Cottenham Village College
Academy · ages 11–16 · no sixth form
Above average on 2 of the four headline measures — 11th of 34 for average grade in Cambridgeshire.
Cambridge · Cambridgeshire · one of 35 state secondaries
Summary
Cottenham Village College sits 11th of 34 state secondaries in Cambridgeshire for average GCSE grade. 75.3% of its pupils passed both English and maths, against 67.5% across Cambridgeshire. 56.5% reached the stronger grade 5 in both. Subject by subject it is furthest clear of Cambridgeshire in history and combined science, and furthest behind in business studies, sat by 36% of the year. Ofsted: Good in October 2023.
It is an academy of 860 pupils, taking ages 11 to 16. 20.7% of its pupils are eligible for free school meals, and 5.3% are on SEN support with a further 3.5% holding an education, health and care plan. 67.1% were entered for the full EBacc, more than the 45.6% entered across Cambridgeshire, which is a choice about how broad a curriculum to push, and 31.2% took the separate sciences rather than combined. 18.2% of pupils missed a tenth of school or more, better than the 19.9% across Cambridgeshire, and 87.5% of its leavers went on to further education.
Subject comparisons are measured at grade 4 or above against Cambridgeshire, 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·Cambridgeshire
Inspection
Good
Inspected October 2023
- Behaviour and attitudes
- Good
- Leadership and management
- Good
- Personal development
- Good
- Quality of education
- Good
- October 2023 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
18% of pupils missed a tenth of school or more, against 20% across Cambridgeshire and 21% nationally. The comparators are the median secondary school, not an average.
GCSE · Key stage 4·2024/25
Attainment
57%
Strong pass in both grade 5+, a strong pass
in line with average
Cambridgeshire 50% · England 45%
52
Average grade across 8 Attainment 8, out of 90
in line with average
Cambridgeshire 48.1 · England 46.1
67%
Entered for the EBacc the academic core of subjects
well above average
Cambridgeshire 46% · England 41%
After Year 11
88% stayed in education, 4% 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.
English Language is the subject most of this year group sat. English Language 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
High Street
Cottenham
Cambridge
Cambridgeshire
CB24 8UA
- Headteacher
- Mrs Hanan McKeand
- Trust
- Astrea Academy Trust
- Pupils
- 860 of 1,015 places
- Spare places
- 14%
- Free school meals
- 21%
- SEND
- 5% on SEN support, 4% with an EHC plan
- Separate sciences
- 31% of the year
- Progress 8
- Not published · last +0.26 in 2023/24
Other schools in Cambridgeshire
34 schools. Distances are straight-line from this school.
- Impington Village College 3.9 km
- Northstowe Learning Community 3.9 km
- North Cambridge Academy 6.3 km
- Chesterton Community College 7.3 km
- Parkside Community College 8.7 km
- Swavesey Village College 9 km
- Coleridge Community College 10.2 km
- St Bede's Inter-Church School 10.5 km
- Bottisham Village College 10.9 km
- Trumpington Community College 11.3 km
- The Netherhall School 11.6 km
- Cambridge Academy for Science and Technology 12.2 km
- Comberton Village College 13.4 km
- Witchford Village College 13.4 km
- St Ivo Academy 15.3 km
- Soham Village College 15.5 km
- Cambourne Village College 15.8 km
- Ely College 16.5 km
- Sawston Village College 17.6 km
- Cromwell Community College 19.3 km
- St Peter's School 22 km
- Linton Village College 22.8 km
- Hinchingbrooke School 22.8 km
- Melbourn Village College 22.9 km
- Vista Academy Littleport 23.2 km
- Abbey College, Ramsey 23.8 km
- Bassingbourn Village College 26.2 km
- Longsands Academy 26.3 km
- Ernulf Academy 27.9 km
- Neale-Wade Academy 28.4 km
- Sawtry Village Academy 32.4 km
- Sir Harry Smith Community College 34.9 km
- The Wisbech Academy 41.4 km
- Thomas Clarkson Academy 41.5 km