Sir Thomas Rich's School 11+ Guide 2026: Admissions, Exam and Preparation

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Sir Thomas Rich's School is a selective boys' grammar school in Gloucester with a co-educational sixth form, offering 155 Year 7 places for September 2027 entry. Admission is decided entirely by rank order in the Gloucestershire Grammar Schools Admission Test - a GL Assessment paper sat on Saturday 12 September 2026 - with no catchment area and no interview. This guide sets out the school's exact Published Admission Number, how far down the ranked list offers have reached in each of the last six years, the test format and 2026 key dates, the school's latest GCSE, A-level and Ofsted results, and a subject-by-subject preparation plan.

What Is Sir Thomas Rich's School?

Sir Thomas Rich's School - known locally as "Richie's" - is one of seven state-funded grammar schools in Gloucestershire and the only one of the four Gloucester grammar schools that is boys-only from Year 7 to Year 11. Founded in 1666 under the will of the merchant Sir Thomas Rich, the school began life as the Blue Coat Hospital in the city centre before moving to its current 1964-built site on Oakleaze in Longlevens, Gloucester, GL2 0LF. It converted to academy status in October 2010 and had 1,249 pupils on roll as at its most recent Ofsted inspection, including roughly 400 in the sixth form.

The school's sixth form is co-educational, admitting both boys and girls at 16+, while Years 7 to 11 remain a single-sex boys' intake - a status the school's own admissions documentation and Gloucestershire County Council's determined admissions policy both confirm independently of older third-party listings, some of which still describe the school as fully co-educational. Sir Thomas Rich's is organised into four houses - Eastgate, Southgate, Westgate and Newgate - and its motto, "Garde ta foi" ("Keep your faith"), reflects the school's foundation as a charitable institution for boys of limited means.

Ofsted inspected Sir Thomas Rich's most recently on 9 December 2025, under Ofsted's current report-card inspection framework, with the report published on 5 February 2026. The school was judged to meet a "strong standard" across all eight evaluated areas - safeguarding, achievement, attendance and behaviour, curriculum and teaching, inclusion, leadership and governance, personal development and wellbeing, and post-16 provision - a clean sweep that few Gloucestershire secondary schools have matched under the new framework. Inspectors described a "well-established tradition of being a 'Richian' that permeates the school," noting a culture that is "caring and ambitious." The school's previous inspection, in October 2021 under the older single-word grading system, rated it Good overall, with Behaviour and Attitudes rated Outstanding.

Sir Thomas Rich's is part of the Gloucestershire Grammar Schools Consortium, which sets a single shared entrance test for all seven schools: Sir Thomas Rich's, Denmark Road High School and Ribston Hall High School (also in Gloucester), The Crypt School, Pate's Grammar School in Cheltenham, and Marling School and Stroud High School in Stroud. For a comparison of all seven schools' places, catchments and results side by side, see our Gloucestershire Grammar Schools 11+ hub; families also preparing a daughter for the Stroud pairing can read our Stroud High School 11+ guide.

How Many Places Does Sir Thomas Rich's Offer, and How Competitive Is Entry?

Sir Thomas Rich's Published Admission Number (PAN) for Year 7 entry is 155 boys, confirmed in the school's determined admissions policy for 2027/28 entry issued through Gloucestershire County Council. Because the school has no catchment area, every boy who registers - from anywhere in Gloucestershire or beyond - competes on the same ranked list once the test is marked and age-standardised.

Places are not simply awarded to the top 155 boys who sit the test: many families register for more than one Gloucestershire grammar school and later decline offers elsewhere, so the school works down its ranked list, cascading through declined offers until all 155 places are filled. The rank of the last successful offer each year is therefore a genuine measure of how deep the demand runs - and it is not published anywhere on Sir Thomas Rich's marketing pages or on any competing 11+ advice site, only inside the school's own Year 7 admissions documentation.

