State secondary schools in Isle of Wight
7 schools · South East · 2024/25 Department for Education figures
Isle of Wight has 7 state secondaries, 4 of them with sixth forms. 83.4% of families got their first choice last year, about the national picture. Results run from 26.6% to 56.2% passing English and maths, a spread of 30 points, with a middle school at 38.5%, below England's 45.4%.
Of those Ofsted has graded, 4 Good, 3 Requires improvement.
Isle of Wight against England
State-funded schools, 2024/25
Getting a place
2026/27 secondary admissions round, across Isle of Wight
83.4%
Got their first choiceof those who applied
England 84%
94.3%
Got one of their threefirst, second or third
0.3%
Got no offer at allfrom any preference
42%
Appeals upheld11 of 26 heard
These are figures for Isle of Wight as a whole. A popular school can be much harder to get into than the average suggests, and the criteria that decide it are set by each school's own admission authority rather than centrally. How applying works
How much the choice matters here
Across Isle of Wight's 7 schools, the share passing English and maths runs from 27% to 56%. That is a spread of 30 percentage points, narrower than most councils.
The typical council spans about 48 points. Where schools are close together the school a child gets matters less; where they are far apart it matters a great deal. The widest spreads are all selective areas, where grammar schools sit at one end and everything else at the other.
Isle of Wight schools, subject by subject
The share reaching grade 4 or above, among schools entering at least 20 pupils. Which pupils take a subject differs a lot between schools, so read this as what happened rather than as a ranking of teaching.
- 1 Christ The King College Newport · 82 entries 78%
- 2 The Island Free School Ventnor · 70 entries 61%
- 3 Cowes Enterprise College, An Ormiston Academy Cowes · 112 entries 55%
- 4 Lift Ryde Ryde · 122 entries 52%
- 5 Medina College Newport · 43 entries 51%
- 6 Carisbrooke College Newport · 46 entries 50%
- 7 The Bay Church of England School Sandown · 75 entries 41%
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Every school in Isle of Wight
0 of 7 have no spare places. Sort the list, or narrow it first.
- Carisbrooke College Newport · Requires improvement.
- Eng & maths
- 30%
- Attainment 8
- 41.4
- Absence
- 25%
- Christ The King College Newport · Requires improvement.
- Eng & maths
- 42%
- Attainment 8
- 44.8
- Absence
- 29%
- Cowes Enterprise College, An Ormiston Academy Cowes · Good.
- Eng & maths
- 39%
- Attainment 8
- 42.7
- Absence
- 31%
- Lift Ryde Ryde · Good.
- Eng & maths
- 41%
- Attainment 8
- 43.8
- Absence
- 28%
- Medina College Newport · Requires improvement.
- Eng & maths
- 30%
- Attainment 8
- 35.2
- Absence
- 39%
- The Bay Church of England School Sandown · Good.
- Eng & maths
- 27%
- Attainment 8
- 38.3
- Absence
- 24%
- The Island Free School Ventnor · Good.
- Eng & maths
- 56%
- Attainment 8
- 51
- Absence
- 16%
Pick up to 4 schools to see them side by side in the comparison tool, subject by subject.
Sixth form · Key stage 5·2024/25
A levels in Isle of Wight
4 of Isle of Wight's 4 sixth forms publish A level results. Ranked on the share reaching AAB or better in at least two of the subjects universities name, which is the measure the steepest entry requirements are written in.
- Christ The King College Newport C 17%
- Cowes Enterprise College, An Ormiston Academy Cowes C 12%
- Lift Ryde Ryde C 11%
- Medina College Newport D+ 2%
A level results only. A sixth form running mostly BTECs and other applied courses will show a dash here and can still be the right one — those are graded on their own scale, where a distinction and an A grade carry the same points and mean different things.
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.
- 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.
- First preference
- The share of families who were offered the school they ranked first on their application, on national offer day in March. This figure is calculated across the relevant schools or admissions authority, so a high overall figure does not necessarily mean that every individual school is easy to get into.
- 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.
- 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.