Sir William Borlase's Grammar School
Marlow, SL7 2BR · Buckinghamshire local authority
Marlow’s School Grade A better than 93% of towns in England
What stands out about Sir William Borlase's Grammar School
- Its own letter, A+: GCSE results better than 99% of England’s secondary schools
- 98% get grade 5 or above in English and maths, 51 points above England’s schools
- A grammar school: it selects pupils by an entrance test (the 11-plus), which lifts its results
- Over capacity: 1,222 pupils for 1,085 places
- 3% of pupils are eligible for free school meals (fewer than England’s 30%)
- Ofsted: Outstanding, May 2024 (shown, not graded)
- 56% of families who put it first got a place for September 2026 (144 of 257)
- Progress 8 of +0.56 in 2023/24, the last year DfE published it: pupils did better at GCSE than pupils nationally with the same results at 11
- Homes in its postcode sector (SL7 2) sold for a median £862,500; Marlow’s is £640,000
Results
DfE · GCSEs 2025/26, provisional · 151 pupilsEach bar is a group of England’s 3,224 graded secondary schools. The schools Sir William Borlase's Grammar beats are shaded green.
Attainment 8 76.7
Average grade across 8 GCSEs ×10 · higher than 99% of schools · Buckinghamshire avg 55.8
Grade 5+ in English and maths 98%
A strong pass · higher than 98% of schools · Buckinghamshire avg 63%
Attainment 8, three years
The mark is England’s average that year
Progress 8, 2023/24
+0.56: above average. How pupils did at GCSE against pupils nationally with the same results at 11. Not published since 2023/24 (no Key Stage 2 tests in 2020 and 2021).
England’s figures are of its graded mainstream state schools, each school counted once; grammar schools are included, which is why the right-hand tail is long. Small cohorts are suppressed.
How hard is it to get a place at Sir William Borlase's Grammar School?
56% of the families who put it first got a place for September 2026.
Years when some first choices missed out: 2019 (138), 2020 (103), 2021 (236), 2022 (90), 2023 (67), 2024 (76), 2025 (75), 2026 (113). The council runs the coordinated admissions; each school’s rules (siblings, distance, faith) decide who gets in. DfE doesn’t publish the furthest distance offered, so check the council’s admissions booklet for that. Marlow Education Trust sets the admissions rules. Apply through Buckinghamshire council’s coordinated admissions.
Outline = places offered · green = families who put it first · striped = more first choices than places
56% got their first choice
Marlow and Buckinghamshire, side by side
2025/26All 35 graded secondaries in Buckinghamshire. Schools with more pupils on free school meals usually score lower, so a school above the crowd for its free school meals is doing better than its intake predicts. Marlow’s schools are coloured by their letter.
Show as a table
| School | Letter | Free school meals | Attainment 8 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sir William Borlase's Grammar School | A+ | 3% | 76.7 |
| Dr Challoner's Grammar School | A+ | 3% | 76.2 |
| Dr Challoner's High School | A+ | 3% | 76.2 |
| Chesham Grammar School | A+ | 3% | 75.6 |
| Aylesbury High School | A+ | 6% | 75.5 |
| Royal Latin School | A+ | 5% | 75 |
| Beaconsfield High School | A+ | 2% | 74.5 |
| Sir Henry Floyd Grammar School | A+ | 7% | 74.3 |
| Wycombe High School | A+ | 9% | 74.2 |
| Aylesbury Grammar School | A+ | 7% | 74.2 |
| John Hampden Grammar School | A+ | 5% | 73.1 |
| The Royal Grammar School, High Wycombe | A+ | 6% | 71.9 |
| Burnham Grammar School | A+ | 13% | 71.4 |
| Pioneer Secondary Academy | A− | 11% | 54.2 |
| Waddesdon Church of England School | A− | 12% | 53.7 |
| Amersham School | A− | 15% | 52.4 |
| The Misbourne School | A− | 13% | 51.9 |
| Great Marlow School | B | 17% | 49.2 |
| The Beaconsfield School | B | 24% | 48.7 |
| St Michael's Catholic School | B | 20% | 48.7 |
| Holmer Green Senior School | B+ | 11% | 47.6 |
| John Colet School | B | 17% | 47.5 |
| The Cottesloe School | B− | 17% | 46.9 |
| Cressex Community School | C+ | 33% | 44.3 |
| Princes Risborough School | C+ | 19% | 43.8 |
| The Grange School | C+ | 25% | 43.7 |
| The Aylesbury Vale Academy | C− | 26% | 42 |
| The Highcrest Academy | C+ | 37% | 42 |
| Sir Thomas Fremantle School | C | 26% | 41.6 |
| The Chalfonts Community College | C− | 23% | 41.1 |
| Chiltern Hills Academy | C− | 23% | 40.9 |
| The Mandeville School | D | 34% | 38.7 |
| Buckingham School | D | 23% | 36.3 |
| Sir William Ramsay School | D− | 37% | 35.1 |
| E-Act Bourne End Academy | D− | 33% | 33.9 |
Who goes here
DfE school census, January 20251,205 pupils. SEN support is extra help in school for a special educational need; an EHC plan is the council’s legal plan for pupils who need more.