In practice this means a boy ranked comfortably inside the top 155 on the day results are issued is effectively certain of a place if Sir Thomas Rich's is his first preference, while boys ranked between roughly 155th and the mid-300s still have a realistic chance depending on how many higher-ranked boys accept offers at other schools first. Once the qualifying list is set, Sir Thomas Rich's applies its oversubscription criteria in this order: looked-after and previously looked-after children; boys registered for Pupil Premium; children of staff employed at the school for two or more years, or recruited to fill a demonstrable skill shortage; and, finally, all other qualifying boys strictly in test rank order. Where two boys tie on rank, the school measures straight-line distance from home to school using the local authority's computerised system, with random allocation, independently supervised, as the last resort.

What Does the Gloucestershire 11+ Test at Sir Thomas Rich's Involve?

Every candidate for Sir Thomas Rich's sits the Gloucestershire Grammar Schools Admission Test, the shared entrance test used identically by all seven county grammar schools. For the September 2026 sitting - the test that determines September 2027 entry - the test is set, delivered and marked by GL Assessment, one of the two dominant national 11+ test providers. It is not a bespoke, purely locally-written paper: Gloucestershire buys a standardised GL Assessment product, which is why the paper style will be familiar to any tutor working across GL-based counties, even though families locally often refer to the whole process informally by other names.

The test comprises two papers, each approximately 45 to 50 minutes long with a short break between them, covering verbal ability (verbal reasoning and English-based reasoning), numerical reasoning and non-verbal reasoning. Both papers use multiple-choice questions completed on separate answer sheets, which are then electronically scanned and marked by GL Assessment's independent marking process. There is no interview and no separate creative writing component for Sir Thomas Rich's specifically - candidates are ranked on the combined, age-standardised score from the two core papers, and no resits are permitted for any candidate who sits on the scheduled date.

One detail worth flagging for planning purposes: Gloucestershire's seven grammar schools have jointly confirmed a move to a new test provider, Future Stories Community Enterprise (FSCE) - a not-for-profit subsidiary of Reading School that already delivers curriculum-aligned entrance tests to roughly 8,000 pupils a year elsewhere in England. That change does not affect the September 2026 test covered in this guide. FSCE takes over from the summer 2027 sitting onwards, which will determine September 2028 entry, and will also move the test itself from September of Year 6 to the summer term of Year 5 - a year earlier than the current arrangement. Families with a child currently in Year 4 aiming for 2028 entry should treat the format details in this guide as provisional and check Sir Thomas Rich's admissions page nearer the time.

When Are the Key Dates for September 2027 Entry?

Registration for the September 2026 test opened at noon on Monday 18 May 2026 and closed at noon on Friday 26 June 2026 - a six-week window managed directly by the grammar schools rather than by Gloucestershire County Council's coordinated admissions team. Boys who registered within that window and sat the test on 12 September 2026 (with an alternative date around ten days later reserved for illness on the day) will receive their result directly from each school they registered for in mid-October 2026.

A qualifying score in the test does not by itself secure a place. Every family must separately name Sir Thomas Rich's on the Common Application Form (CAF) submitted through their home local authority by 31 October 2026; a boy who qualifies on the test but is not listed on the CAF will not receive an offer. For a broader explanation of how the national 11+ and grammar school application process fits together, see our guide to what the 11+ exam is and how it works, and for a wider calendar across regions, our 11+ exam dates and timetable guide.

What GCSE and A-Level Results Does Sir Thomas Rich's Achieve?

Sir Thomas Rich's publishes its own exam results annually, and its 2025 GCSE results were, in the school's own words, its best on record excluding the disrupted 2020-2022 pandemic years. 57.3% of GCSE grades were at grade 8-9 in 2025, 78.2% were at grade 7-9, and 97% of entries reached at least grade 4, with an average of 10.5 GCSE passes at grade 4 or above per student. At A-level in 2025, 84% of grades were A*-B, 48% were A*/A, the overall pass rate was 99.7%, and the average candidate sat 3.1 A-levels.

