Cartmel Priory CofE School
Academy · ages 11–16 · Church of England · no sixth form
In line with Westmorland and Furness across the board — 7th of 20 for average grade in Westmorland and Furness.
Grange-over-Sands · Westmorland and Furness · one of 20 state secondaries
Summary
Cartmel Priory CofE School sits 7th of 20 state secondaries in Westmorland and Furness for average GCSE grade. 58% of its pupils passed both English and maths, against 62.5% across Westmorland and Furness. 37.7% reached the stronger grade 5 in both. Subject by subject it is furthest clear of Westmorland and Furness in design technology, sat by 39% of the year,, and furthest behind in religious studies and computer science, sat by 33% of the year. Ofsted: Inspected in May 2026 under the current report card, which grades 7 areas separately and gives no overall word.
It is an academy of 371 pupils, taking ages 11 to 16. 14.3% of its pupils are eligible for free school meals, and 13% are on SEN support with a further 7.2% holding an education, health and care plan. 18.8% were entered for the full EBacc, fewer than the 24.4% entered across Westmorland and Furness, which is a choice about how broad a curriculum to push, and 37.7% took the separate sciences rather than combined. 14.8% of pupils missed a tenth of school or more, better than the 20.6% across Westmorland and Furness, and 85.5% of its leavers went on to further education.
Subject comparisons are measured at grade 4 or above against Westmorland and Furness, 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·Westmorland and Furness
Inspection
Graded by area
Last inspected May 2026
- Achievement
- Expected standard
- Attendance and behaviour
- Strong standard
- Curriculum and teaching
- Needs attention
- Inclusion
- Needs attention
- Leadership and management
- Expected standard
- Personal development
- Strong standard
- Safeguarding
- Met
- May 2026 Report card inspection Graded by area
- March 2022 Ungraded inspection School remains Good
An ungraded inspection checks whether the existing grade still holds rather than replacing it.
Ofsted’s current report card grades each area separately and gives no overall word.
Attendance
15% of pupils missed a tenth of school or more, against 21% across Westmorland and Furness and 21% nationally. The comparators are the median secondary school, not an average.
GCSE · Key stage 4·2024/25
Attainment
58%
Passed English & maths grade 4+, an old grade C
in line with average
Westmorland and Furness 63% · England 65%
38%
Strong pass in both grade 5+, a strong pass
in line with average
Westmorland and Furness 42% · England 45%
47.2
Average grade across 8 Attainment 8, out of 90
in line with average
Westmorland and Furness 45.4 · England 46.1
19%
Entered for the EBacc the academic core of subjects
in line with average
Westmorland and Furness 24% · England 41%
After Year 11
86% stayed in education, 6% 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
Headless Cross
Cartmel
Grange-over-Sands
Cumbria
LA11 7SA
- Headteacher
- Sarah Beestone
- Trust
- Cartmel Priory Church of England School Academy Trust
- Pupils
- 371 of 438 places
- Spare places
- 19%
- Free school meals
- 14%
- SEND
- 13% on SEN support, 7% with an EHC plan
- Separate sciences
- 38% of the year
- Progress 8
- Not published · last -0.08 in 2023/24
Other schools in Westmorland and Furness
19 schools. Distances are straight-line from this school.
- Ulverston Victoria High School 9.5 km
- Dallam School 12.3 km
- Dowdales School 15.9 km
- St Bernards Catholic High School, Barrow 18 km
- Chetwynde School 18.1 km
- Kirkbie Kendal School 19 km
- Furness Academy 19.3 km
- John Ruskin School 20.5 km
- The Queen Katherine School 21 km
- The Lakes School 21.6 km
- Queen Elizabeth School 22.5 km
- Queen Elizabeth Studio School 22.5 km
- Walney School 22.6 km
- Settlebeck School 31.2 km
- Kirkby Stephen Grammar School 49.4 km
- Appleby Grammar School 52 km
- Queen Elizabeth Grammar School Penrith 52.7 km
- Ullswater Community College 52.9 km
- Samuel King's School 75.7 km