Co-op Academy Failsworth
Academy · ages 11–16 · no sixth form
Below average on 2 of the four headline measures — 7th of 13 for average grade in Oldham.
Manchester · Oldham · one of 14 state secondaries
Summary
Co-op Academy Failsworth sits 7th of 13 state secondaries in Oldham for average GCSE grade. 57.7% of its pupils passed both English and maths, in line with the 57.7% managed across Oldham. 30.5% reached the stronger grade 5 in both. Subject by subject it is furthest clear of Oldham in computer science, sat by 13% of the year,, and furthest behind in English Literature and history. Ofsted: Good in June 2024.
It is an academy of 1,434 pupils, taking ages 11 to 16. 44.4% of its pupils are eligible for free school meals, a high share by national standards, and 19.1% are on SEN support with a further 2.6% holding an education, health and care plan. 18.8% were entered for the full EBacc, fewer than the 41.1% entered across Oldham, which is a choice about how broad a curriculum to push, and 5.9% took the separate sciences rather than combined. 27.4% of pupils missed a tenth of school or more, worse than the 21.4% across Oldham, and 79.3% of its leavers went on to further education.
Subject comparisons are measured at grade 4 or above against Oldham, 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·Oldham
Inspection
Good
Inspected June 2024
- Behaviour and attitudes
- Good
- Leadership and management
- Good
- Personal development
- Good
- Quality of education
- Good
- June 2024 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
27% of pupils missed a tenth of school or more, against 21% across Oldham and 21% nationally. The comparators are the median secondary school, not an average.
GCSE · Key stage 4·2024/25
Attainment
After Year 11
79% 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.
Parent guides
Thinking about a tutor?
Are tutors worth it?
What tutoring can and cannot fix, and how to tell which you are looking at.
How much does a tutor cost
Typical hourly rates by subject and level, and what changes them.
When to start tutoring
Why the term before an exam is usually later than parents expect.
How to know if it's working
What to look for after a month, beyond the next test score.
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
Brierley Avenue
Failsworth
Manchester
M35 9HA
- Head
- Rebecca Shaw
- Trust
- The Co-operative Academies Trust
- Pupils
- 1,434 of 1,500 places
- Spare places
- 5%
- Free school meals
- 44%
- SEND
- 19% on SEN support, 3% with an EHC plan
- Separate sciences
- 6% of the year
- Progress 8
- Not published · last -0.3 in 2023/24
Other schools in Oldham
13 schools. Distances are straight-line from this school.
- Oasis Academy Oldham 2.2 km
- The Hathershaw College 2.9 km
- Saint John Henry Newman Roman Catholic College, A Voluntary Academy 3.5 km
- The Brian Clarke Church of England Academy 4.2 km
- The Radclyffe School 4.3 km
- The Blue Coat CofE School 5.1 km
- Oasis Academy Leesbrook 5.3 km
- North Chadderton School 5.4 km
- E-ACT the Oldham Academy North 6.1 km
- Waterhead Academy 7 km
- E-ACT Royton and Crompton Academy 7.4 km
- The Crompton House Church of England Academy 8.7 km
- Saddleworth School 10.7 km