Rugby High School is a selective girls' school on Longrood Road in Rugby, Warwickshire, and girls enter at eleven on the shared West Midlands entrance test. This page covers Rugby High School entry at eleven by the GL Assessment test, for children now in Year 3 to Year 5, and not sixth form, fees or A levels.
Where does the vision line come from?
From an older motto. The school's vision is that at Rugby High School, we set heights in our heart, and its own history pages record the Latin sitting underneath it: Ascensiones in corde suo deposuit, she has set her heart on the heights.
The school says students will move on from Rugby High School knowing how to be resilient, healthy and successful, and will leave with a confident voice, ready to take their place.
From "Where does the vision line come from?"
Those same history pages record that the school opened in September 1903 as Arnold High School for Girls, founded by Miss Olive Hands, and that an earlier motto, Semper Parata, meant always ready. That material comes from a narrative history page rather than a formal statement, so take it as the school's own account of itself.
The modern version is short, and the terms the school uses about its own leavers are a reasonable guide to what it thinks it is for.
Who sits the test for Rugby High School?
Girls, at eleven. Rugby High School is a selective girls' school on Longrood Road, and states that admissions are based on a process of selection having regard to children's academic ability. That is the whole of the entry rule at eleven, and everything else follows from the shared test.
The sixth form is a different proposition and has its own name, RH6. The school explains that it has traditionally been a girls' school, has taught boys from other schools in its sixth form for many years, and that boys and girls can now apply directly and participate fully in all aspects of the school.
It runs as Rugby High School Academy Trust. Families in Rugby often weigh it up alongside the town's selective boys' school, since both take the same shared entrance test in the same September and one registration covers them.
One test, sat once, in Year 6
The school takes part in the West Midlands Grammar Schools Partnership, so there is no Rugby High paper. Your daughter sits the shared entrance test once, in September of Year 6, and that single result reaches every partnership school named at registration. The paper itself is set by GL Assessment, the assessment publisher the partnership uses, so the format is the same at every school in the group.
Registration is the part that goes wrong. It happens online, by a parent, during the summer term of Year 5, and the window shuts quickly. Primary schools have no role in it and will not remind you, and missing it costs the whole year regardless of how ready your daughter was.
Qualifying is not an offer: the test establishes whether a child has reached the required standard. Each school's own published admission arrangements then decide which of the qualified children are offered places. Those arrangements, not the test, are what to read before you rank your preferences with the council.
What does always ready look like in Year 5?
Mostly it looks like reading. English comprehension and verbal reasoning between them carry half the marks, and both are built slowly out of vocabulary and wide reading, so they reward families who started in Year 4 rather than in the summer beforehand. Neither can be bought back in a single term.
The format is two multiple-choice papers, each timetabled at roughly fifty to sixty minutes including instructions and worked examples, and both mixing the areas rather than taking one subject each. Mathematics and non-verbal reasoning take a quarter apiece, and non-verbal improves fastest once the question types are no longer strange.
Practise on a separate answer sheet, because that is how the real thing works and a slipped row quietly ruins a good run of questions. Practise switching between question types too, since both papers demand it inside one sitting.
Check this first: no figures, no dates and no catchment description appear here, because they are reissued annually and the versions repeated on tutoring sites are often a year or two behind. Check both of these:
Rugby High School official website and the partnership's own site. Check the school's official admissions page for this year's figures.
Pathway Eleven has no connection to Rugby High School, to the partnership or to any admissions authority. We cannot register a child, confirm eligibility, or say anything about catchment or your chances. Pathway Eleven is an independent service and is not affiliated with or endorsed by GL Assessment.
Common questions about Rugby High School entry
Is Rugby High School girls-only?+
At eleven, yes. The sixth form is co-educational and branded RH6. The school explains that it has traditionally been a girls' school, has long taught boys from other schools in the sixth form, and that both boys and girls can now apply directly to it.
What does RH6 mean?+
It is the school's name for its co-educational sixth form. Students who join it participate fully in all aspects of the school, according to the school's own description, whether they came up through Rugby High School or applied from elsewhere.
Where does we set heights in our heart come from?+
From the school's Latin motto, Ascensiones in corde suo deposuit, which the school's own history pages translate as she has set her heart on the heights. The same pages record an earlier motto, Semper Parata, meaning always ready.
Does Rugby High School set its own paper?+
No. It uses the shared West Midlands Grammar Schools entrance test, sat once in the September of Year 6. Parents register online with the partnership in the summer term of Year 5, and the result then goes to every partnership school they named.
Other schools in this consortium
Rugby High School belongs to the partnership's Warwickshire group. A child sits the shared test once, and the result reaches each of these schools if you name them.
- Stratford Girls' Grammar School, girls, in Stratford-upon-Avon.
- Alcester Grammar School, mixed, in Alcester, Warwickshire.
- Ashlawn School, mixed, in Hillmorton, Rugby.
- King Edward VI School, Stratford-upon-Avon, boys, in Stratford-upon-Avon.
- Lawrence Sheriff School, boys, in Rugby, Warwickshire.
Where to go next
- The West Midlands 11 plus entrance test, how the shared test works across the partnership.
- 11 plus preparation in Year 4, the year that reading and vocabulary quietly pay off.
- 11 plus English comprehension, half the marks start here. Begin early.
- Online 11 plus mock tests, timed papers that mix all four areas.