There are eight grammar schools in the Birmingham group of the West Midlands partnership. Six belong to the King Edward VI Foundation and two are independent of it, but all eight admit through the same shared entrance test, so your child sits one exam and the result travels to every school you name.
Those eight are Bishop Vesey's Grammar School, King Edward VI Aston, King Edward VI Camp Hill for Boys, King Edward VI Camp Hill for Girls, King Edward VI Five Ways, King Edward VI Handsworth Grammar School for Boys, King Edward VI Handsworth School for Girls, and Sutton Coldfield Grammar School for Girls (West Midlands Grammar Schools, partnership schools).
The eight Birmingham grammar schools
The single most useful thing to understand before you start comparing is which schools sit inside the King Edward VI Foundation, because the Foundation sets shared score thresholds across its six, while the other two set their own arrangements.
| School | Intake | Group |
|---|---|---|
| King Edward VI Aston | Boys | KE Foundation |
| King Edward VI Camp Hill for Boys | Boys | KE Foundation |
| King Edward VI Camp Hill for Girls | Girls | KE Foundation |
| King Edward VI Five Ways | Co-educational | KE Foundation |
| King Edward VI Handsworth Grammar School for Boys | Boys | KE Foundation |
| King Edward VI Handsworth School for Girls | Girls | KE Foundation |
| Bishop Vesey's Grammar School | Boys | Independent of the Foundation |
| Sutton Coldfield Grammar School for Girls | Girls | Independent of the Foundation |
Note what that table shows: Five Ways is the only co-educational grammar school in the group. Every other school takes boys or girls only. For families who want a mixed environment, the choice in Birmingham is effectively one school, which is worth knowing before you build a preference list around it.
They all use the same entrance test
You do not sit a different paper for each school. The partnership runs one shared GL Assessment test made up of two papers, each roughly 50 to 60 minutes, covering English comprehension, verbal reasoning, mathematics and non-verbal or spatial reasoning (West Midlands Grammar Schools, the entrance test).
The published weighting is 50% for English and verbal reasoning, 25% for non-verbal reasoning and 25% for mathematics, so the English and verbal side carries half the result on its own. Scores are standardised for age, and the total is reported on a scale built around a median of 200.
Register once through the partnership website, sit the test in September of Year 6, and the same total is passed to each school on your local authority preference form.
What score do you need?
For 2026 entry the King Edward VI Foundation set a qualifying score of 205 and a priority score of 224 across its six grammar schools (King Edward VI Foundation, results and offers). The qualifying score is the minimum to be considered at all. The priority score is a higher bar that, combined with living inside a school's catchment, moves an application into a stronger category.
Bishop Vesey's publishes the same 205 qualifying figure for 2026 entry on its own admissions pages (Bishop Vesey's admission information). Because thresholds are confirmed annually after results, check each school's own page for the cycle you are applying in rather than assuming last year's number holds.
There is a fuller explanation of how the scale works, and why it is not the national mean-of-100 model, in the Birmingham 11+ pass mark guide.
Catchment is where the schools really differ
This is the part families most often get wrong. Catchment areas are not a single Birmingham-wide boundary. Each Foundation school publishes its own map built from named electoral wards, so you can sit inside one school's catchment and outside another's while living at the same address.
King Edward VI Five Ways, for example, draws its catchment from twelve Birmingham wards plus three in Sandwell (Five Ways admission policy 2026). A family in Harborne is inside that catchment; a family in Sutton Coldfield is not, even though both are applying to Birmingham grammar schools.
How catchment interacts with score is covered in detail in the catchment and priority scores guide.
How to choose between them
Once you strip away league tables, the practical decision usually comes down to four things.
- Intake. Six of the eight are single sex. If you want co-educational, Five Ways is the only option in this group.
- Catchment. Check your ward against each school's published map before you rank anything. This is the cheapest piece of research you will do and it removes guesswork.
- Journey. These schools sit across the city, from Bartley Green to Sutton Coldfield. A daily commute that looks tolerable in September of Year 6 feels different in February of Year 9.
- Fit. Visit on an open evening. Two schools with near-identical results can feel completely different to a ten year old, and that feeling matters more than a few places in a ranking.
You can name several of these schools on your local authority preference form, so the realistic strategy is not picking one favourite. It is ordering a sensible list where the schools you are most likely to get an offer from sit alongside the ones you most want.
Rank by catchment and realistic threshold, not by name
The two-school question I get most is "which do we put first?", and every year I see the same thing: the Foundation and Birmingham City Council don't really teach parents how to apply, so families rank by reputation instead of by what the numbers and their postcode are actually telling them. I now post a walkthrough video and a catchment-map link to every parent I work with, because judging catchment from your home postcode is genuinely hard to eyeball.
Here's a real example. Last year a boy scored 217 and lived in the Handsworth area. His parents put Bishop Vesey's (Sutton Coldfield) first, King Edward VI Aston second, and King Edward VI Handsworth third. But Handsworth was his strongest card by a distance: it was the closest school to home, and he sat comfortably in-catchment with a 217, above where in-catchment places were offered the year before. By burying the school he was most likely to get at number three, behind two he was less likely to secure, they put the safest, nearest offer at the back of the queue. Rank by catchment and realistic threshold, not by name.
Mushtaque Ahmed, Founder of GrammarPath and Bright Mentors
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Frequently asked questions
How many grammar schools are there in Birmingham?
There are eight grammar schools in the Birmingham group of the West Midlands Grammar Schools partnership. Six are King Edward VI Foundation schools (Aston, Camp Hill for Boys, Camp Hill for Girls, Five Ways, Handsworth Grammar for Boys and Handsworth for Girls) and two are independent of the Foundation (Bishop Vesey's Grammar School and Sutton Coldfield Grammar School for Girls).
Do Birmingham grammar schools use the same entrance test?
Yes. All eight admit through one shared GL Assessment entrance test run by the West Midlands Grammar Schools partnership. Your child registers once, sits two papers in September of Year 6, and the same standardised total is passed to every school named on your application.
Which Birmingham grammar school is co-educational?
King Edward VI Five Ways is the only co-educational grammar school in the Birmingham group. The other seven admit boys only or girls only, so families wanting a mixed-sex grammar in Birmingham have one option.
What score do you need for a Birmingham grammar school?
For 2026 entry the King Edward VI Foundation set a qualifying score of 205 and a priority score of 224 across its six grammar schools, and Bishop Vesey's publishes the same 205 qualifying figure. Thresholds are set annually after results, so confirm the current cycle's numbers on each school's own admissions page.
Can I apply to more than one Birmingham grammar school?
Yes. You sit one test and then name schools in preference order on your local authority application form, and Birmingham allows up to six preferences. Each school then applies its own oversubscription criteria to the applicants who named it.