Girls and boys
Sir William Borlase's Grammar School’s letter
Its own results against England’s schools, not the town’s School Grade.
How school letters are worked out
Each school’s measure is compared with every graded school in England of the same phase: for primaries, the share of pupils meeting the expected standard in reading, writing and maths (DfE’s three-year average); for secondaries, Attainment 8 and the share with grade 5 or above in English and maths, each turned into a z-score against England’s schools and averaged. The letter comes from the share of those schools it beats, in the same bands as every grade on the site. The same method gives U.S. schools their letters, against their own state.
Graded: England’s open mainstream state schools with published results (grammar schools included, which select by test). Not graded: special schools, alternative provision, nurseries, 16–19 colleges, UTCs and studio schools, Welsh schools. Ofsted plays no part.
Ofsted inspections
Shown, not graded: Ofsted is never part of a letter or the School Grade.
Graded inspection: Outstanding, May 2024.
Living near Sir William Borlase's Grammar School
For families thinking of moving: what homes cost around the school, and the other schools close by.
Home prices in SL7 2, the school’s postcode sector
Marlow property prices →Median sale price each year, 2010 to 2025
By type, the 36 months to August 2026
Homes in SL7 2 sell for well over Marlow’s typical price. HM Land Registry Price Paid, standard sales. Catchments aren’t published, so the postcode sector stands in for “around the school”.
Schools within 1.6 miles
8 state schoolsLocation
Directions ↗
Marlow, SL7 2BR
Sir William Borlase's Grammar School: common questions
Is Sir William Borlase's Grammar School a good school?
By its published results, well above average: its GCSE results are better than 99% of England’s secondary schools (its letter is A+), with an Attainment 8 of 76.7 and 98% getting grade 5 or above in English and maths, against 47.3 and 47% for England’s schools. Ofsted: Outstanding, May 2024.
How hard is it to get into Sir William Borlase's Grammar School?
For September 2026, 257 families put Sir William Borlase's Grammar School first and 144 of them were offered a place; 146 places were offered in all.
What is Sir William Borlase's Grammar School’s Ofsted rating?
Its latest inspection outcome is Outstanding (May 2024).
How much do houses cost near Sir William Borlase's Grammar School?
Homes in its postcode sector, SL7 2, sold for a median £862,500 over the 36 months to August 2026 (204 sales).
Sources: DfE Get Information about Schools (16 October 2026), Key Stage 2 performance tables (2023–2025, three-year average) and Key Stage 4 (2025/26, provisional); Ofsted state-funded school inspections as at 30 September 2026. All under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
Also: DfE Key Stage 4 performance, schools data (2023/24 and 2024/25 final, 2025/26 provisional) and Key Stage 2 performance tables 2024/25 by subject; DfE school census, January 2025; DfE school-level applications and offers, September 2019 to 2026 entry; HM Land Registry Price Paid by postcode sector, 2010 to August 2026.
A school’s letter is our own summary of its published results against England’s schools of the same phase; Marlow’s School Grade is a separate grade, built from the results of the schools in and around the town against other towns. Map: © OpenStreetMap contributors.
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Contains HM Land Registry data © Crown copyright and database right 2026. Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2026 (ONS boundaries). Northern Ireland: Source: NISRA; contains Land & Property Services data and Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland information, © Crown copyright, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Scotland: contains National Records of Scotland data, Registers of Scotland data and SEPA data, © Crown copyright / © SEPA 2025, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.