Bedlington Academy
Academy · ages 11–18 · with a sixth form
Above average on 1 of the four headline measures — 6th of 16 for average grade in Northumberland.
Bedlington · Northumberland · one of 16 state secondaries
Summary
Bedlington Academy sits 6th of 16 state secondaries in Northumberland for average GCSE grade. 74.5% of its pupils passed both English and maths, against 62.8% across Northumberland. 44% reached the stronger grade 5 in both. Subject by subject it is furthest clear of Northumberland in chemistry, sat by 16% of the year, and biology, sat by 16% of the year,, and furthest behind in art and physical education, sat by 29% of the year. Ofsted: Good in September 2022.
It is an academy of 822 pupils, taking ages 11 to 18 and running its own sixth form. 33.1% of its pupils are eligible for free school meals, a high share by national standards, and 11.3% are on SEN support with a further 2.1% holding an education, health and care plan. 39.7% were entered for the full EBacc, more than the 32.3% entered across Northumberland, which is a choice about how broad a curriculum to push, and 16.3% took the separate sciences rather than combined. 19.4% of pupils missed a tenth of school or more, better than the 25.1% across Northumberland, and 76.3% of its leavers went on to further education.
Subject comparisons are measured at grade 4 or above against Northumberland, and count as ahead or behind only where the gap is wider than the year-to-year swing that entry group would produce.
The school·Northumberland
Inspection
Good
Inspected September 2022
- Behaviour and attitudes
- Good
- Leadership and management
- Good
- Personal development
- Good
- Quality of education
- Good
- September 2022 Full inspection Good
That grade was given under the framework that ran from September 2019 to 2024, when Ofsted still issued one overall grade.
Attendance
19% of pupils missed a tenth of school or more, against 25% across Northumberland and 21% nationally. The comparators are the median secondary school, not an average.
GCSE · Key stage 4·2024/25
Attainment
44%
Strong pass in both grade 5+, a strong pass
in line with average
Northumberland 42% · England 45%
47.4
Average grade across 8 Attainment 8, out of 90
in line with average
Northumberland 44 · England 46.1
40%
Entered for the EBacc the academic core of subjects
in line with average
Northumberland 32% · England 41%
After Year 11
76% stayed in education, 12% started an apprenticeship (2022/23 leavers)
GCSE results by subject
2024/25 · share reaching grade 4 or above · a standard pass, the old grade C
Every bar is on the same 0–100% scale, so subjects can be read against each other as well as against the county and England. A dash means the figure does not exist rather than being zero. The county and England lines cover state-funded schools only, the same schools you can browse here, because independent schools sit outside the Department for Education's subject release and outside this site.
Compare these subjects against another school, side by side.
Maths is the subject most of this year group sat. Maths tutors on Tutorperch.
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Sixth form · Key stage 5·2024/25
Sixth form
2024/25 · 28 A level students
Ofsted rated sixth-form provision Good at the last inspection
B-
Average A level resultper entry, DfE grade
above average
Northumberland C+ · England C+
C+
Best three A levelsthe grade a typical offer asks for
24%
AAB or betterat least two in facilitating subjects
above average
Northumberland 12.2% · England 12.8%
87%
Stayed the coursefinished what they started
below average
Northumberland 94.9% · England 95.7%
Applied general qualifications: average result Distinction+, 12 students, 78.6% stayed the course. These are BTECs and similar, graded pass to distinction* rather than A* to E, so the two cannot be compared directly.
A level results by subject
2024/25 · share reaching B or above
After sixth form
Of the 37 students who finished, 45.9% went on to higher education, 10.8% to an apprenticeship, and 24.3% into work. 83.8% were in a sustained destination of some kind six months later.
Destinations are for 2022/23 leavers, the most recent DfE has published. The results above are 2024/25.
What these mean
- Attainment 8
- The average pupil's total score across eight GCSE-equivalent subjects, with English and maths counting double. It is scored out of 90. A score of 50 is roughly equivalent to achieving a grade 5 across eight subjects.
- Grades 4 and 5
- GCSEs are graded from 9 down to 1. Grade 4 is a standard pass and broadly corresponds to the old grade C; grade 5 is what the government calls a strong pass. Grade 7 is broadly equivalent to an old grade A.
- The EBacc
- A combination of subjects rather than a qualification in its own right: English, Maths, the Sciences, a Language, and History or Geography. The figure shows the share of pupils entered for all the EBacc subject areas, so it gives an indication of how widely a school enters pupils for this particular combination of subjects.
- Progress 8
- A measure of how much progress pupils make between the end of primary school and the end of GCSE, rather than simply what grades they achieve. It takes pupils' prior attainment into account, making it useful for comparing schools with different intakes. Progress 8 is not published for 2024/25 because the pupils concerned did not have Key Stage 2 tests that can be used as the normal starting point.
- Percentage points
- The gap between two percentages. A subject going from 30% to 36% has risen six percentage points, though it has risen by a fifth. We write "pp" to keep the two apart.
- Why some subjects say nothing
- A year group is small. Where a gap is no bigger than the swing a different intake would produce, we say the subjects are level rather than dressing chance as a finding. Two kinds of subject carry no share at all: a vocational award has no 9-to-1 grade to report, and some qualifications are not published on the 9-to-1 scale for a given year group, most often community languages sat outside the school's own timetable.
- Persistent absence
- The share of pupils who miss at least 10% of their possible sessions during the school year. This includes both authorised and unauthorised absence, so illness and other authorised reasons are included. Persistent absence has remained substantially higher than its pre-pandemic level.
- Spare places
- The amount of available capacity a school has compared with the number of pupils on roll. This is different from oversubscription: spare places measure whether a school has capacity, whereas oversubscription describes demand for places exceeding the number available. A school with no spare places may be popular, but a small school can also be full without receiving a large number of applications.
- Grades not published
- Where a subject was sat by only a few students, the Department for Education publishes how many entered and withholds the grades, so that individual students cannot be identified from the figures. The subject is shown, because the school does teach it, but there is nothing to compare. Most A level groups are small enough for this to apply somewhere on a page.
- Average A-level grade
- The average grade achieved across students' A-level entries. This is different from measures such as the proportion achieving AAB or better in two or more facilitating subjects, which are sometimes used to indicate higher attainment and university-entry performance.
School details
Palace Road
Bedlington
Northumberland
NE22 7DS
- Head
- Mrs Joanna Lamb
- Trust
- North East Learning Trust
- Pupils
- 822 of 917 places
- Spare places
- 11%
- Free school meals
- 33%
- SEND
- 11% on SEN support, 2% with an EHC plan
- Separate sciences
- 16% of the year
- Progress 8
- Not published · last -0.26 in 2023/24
Other schools in Northumberland
15 schools. Distances are straight-line from this school.
- The Blyth Academy 1.9 km
- St Benet Biscop Catholic Academy 2.7 km
- Bede Academy 3.5 km
- NCEA Duke's Secondary School 4.4 km
- Ashington Academy 4.5 km
- Cramlington Learning Village 7.1 km
- Seaton Valley High School 7.5 km
- The King Edward VI School 9.2 km
- Ponteland High School 15.5 km
- James Calvert Spence College 21.1 km
- Prudhoe Community High School 27.3 km
- The Duchess's Community High School 30.1 km
- Queen Elizabeth High School 39.9 km
- Haydon Bridge High School 47.5 km
- Berwick Academy 74.1 km