Cardinal Griffin Catholic College
Academy · ages 11–18 · Roman Catholic · with a sixth form
Above average on 1 of the four headline measures — 30th of 55 for average grade in Staffordshire.
Cannock · Staffordshire · one of 56 state secondaries
Summary
Cardinal Griffin Catholic College sits 30th of 55 state secondaries in Staffordshire for average GCSE grade. 56.3% of its pupils passed both English and maths, against 61.9% across Staffordshire. 35.6% reached the stronger grade 5 in both. Subject by subject it is furthest clear of Staffordshire in biology, sat by 23% of the year, and chemistry, sat by 23% of the year,, and furthest behind in French and combined science. Ofsted: Good in February 2018, confirmed in March 2023.
It is an academy of 732 pupils, taking ages 11 to 18 and running its own sixth form. 29.5% of its pupils are eligible for free school meals, and 8.1% are on SEN support with a further 0% holding an education, health and care plan. 57% were entered for the full EBacc, more than the 33.2% entered across Staffordshire, which is a choice about how broad a curriculum to push, and 23% took the separate sciences rather than combined. 22.9% of pupils missed a tenth of school or more, about the same as Staffordshire, and 81.4% of its leavers went on to further education.
Subject comparisons are measured at grade 4 or above against Staffordshire, 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·Staffordshire
Inspection
Good
Last inspected March 2023
The grade itself is 8 years old.
- March 2023 Ungraded inspection School remains Good
- February 2018 Full inspection Good
An ungraded inspection checks whether the existing grade still holds rather than replacing it.
That grade was given under the framework Ofsted used before September 2019.
Attendance
23% of pupils missed a tenth of school or more, against 22% across Staffordshire and 21% nationally. The comparators are the median secondary school, not an average.
GCSE · Key stage 4·2024/25
Attainment
56%
Passed English & maths grade 4+, an old grade C
in line with average
Staffordshire 62% · England 65%
36%
Strong pass in both grade 5+, a strong pass
in line with average
Staffordshire 40% · England 45%
43.6
Average grade across 8 Attainment 8, out of 90
in line with average
Staffordshire 43.9 · England 46.1
57%
Entered for the EBacc the academic core of subjects
well above average
Staffordshire 33% · England 41%
After Year 11
81% stayed in education, 6% started an apprenticeship (2021/22 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.
English Language is the subject most of this year group sat. English Language tutors on Tutorperch.
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Sixth form · Key stage 5·2024/25
Sixth form
2024/25 · 41 A level students
4%
AAB or betterat least two in facilitating subjects
below average
Staffordshire 12.5% · England 12.8%
95%
Stayed the coursefinished what they started
in line with average
Staffordshire 94.9% · England 95.7%
Applied general qualifications: average result Distinction-, 16 students. 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 65 students who finished, 43.1% went on to higher education, 15.4% to an apprenticeship, and 23.1% into work. 87.7% 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
Cardinal Way
Cannock
Staffordshire
WS11 4AW
- Headteacher
- Mrs Hermione Gibson
- Trust
- ST Gabriel the Archangel Catholic Multi-academy Trust
- Pupils
- 732 of 896 places
- Spare places
- 15%
- Free school meals
- 30%
- SEND
- 8% on SEN support, 0% with an EHC plan
- Separate sciences
- 23% of the year
- Progress 8
- Not published · last -0.31 in 2023/24
Other schools in Staffordshire
55 schools. Distances are straight-line from this school.
- Cannock Chase High School 0.9 km
- Staffordshire University Academy 2.1 km
- Kingsmead School 2.8 km
- Great Wyrley Academy 3.6 km
- Cheslyn Hay Academy 4 km
- Norton Canes High School 5.1 km
- Wolgarston High School 5.1 km
- The Rural Enterprise Academy 5.5 km
- Chase Terrace Academy 7.1 km
- Erasmus Darwin Academy 7.4 km
- The Hart School 9 km
- Walton High School 10.2 km
- Rugeley John Taylor 10.5 km
- The Friary School 12.7 km
- King Edward VI High School 12.7 km
- Codsall Community High School 12.9 km
- Blessed William Howard Catholic School 12.9 km
- The Weston Road Academy 13.3 km
- Nether Stowe School 14.4 km
- King Edward VI School 14.6 km
- Sir Graham Balfour High School 15.8 km
- Wombourne High School 20.9 km
- John Taylor High School 22.5 km
- Lift Rawlett 23 km
- Landau Forte Academy, QEMS 24 km
- Alleyne's Academy 24.8 km
- Thomas Alleyne's High School 25.6 km
- John Taylor Free School 25.8 km
- Landau Forte Academy, Amington 26.3 km
- Lift Tamworth 26.3 km
- The Wilnecote School 27 km
- Paget High School 27.4 km
- Blessed Robert Sutton Catholic Voluntary Academy 30 km
- Kinver High School and Sixth Form 30.1 km
- Paulet High School 30.1 km
- Blythe Bridge High School 30.2 km
- The de Ferrers Academy 30.4 km
- Abbot Beyne School 30.9 km
- The JCB Academy 31.2 km
- The Cheadle Academy 31.8 km
- Painsley Catholic College 31.8 km
- Clayton Hall Academy 34.7 km
- Moorside High School 36.8 km
- Newcastle Academy 36.9 km
- St John Fisher Catholic College 37.9 km
- The Orme Academy 38.8 km
- Madeley High School 39.5 km
- Chesterton Community Sports College 40.7 km
- Sir Thomas Boughey Academy 42.2 km
- Endon High School 42.3 km
- Westwood College 45.3 km
- The King's CofE Academy 45.4 km
- Leek High School 45.7 km
- Kidsgrove Secondary School 46.1 km
- Biddulph High School 46.3 km