If you live in London and have heard of Grammar Schools, which are highly selective state secondary schools, you may wonder where in London you can find them. The truth is that, unfortunately, most of them were abolished a long time ago, and there are only a select few councils in and around London remaining with a small number of grammar schools. Some of them require applicants to live locally, while others are open for applicants regardless of location - these tend to be the most competitive ones. As the most competitive ones, they also tend to be those you would most likely find at the top of GCSE or A-level results league tables.
The most well known Grammar Schools within reach of London are the Tiffin Girls’ School in Kingston Upon Thames, the Tiffin School (for boys) in Kingston, and the Henrietta Barnet School, a highly selective girls’ grammar school in Hampstead Garden Suburb. Still in North London, Queen Elizabeth Grammar School in Barnet is a highly selective boys’ grammar school, and the Latymer School in Enfield is one of the few co-educational grammar school still in existence.
To the Southeast of London, the boroughs of Bexley and Bromley have a wider variety of grammar schools, as does Sutton, which has a great choice of grammar schools to the South of London. Here is the complete list of grammar schools still to be found in Greater London:
Barnet
Henrietta Barnett School, Hampstead Garden Suburb (girls)
Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School for Boys, Barnet (boys)
St. Michael’s Catholic Grammar School, North Finchley (girls)
Bexley
Beths Grammar School, Bexley (boys)
Bexley Grammar School, Welling (mixed)
Chislehurst and Sidcup Grammar School, Sidcup (mixed)
Townley Grammar School, Bexleyheath (girls)
Bromley
Newstead Wood School, Orpington (girls)
St Olave’s & St Saviour’s Grammar School, Orpington (boys)
Enfield
The Latymer School, Edmonton (mixed)
Kingston upon Thames
Tiffin Girls’ School, Kingston upon Thames (girls)
Tiffin School, Kingston upon Thames (boys)
Redbridge
Ilford County High School, Barkingside (boys)
Woodford County High School, Woodford Green (girls)
Sutton
Nonsuch High School for Girls, Cheam (girls)
Sutton Grammar School for Boys, Sutton (boys)
Wallington County Grammar School, Wallington (boys)
Wallington High School for Girls, Wallington (girls)
Wilson’s School, Wallington (boys)
In addition to these fully selective grammar schools, what you do find even in Central London is some state secondary schools that select some of their pupils by general ability, language ability or musical ability, so they have a part of the intake that resembles a grammar school, even though the selection is not as explicit as via an 11+ test. For example, the Graveney School in Wandsworth selects 25% of its intake via general ability, as measured by the Wandsworth Test taken in Year 6. Mill Hill Country High School for girls in Barnet selects 25% by ability, and Dame Alice Owen School in Hertfordshire admits as many as 32.5% of students by general ability. The well known Greycoat School in Westminster reserves 10% of places for children of high language ability, whereas the West London Free School in Hammersmith does the same for children with high musical aptitude.