Schools in Plymouth
102 open schools · Ofsted ratings, catchment areas and admission criteria · best primary schools · best secondary schools
Plymouth has 98 state schools: 69 primary, 19 secondary, 2 nursery. Between them they teach around 38,355 pupils. 85 have enough published data for a score, averaging 4.8 out of 10, and 9 score 8 or above.
20 have a sixth form. 41 take children from age three or under. 18 have a religious character, which usually means the school sets its own admissions criteria rather than the council's. 3 are selective and set an entrance test. How the score works.
Undersubscribed schools rated Good or Outstanding
These schools didn't fill on first preference in the latest admissions year, despite an Ofsted rating of Good or Outstanding — worth a look if you're chasing the same handful of famous names everyone else applies to.
How places are allocated in Plymouth
Primary schools: Only 5 of 68 primary schools use catchment areas; ALL secondary schools and the great majority of primaries use pure straight-line distance. (source)
Secondary schools: Explicit: all Plymouth secondary schools rely solely on distance, no catchment areas. (source)
Most schools use the local authority's default scheme rather than a school-specific catchment map — see each school's page for its own designated/catchment area where one is published.
Plymouth entrance test format
All three Plymouth grammar schools use papers from Quest Assessments, sat over two September Saturdays: Day 1 — English comprehension (about 40 minutes, ~60 questions: reading comprehension, spelling, punctuation, grammar). Day 2 — Mathematics in two sections: a 10-minute fluency paper and a 30-minute mathematical-reasoning paper (~60 questions total). Devonport High School for Boys additionally sets its own internal English WRITING paper on top of the shared Quest papers. One registration round covers the shared papers for all three schools; results arrive in October before the 31 October application deadline.
Key dates
| Entry year | Event | Date |
|---|---|---|
| Sept 2028 | Application deadline | 2027-10-31 |
| Sept 2028 | Primary application deadline | 2028-01-15 |
| Sept 2028 | Offer day | 2028-03-01 |
| Sept 2028 | Primary offer day | 2028-04-17 |
| Sept 2027 | Registration opens | 2026-04-27 (passed) |
| Sept 2027 | Registration closes | 2026-08-31 (passed) |
| Sept 2027 | Test date | 2026-09-12 |
| Sept 2027 | Test date maths | 2026-09-19 |
| Sept 2027 | Results released | 2026-10-15 |
| Sept 2027 | Application deadline | 2026-10-31 |
| Sept 2027 | Primary application deadline | 2027-01-15 |
| Sept 2027 | Offer day | 2027-03-01 |
| Sept 2027 | Primary offer day | 2027-04-16 |
| Sept 2026 | Application deadline | 2025-10-31 (passed) |
| Sept 2026 | Primary application deadline | 2026-01-15 (passed) |
| Sept 2026 | Offer day | 2026-03-02 (passed) |
| Sept 2026 | Primary offer day | 2026-04-16 (passed) |
Out-of-area applications
Plymouth's three grammar schools (Devonport High School for Boys, Devonport High School for Girls, Plymouth High School for Girls) use a coordinated testing arrangement with shared test dates — the English paper on one September Saturday and the maths papers the following Saturday — so one round of sittings covers all three schools. Registration is with the schools (historically opening in the spring/summer term of Year 5 and closing at the end of August), and is open to children living outside Plymouth — the schools draw from across Devon and east Cornwall. Apply via your home LA's Common Application Form by 31 October. Check each school's oversubscription criteria for distance effects; Devonport High School for Boys also sets an additional internal English writing paper.
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