The 10 best schools in Birmingham 2026

Birmingham has a relatively small number of selective schools for a city its size, but the ones it does have sit near the top of national performance tables. Eight grammar schools (six King Edward VI Foundation schools plus Bishop Vesey's and Sutton Coldfield Grammar School for Girls) and a cluster of strong independents make up most of the top tier.

The bigger change parents need to know about is the entrance test itself. The Birmingham consortium moved from the CEM test to GL Assessment for 2023 entry onwards (the first GL test sat in September 2022). If you're using prep material from older editions or older guides, you're preparing for a test that no longer exists. This guide walks through the schools, the test as it now stands, and the realistic entry routes.

For 2023 entry onwards, the Birmingham consortium of grammar schools dropped the CEM (Centre for Evaluation and Monitoring) test in favour of GL Assessment. The first GL paper sat in September 2022 for children entering Year 7 in September 2023. CEM had been the test of choice for over a decade and was generally considered harder to tutor for because the format wasn't published in advance. GL tends to be more transparent: Past papers and practice material are widely available.

In practical terms, this means three things. Preparation material from the CEM era is largely outdated. The current test follows a predictable, well-documented format covering English, maths, verbal reasoning and non-verbal reasoning. And the test is generally seen as more amenable to structured prep than its predecessor, which has probably pushed the threshold scores higher year on year as more children come in well-prepared.

The King Edward VI Foundation runs a cluster of schools across Birmingham, including the six grammar schools that dominate the city's selective entry. The Foundation was established in 1552 by Royal Charter and remains one of the largest single-Trust grammar networks in England. All six grammars use the same consortium entrance test administered jointly.

The six Foundation grammars:

Bishop Vesey's Grammar School in Sutton Coldfield is one of two Birmingham-area grammars outside the King Edward VI Foundation. It's a boys' school (with mixed sixth form) founded in 1527 and uses the same Birmingham consortium GL test as the Foundation schools. Sutton Coldfield Grammar School for Girls is the other non-Foundation grammar in the area: a fully selective state academy that uses the same shared Birmingham consortium test.

If you're applying to Bishop Vesey's or Sutton Coldfield Grammar for Girls, the registration sits on the same consortium portal as the King Edward schools, but you list each as a separate preference. The same test result is used across all consortium applications.

If you're considering fee-paying education, Birmingham has three independent schools that consistently sit near the top of national rankings. Fees quoted are the most recent published per-term rates for senior school day pupils (2025/26 for KES, KEHS and Edgbaston High; 2026/27 for Solihull and Bromsgrove).

Children sit a single GL Assessment paper covering English, maths, verbal reasoning and non-verbal reasoning. The test is held on a Saturday morning in early September of Year 6 at the school the child has nominated as their primary test centre. There's only one paper: Unlike London and some other regions, there's no separate stage 2.

Results are released in mid-October. There's no single fixed pass mark: Each school sets its own qualifying score (and a separate priority score) after the test based on the year's cohort performance. The maximum sits around 280. Qualifying scores have hovered around 205 in recent cycles, with priority scores in the mid-220s and competitive scores often in the 230s and 240s. Children who reach the threshold are considered for places at their listed schools in order of preference and local authority oversubscription criteria.

If grammar entry isn't likely or isn't the right fit, Birmingham has several state non-selective schools that consistently appear high in Department for Education performance tables. Worth shortlisting:

Lordswood Boys' School (Harborne) and Lordswood Girls' School consistently produce strong Progress 8 scores. Hodge Hill Girls' School in Bordesley Green has built a reputation for strong outcomes from a mixed-intake catchment. Holyhead School in Handsworth and Bordesley Green Girls' School both perform well above local averages. None of these are selective: Admission is through the standard Birmingham City Council CAF process based on distance and oversubscription criteria.

For specific borough-level comparisons, look at the published Department for Education performance tables (compare-school-performance.service.gov.uk) which let you filter Birmingham schools by Progress 8, Attainment 8 and EBacc scores.

Now that the test is GL Assessment, prep is more straightforward than under the old CEM format. Children should be familiar with all four sections (English, maths, verbal reasoning, non-verbal reasoning) and able to work at speed under timed conditions.