We are delighted you are considering Portsmouth High Sixth Form for the next stage of your daughter’s education.
This information page will explain what will happen over the next few months up to the point when you receive the result of your daughter’s sixth form assessment.
Our sixth form entrance assessment will be held on Thursday 4 December 2025.
Reply Form
Music Scholarship
Sixth Form Welcome Guide
A Level Choices
Sixth Form Scholarships Forms to complete
All candidates are asked to join us on Thursday 4 December 2025 to sit our sixth form entrance paper and be interviewed.
A reminder to complete all the relevant forms in this document
Your daughter should arrive at the senior school reception at 8.40am, ready to start her examination at 9.00am. The oneand-a-half-hour examination is designed to test potential, and it does not require specific subject knowledge or preparation. The questions aim to allow candidates to demonstrate their thinking skills and stretch themselves. Your daughter should bring her pencil case and complete her paper in black ink. Mobile phones will not be permitted in the examination room. Calculators are allowed and she should bring one with her. Please let the school know if your daughter has any special needs and is entitled to extra time to complete her entrance paper.
Following a break your daughter will attend a short interview with Mrs Parker, Head, and Mrs Wood, Head of Sixth Form. This meeting is a very useful chance for us to get to know your daughter and hear about her A Level aspirations and subject choices. It would be helpful, though not essential, if your daughter could bring along any mock examination results she may have available at this time.
We are hopeful that we will be able to offer your daughter a bespoke experience afternoon following the examination and interview. She will accompany current pupils to lessons in those subjects she may be interested in studying at A Level. Your daughter will have the opportunity to meet subject staff and ask any questions she may have, experience the style of teaching on offer in the sixth form and see the facilities available across the school. She will also have the opportunity to spend time in Sixth Form House with our current pupils and find out more about the additional activities we have on offer in the sixth form, from co-curricular clubs to our well-being provision and EPQ programme.
Assessment Day will be held on Thursday 4 December 2025
Your daughter will finish her day at 3.40pm at which point she can be collected from the senior school reception or can make her own way home. If she plans to travel home alone, we ask that you confirm this on the reply form at the top of this document.
For academic scholarships, we will automatically consider all candidates on the basis of their examination paper and interview. For subject specific scholarships we ask candidates to write a letter or email of application (approximately one side of A4) to Mrs Sarah Parker, Head, who will then consider the application along with the relevant Head of Faculty. For the music scholarship, a separate application is required, the online forms are at the top of this document.
Following a process of shortlisting, successful applicants will be invited for interview or audition on 4 December. An information leaflet about the available scholarships at sixth form can be found at the top of this information document. Applications should be received as soon as possible.
Scholarship awards are not means-tested, and the small amount of money awarded represents the honour rather than a significant monetary value. The award is in place for the time that the scholar remains in the school.
Please note the music scholarship audition will be held on Monday 8 December 2025.
Bursaries are means-tested, so the amount you can be awarded is dependent on your total income and assets. There is always a great demand for bursaries, and we cannot guarantee that you will be offered one, even if you are eligible.
If you have already indicated that you wish to apply for a bursary you should login to your parent account where the bursary application form will be available for you to complete. If you have any issues accessing this, please contact Mrs Charlotte Thomson, Admissions Registrar, as soon as possible. The closing date for bursary applications is 30 November 2025.
You will be informed whether or not you have been awarded a bursary or scholarship when you receive confirmation of an offer of a place for your daughter. It is possible to be awarded both a scholarship and a bursary.
We will be contacting your daughter’s current school shortly to ask for a reference. If your daughter has only attended this school for a short period, you may wish to provide us with details of her previous school.
We understand that following the examination and experience afternoon you may still have some questions about Portsmouth High School. We would be happy to arrange individual meetings with Mrs Parker, Head and/or myself, Mrs Katie Wood, Head of Sixth Form to answer these.
We will use the interview, together with the reference and predicted grades from your daughter’s current school and the results of the examination, in order to decide whether to offer her a place in our Sixth Form. We hope to be able to inform you of our decision within two weeks of the Sixth Form experience and assessment day. If you have applied for a scholarship and/or bursary, you will be told the outcome of this at the same time.
You will be notified by email via the admissions system that an offer has been made. The letter with an offer of a place at Portsmouth High School will be accompanied by an online contract for you and anyone with parental responsibility to digitally accept and sign. At the same time as completing the contract you will be required to pay a deposit of £500, which is refundable, minus any fees or incidental expenses when your daughter leaves Portsmouth High School. The deadline for accepting a place as offered is Monday 2 March 2026. Please ensure you have completed the contract and paid the deposit by this date to ensure your daughter’s place at Portsmouth High School. If you decide not to accept our offer of a place, we should be grateful if you would inform us as early as possible and let us know which alternative school you have chosen for your daughter.
If you requested financial assistance and are eligible for a bursary yet have not, at this stage, been offered sufficient help with fees, we will place your name on a bursary waiting list on which you may remain even if you accept a fee-paying place. On rare occasions, candidates do not accept a bursary and in this event their award may be offered to another candidate.
In the week commencing Monday 29 June 2026 we will be offering a Sixth Form induction programme for all pupils starting in the Sixth Form in September 2026. This normally consists of time spent in departments, focusing on subject-specific study skills, careers presentations and workshops and a university visit. Details will be confirmed in a subsequent letter. There will be a small cost for transport, and we will ask you to book a place nearer the time.
We hope that you will find this information useful. If you would like any further information, please do not hesitate to contact our Admissions Registrar, Mrs Charlotte Thomson, who is available via admissions@por.gdst.net or by telephone on 023 9282 6714.
