The Skinners' School, Tunbridge Wells

Ofsted's report card from its 27 January 2026 inspection grades The Skinners' School on 7 areas: 6 strong standard and 1 expected standard. Report cards replaced single-word judgements in November 2025, on a five-point scale from exceptional to urgent improvement.

Achievement - Strong standard. "Pupils achieve very well across the curriculum, including disadvantaged pupils and pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities."

Attendance and behaviour - Strong standard. "Pupils attend very well."

Curriculum and teaching - Strong standard. "Leaders have designed an ambitious curriculum that reflects their remarkably high ambitions for all pupils, including disadvantaged pupils and pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND)."

Leadership and governance - Strong standard. "Leaders have a clear vision for the school rooted in high ambition for all pupils."

Personal development and wellbeing - Strong standard. "There is a comprehensive and thoughtfully sequenced personal development and wellbeing programme."

Post 16 provision - Strong standard. "Leaders have developed a highly ambitious and well-designed post-16 curriculum."

Inclusion - Expected standard. "Pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) and pupils who speak English as an additional language are supported well."

Safeguarding standards were met.

Ofsted's next steps for the school: "• Leaders should strengthen their approach to identifying specific barriers for some disadvantaged pupils and closely monitor the impact of the individual support strategies they put in place. • Leaders should continue their work to develop autonomous, self-regulating individuals who demonstrate the positive values the school wants to instil in all its pupils".

In its own words: "Students gain not only qualifications, but a respect for scholarship and learning as things worthwhile in themselves. We intend that they will also develop an appreciation of human achievement in the arts, humanities, languages, science and literature."

From the headteacher's welcome: "The Skinners' School was opened in Tunbridge Wells in 1887. The current roll is 1201, with 389 in the Sixth Form. Skinners' aims to achieve academic excellence for all its pupils, whilst at the same time developing their independence as learners. We also believe very strongly in learning outside the classroom, through co-curricular and extra-curricular activity."

Clubs and activities named on the school's website include football, rugby, hockey, cricket, basketball, badminton, cross-country, drama, Duke of Edinburgh and cadets.

In 2026, pupils at The Skinners' School averaged an Attainment 8 score of 72.7, the average grade across their best eight GCSEs. The average state school scored 48.1 in Kent and 47 across England.

97% passed English and maths at grade 5 or above, against 49% in Kent and 47% in England.

That is up from 70.8 in 2025.

Its most recent Progress 8 score, for 2024, was 0.99: pupils made well above average progress compared with pupils nationally who started secondary school at the same level. Progress 8 was not published for 2026.

Pupils sat GCSEs in 24 subjects; after English and maths, the most popular were Biology, Chemistry and Physics.

The Skinners' School is a grammar school: places go to children who reach the required standard in its entrance test, and only then are the oversubscription criteria applied.

For September 2026 entry, 232 families put The Skinners' School as their first choice and 887 named it as one of their preferences, for 160 places offered. That is 1.4 first choices for every place. 127 families who put it first were not offered a place there.

The Skinners' School admits pupils through an entrance test - in Kent, the Kent Test. Children have to be registered for it in advance, normally in the spring or summer of Year 5; the test itself is usually sat in September of Year 6, and results come out in October, before the 31 October deadline for naming secondary schools.

Passing the test makes a child eligible rather than guaranteeing a place: when more children pass than there are places, The Skinners' School ranks them by the criteria in its admissions policy, which can include test score and distance. Check Kent's admissions pages and the school's own policy for this year's registration deadline - a child who is not registered in time cannot sit the test.

Kent has 32 state grammar schools in all, so a child who passes may have several selective schools to choose between.

The nearest other state secondary schools to The Skinners' School are Tunbridge Wells Girls' Grammar School (0.2 miles, Outstanding, selective, Attainment 8 72.5); Tunbridge Wells Grammar School for Boys (0.6 miles, Good, selective, Attainment 8 64.5); Bennett Memorial Diocesan School (0.6 miles, Outstanding, Attainment 8 53.4); and St Gregory's Catholic School (0.6 miles, Outstanding, Attainment 8 44.8).

The Skinners' School's 2026 results were higher than all 4 of them.

The Skinners' School is one of 6 schools run by Skinners' Academies Trust, an academy trust.

603 parents answered Ofsted's Parent View survey about The Skinners' School (as of April 2026): 99% would recommend the school, 98% say their child is happy there and 92% of those with a view say bullying is dealt with well.

The strongest agreement was that they would recommend the school (99%); the weakest, that the school deals with bullying well (among parents with a view) (92%).

Of the 159 pupils who finished Year 11 in 2023/24, 99% stayed in education or training for at least two terms, including 1% into work.

Of the 156 students who left the sixth form in 2023/24, 73% went on to university or other higher education, 2% to apprenticeships and 11% into work. 68% went to one of the most selective third of universities.

4.9% of pupils are eligible for free school meals, well below the average state school (25%), according to the 2026 school census.

In 2026, 81 pupils (7%) received SEN support and 0 (0%) had an education, health and care plan, against 16.2% and 4.6% at the average state school. The most common need among them is a specific learning difficulty such as dyslexia.

The Skinners' School has a resourced provision for visual impairment and autism: 2 places, 2 pupils on roll.

The nearest railway station is High Brooms Rail Station, about 0.8 miles away in a straight line.

6 bus stops are within a five-minute walk; the closest is The Skinners' School (adjacent), 100 metres away.

Measured by the 2025 English Indices of Deprivation, the neighbourhood The Skinners' School stands in is among the 10% least deprived neighbourhoods in England. This describes where the school is, not where its pupils live.

In August 2026, police recorded 274 crimes within a mile of the school, most often violence and sexual offences, anti-social behaviour and shoplifting. That is well above the typical figure around schools in Kent (101), as is usual near a town centre.

In 2024/25, The Skinners' School issued 12 suspensions, 1.1 for every 100 pupils (the average state school: 6.3), and no permanent exclusions.

The primary schools closest to The Skinners' School are St Barnabas CofE VA Primary School (0.4 miles), St Augustine's Catholic Primary School (0.4 miles), The Wells Free School (0.5 miles) and St John's Church of England Primary School (0.5 miles). Admission does not depend on which primary a child attends unless the school's policy names feeder schools.