The December 2025 Ofsted inspection independently corroborates the strength of these outcomes with figures benchmarked against the national average: an Attainment 8 score of 77.1 against a national average of 45.9; a Progress 8 score of 0.91 against a national average of -0.03; 98.7% of pupils reaching grade 5 or above in English and Maths GCSE against a national average of 45.2%, with disadvantaged pupils at the school reaching 100% on the same measure; an overall pupil absence rate of 4.1% against a national average of 8.1%; and an A-level average point score of 44.04 against a national average of 34.99. These are figures published in February 2026 and are not yet reflected on most third-party school-comparison or 11+ advice sites, which still cite the school's October 2021 inspection.

Sixth Form Entry: What Are the Requirements at 16+?

Because Sir Thomas Rich's sixth form is co-educational, it is a genuine 16+ option for girls as well as boys, and it takes roughly 90 external candidates each year alongside its own Year 11 leavers. The published entry requirement for 2026/27 entry is a minimum of 52 points across a candidate's best 8 GCSEs, with grade 5 or above required in both Mathematics and English Language GCSE specifically; individual A-level subjects carry their own minimum grade requirements on top of this overall threshold, detailed in the school's sixth form prospectus. Oversubscription for sixth form places, where it arises, prioritises candidates with an Education, Health and Care Plan naming the school, then looked-after and previously looked-after children, then Pupil Premium-eligible candidates, and finally the strength of a candidate's overall GCSE profile in the subjects they wish to study.

The typical sixth form application timeline runs from an open evening in January or February, with a closing date roughly two weeks later, and confirmation of places tied to GCSE Results Day in August. Families weighing up Sir Thomas Rich's sixth form against other Gloucestershire options should compare it directly against the county's other six grammar schools via our Gloucestershire Grammar Schools hub, which sets out PAN, catchment and results for all seven side by side.

How Should You Prepare for the Sir Thomas Rich's 11+ Test?

Because the Gloucestershire Grammar Schools Admission Test is a GL Assessment product, effective preparation for Sir Thomas Rich's is identical in method to preparation for any GL-based county: genuine depth across all three tested areas, built up over months rather than crammed in the final weeks before 12 September.

Verbal ability and verbal reasoning. GL Assessment verbal reasoning questions include finding words with the same or opposite meaning, completing word and letter sequences, solving coded-letter problems, analogies, and hidden-word puzzles. Because this is not formally taught in most primary schools, boys typically need six to nine months of regular, low-pressure exposure before they can work through unfamiliar question types quickly. Wide, varied reading in Years 4 and 5 - fiction and non-fiction alike - builds the vocabulary base that underpins this section more effectively than isolated drilling.

Numerical reasoning. This section draws on KS2 mathematics content - arithmetic across all four operations, fractions, decimals and percentages, ratio and proportion, perimeter, area and volume, and multi-step word problems - but tests it under real time pressure inside a multiple-choice format. Most boys who underperform here already know the content; the gap is speed and accuracy under timed conditions, so full, timed practice papers matter more than further content teaching for the majority of candidates in the final months before the test.

Non-verbal reasoning. Non-verbal reasoning questions use shapes, sequences, matrices and rotations rather than words or numbers - pattern completion, odd-one-out, mirror images, and problems involving how a shape would look after folding or cutting. Boys who think visually often find this section more intuitive, but every candidate benefits from timed, GL Assessment-style practice rather than untimed workbook exercises, since pacing under real test conditions is a distinct skill from solving the same puzzle with no clock running.

Working backwards from 12 September 2026: the period from late 2025 through early 2026 should focus on breadth and light exposure to all three areas; spring 2026 should shift to timed sectional practice as familiarity builds; and the final stretch from May to August 2026 should be dominated by full, timed mock papers under genuine test conditions, with careful review of every error and targeted follow-up on recurring weak areas. In the final fortnight, intensity should taper rather than peak, to avoid a boy arriving at the test tired rather than sharp. For a fuller month-by-month framework that applies across all 11+ routes, see our 6-month 11+ preparation countdown. Our tutors at Leading Tuition's 11+ service work with families throughout this process, from initial diagnostic assessment through to intensive pre-test mock practice, entirely online. Verify all admissions detail directly against Sir Thomas Rich's own Year 7 admissions page and Gloucestershire County Council's grammar schools admissions portal before applying, as policy detail can be updated between publication and each admissions round.

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