Bourne Community College
Local authority school · ages 11–16 · no sixth form
Below average on 3 of the four headline measures — 36th of 40 for average grade in West Sussex.
Emsworth · West Sussex · one of 40 state secondaries
Summary
Bourne Community College sits 36th of 40 state secondaries in West Sussex for average GCSE grade. 59.2% of its pupils passed both English and maths, against 67.4% across West Sussex. 32.7% reached the stronger grade 5 in both. Subject by subject it is furthest clear of West Sussex in design technology, sat by 13% of the year,, and furthest behind in chemistry and biology. Ofsted: Inspected in January 2026 under the current report card, which grades 7 areas separately and gives no overall word.
It is a school of 692 pupils, taking ages 11 to 16. 21.2% of its pupils are eligible for free school meals, and 17.7% are on SEN support with a further 4.1% holding an education, health and care plan. 27.2% were entered for the full EBacc, fewer than the 37.4% entered across West Sussex, which is a choice about how broad a curriculum to push, and 45.6% took the separate sciences rather than combined. 23.5% of pupils missed a tenth of school or more, worse than the 20.8% across West Sussex, and 80.5% of its leavers went on to further education.
Subject comparisons are measured at grade 4 or above against West Sussex, 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·West Sussex
Inspection
Graded by area
Last inspected January 2026
- Achievement
- Needs attention
- Attendance and behaviour
- Needs attention
- Curriculum and teaching
- Needs attention
- Inclusion
- Expected standard
- Leadership and management
- Needs attention
- Personal development
- Expected standard
- Safeguarding
- Met
- January 2026 Report card inspection Graded by area
- November 2021 Full inspection Good
Ofsted’s current report card grades each area separately and gives no overall word.
Attendance
23% of pupils missed a tenth of school or more, against 21% across West Sussex and 21% nationally. The comparators are the median secondary school, not an average.
GCSE · Key stage 4·2024/25
Attainment
39.1
Average grade across 8 Attainment 8, out of 90
in line with average
West Sussex 46.2 · England 46.1
After Year 11
81% stayed in education, 7% 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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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.
School details
Park Road
Southbourne
Emsworth
Hampshire
PO10 8PJ
- Headteacher
- Mrs Aparna Sharma
- Trust
- Bourne Community Trust
- Pupils
- 692 of 900 places
- Spare places
- 20%
- Free school meals
- 21%
- SEND
- 18% on SEN support, 4% with an EHC plan
- Separate sciences
- 46% of the year
- Progress 8
- Not published · last +0.15 in 2023/24
Other schools in West Sussex
39 schools. Distances are straight-line from this school.
- Bishop Luffa School, Chichester 8.3 km
- Chichester High School 10 km
- Chichester Free School 10.7 km
- The Academy, Selsey 15.4 km
- The Regis School 16.9 km
- Ormiston Six Villages Academy 17.6 km
- St Philip Howard Catholic School 19 km
- Felpham Community College 19.2 km
- Midhurst Rother College 19.7 km
- The Littlehampton Academy 26.9 km
- The Angmering School 30.4 km
- St Oscar Romero Catholic School 34 km
- Durrington High School 35.7 km
- Weald School, The 37.1 km
- Worthing High School 37.6 km
- Bohunt School Worthing 38.1 km
- St Andrew's CofE High School 38.6 km
- Davison Church of England High School for Girls, Worthing 39.4 km
- The Sir Robert Woodard Academy 41 km
- Steyning Grammar School 41.3 km
- Tanbridge House School 46.1 km
- Shoreham Academy 47 km
- The Forest School 48.5 km
- Millais School 48.7 km
- Bohunt Horsham 50.7 km
- St Paul's Catholic College 54.8 km
- Downlands Community School 55 km
- The Burgess Hill Academy 55.9 km
- Holy Trinity CofE Secondary School, Crawley 56.9 km
- Warden Park Secondary Academy 57.3 km
- St Wilfrid's Catholic Comprehensive School, Crawley 57.5 km
- Ifield Community College 57.5 km
- Thomas Bennett Community College 57.7 km
- Oriel High School 60 km
- Oathall Community College 60.1 km
- Hazelwick School 60.6 km
- The Gatwick School 61.5 km
- Imberhorne School 69.2 km
- Sackville School 71 km