PHSG's Sixth Form Prospectus sets out a route for exactly this situation, in more detail than either of the school's summary admissions pages carries: “Applications from students with an average points score below this may be considered following publication of results, provided they meet the subject entry requirements and places are available in the subjects the student wishes to study. In this case, students will be assessed as to their suitability to study A Levels at Plymouth High as determined at interview by the Head of Sixth Form, their academic record and criteria as determined by the Governing Body.”

In practice, that means three separate conditions have to hold at once: the student still clears the subject-specific floor for every course they want to take, a place remains open in each of those subjects once GCSE results are in, and the Head of Sixth Form judges the application suitable at interview alongside the student's wider academic record. None of those conditions is guaranteed, and PHSG does not publish a lower bound below which it will not consider an application at all — the process is explicitly case by case, decided after results day rather than against a fixed second threshold.

Is There an Entrance Test? The Interview Process and the Dates PHSG Has Published

PHSG's Sixth Form Open Evening page states this directly: “there is no entry test to join our Sixth Form – only the entry requirements outlined in our prospectus and subject booklet.” Every applicant is interviewed instead. The school's Admissions Process page confirms interviews run across “the Spring and Summer terms” and that “everyone who applies will be invited for an interview” — there is no shortlisting stage that filters candidates out of an interview before results are known.

The most recently published cycle gives the clearest picture of how the school actually paces this process across a year:

PHSG also notes that it will “continue to accept applications up to and including results day”, and later still, depending on space. As of 22nd August 2026, PHSG has not yet published an equivalent 2027-cycle calendar on its Admissions Process and Subject Choices page. Based on the pattern of the 2026 cycle, a family aiming at September 2027 entry should expect an open evening around mid-November 2026, but should check the school's own page directly for the confirmed date rather than assume it will land exactly a year after the 2025 one.

Which A Levels Does PHSG Offer, and What About Medicine, Dentistry and Vet Science?

PHSG's current GCE Advanced Level Subject Booklet lists these subjects: Art (Fine Art), Biology, Chemistry, Economics, English Literature, Extended Project, French, Geography, German, History, Law, Mathematics, Mathematics – Core Mathematics, Mathematics – Further Mathematics, Media Studies, Physical Education, Physics, Politics, Product Design (Design Technology), Psychology, Religious Studies (Eastern & Western Philosophy and Ethics), and Sociology. The booklet does not print a total for that list, so this page states the subjects themselves rather than a counted figure. Students choose either three A-level subjects plus the Extended Project Qualification, three A-levels plus Core Maths, or — in the school's own words, “in rare cases” — four full A-level subjects.

Medicine, Dentistry and Veterinary Science applicants sit inside a named pathway. PHSG's prospectus describes a fortnightly timetabled lesson covering the skills the application process needs, an “early applicant support package” aimed at the October UCAS deadline, UCAT practice sessions including mock exams, practice panel interviews with a local GP, and a tailored reference written by the pathway's named contact, Dr Doddrell. The school was also assessed by CSW Investor in Careers in October 2023 and holds the Quality in Careers Standard Award as a result, and its Careers Advisor holds a Level 6 Diploma in Careers Guidance and Development.

How Does PHSG Compare With Devonport High School for Girls and Boys?

Plymouth runs three selective grammar schools, and a family choosing between them should know how much of the sixth-form route is shared. Checked directly at each school's own site: PHSG's admissions pages describe an independent process, with no reference anywhere to a shared sixth-form admissions gate with either Devonport school.

Devonport High School for Girls (DHSG) confirms its own sixth form is co-educational too — its own published documents describe the school as one “for girls aged 11-18 (and boys in the Sixth Form)” — so PHSG is not unusual among Plymouth's grammar schools in running a mixed sixth form inside a single-sex lower school. Where DHSG's own site does mention a “consortium”, it is narrower than it sounds: DHSG's Sixth Form Curriculum page states that its subject offer is “supplemented by access to additional courses through a consortium of schools” — a post-16 curriculum-sharing arrangement that lets students take an option their own school does not timetable, not a joint admissions process. Separately, Plymouth's grammar schools do share an 11+ testing consortium, but that covers age-11 entry only, according to DHSG's own 2018 school-expansion proposal; nothing found at either school's own site extends that arrangement to sixth-form entry.

What Is the 16-19 Bursary Fund, and Who Actually Qualifies?

PHSG is a state grammar school and charges no fees at any point, including into its sixth form. The 16-19 Bursary Fund is a national government scheme, administered locally by PHSG as a joint scheme with other schools and academies in the Plymouth area, that exists to help students facing financial hardship stay in full-time education — it is student financial support, not a fee of any kind, and it is paid to students rather than charged to them.

PHSG's own Bursary Fund page sets out two tiers. A guaranteed bursary of £1,200 a year goes to young people in care, care leavers, and young people receiving Income Support, Universal Credit, or both Employment Support Allowance and Disability Living Allowance (or Personal Independence Payments) in their own name. A discretionary bursary is available more widely, including to students claiming Free School Meals or living in households with an income below £32,000, paid monthly and dependent on continued attendance and behaviour.

What Does PHSG's Sixth Form Actually Produce, and How We Help

PHSG's most recent published outcomes give a sense of what a place in this sixth form is actually worth. In 2025, the school's A-level average points score reached 35.27, against a Plymouth local-authority average of 34.43 and an England average of 35.08. At GCSE the same year, 90.3% of PHSG pupils achieved grade 5 or above in English and Maths, against a local-authority average of 46.2% and an England average of 45.4% — a gap that shows why PHSG's own average-6 sixth-form threshold is a genuinely selective bar rather than a formality most of its own pupils clear without effort.

Every requirement on this page is, in the end, a grade requirement: the general average, the subject-specific floors for Mathematics, Further Mathematics and Physics, and the below-threshold route that still depends on results day. Our tutors work on exactly those floors — closing a Mathematics GCSE from a 6 to the 7 that PHSG's own booklet asks for, or building the wider profile a borderline application needs before it reaches interview — alongside interview preparation matched to the Head of Sixth Form's own process rather than a generic sixth-form interview script. Across our GCSE and sixth-form entry work more widely, 91% of our students achieve their desired grades.

Families weighing PHSG against Devonport High School for Girls or Devonport High School for Boys can find the equivalent detail on each school's own page, and our wider GCSE tuition programme covers the same subject-specific grade floors this page sets out. Parents preparing for results day itself can also use our GCSE resources for parents alongside a PHSG-specific programme, and our 16+ sixth form entry hub covers the equivalent detail for other grammar and selective schools.

Frequently Asked Questions