Schools in Slough
57 open schools · Ofsted ratings, catchment areas and admission criteria · best primary schools · best secondary schools
Slough has 51 state schools: 28 primary, 14 secondary, 1 all-through, 5 nursery. Between them they teach around 33,833 pupils. 42 have enough published data for a score, averaging 6.1 out of 10, and 10 score 8 or above.
17 have a sixth form. 29 take children from age three or under. 12 have a religious character, which usually means the school sets its own admissions criteria rather than the council's. 4 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 Slough
Primary schools: 'Catchment Area' is an explicit criterion for community/VC schools, ahead of the straight-line distance tiebreaker. (source)
Secondary schools: Same catchment-area criterion structure documented for secondary co-ordination. (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.
Slough entrance test format
Produced by GL Assessment for all four Slough Consortium schools (Herschel Grammar, Langley Grammar, Upton Court Grammar, St Bernard's Catholic Grammar). Two multiple-choice papers, each roughly 50-65 minutes including instructions, sat in the same session with a short break between: 1. Verbal Reasoning and English. 2. Non-verbal Reasoning and Maths — maths draws on the full KS2 curriculum (number, the four operations, fractions/decimals/percentages, measurement, money and time, 2D/3D shape, angles, coordinates, statistics, sequences, algebra, ratio); non-verbal reasoning covers analogies, letter codes, series, odd-one-out, matrices, hidden shapes, and spatial reasoning (cube nets, folded paper). Answers go on a separate machine-marked (OMR) answer sheet.
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 | 2026-05-01 (passed) |
| Sept 2027 | Registration closes | 2026-06-05 (passed) |
| Sept 2027 | Test date | 2026-09-19 |
| 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 | Qualifying score threshold | TBC |
| Sept 2026 | Registration opens | 2025-05-01 (passed) |
| Sept 2026 | Registration closes | 2025-06-05 (passed) |
| Sept 2026 | Test date | 2025-09-20 (passed) |
| Sept 2026 | Results released | 2025-10-17 (passed) |
| Sept 2026 | Application deadline | 2025-10-31 (passed) |
| Sept 2026 | Primary application deadline | 2026-01-15 (passed) |
| Sept 2026 | Offer day | 2026-03-01 (passed) |
| Sept 2026 | Primary offer day | 2026-04-16 (passed) |
Out-of-area applications
The four Slough grammar schools (Herschel Grammar, Langley Grammar, Upton Court Grammar, and St Bernard's Catholic Grammar) share a common entrance test run by the Slough Consortium. Children from outside Slough borough can register to sit this test. Registration: contact the Slough Consortium test coordinator (typically via Herschel Grammar School, which administers the consortium) to register. Families outside Slough register directly — not through their home LA. Applying for a place: apply via your home LA's Common Application Form by 31 October, listing the Slough school(s) you want. Criteria impact: Herschel Grammar and Langley Grammar use priority postcode areas (SL1, SL2, SL3 etc.) that strongly favour local residents. Upton Court Grammar and St Bernard's have more distance-based criteria. Out-of-area children with very high scores can sometimes secure places at Upton Court — check the individual school's criteria for detail.
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