State secondary schools in Knowsley
6 schools · North West · 2024/25 Department for Education figures
Knowsley has 6 state secondaries, 1 of them with sixth forms. 78.1% of families got their first choice last year, worse than most of England. Results run from 11.3% to 37.7% passing English and maths, a spread of 26 points, with a middle school at 27.5%, below England's 45.4%.
Of those Ofsted has graded, 3 Good, 2 Requires improvement. 1 school carries no overall grade at all — either inspected since Ofsted stopped issuing one in September 2024, or never inspected.
Knowsley against England
State-funded schools, 2024/25
Getting a place
2026/27 secondary admissions round, across Knowsley
78.1%
Got their first choiceof those who applied
England 84%
93.5%
Got one of their threefirst, second or third
0%
Got no offer at allfrom any preference
13%
Appeals upheld15 of 118 heard
These are figures for Knowsley 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 Knowsley's 6 schools, the share passing English and maths runs from 11% to 38%. That is a spread of 26 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.
Knowsley 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.
Pick a subject to rank Knowsley's schools on it.
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Every school in Knowsley
Schools in neighbouring authorities are not in this list, because admissions run per authority. See bordering areas.
2 of 6 have no spare places. Sort the list, or narrow it first.
- All Saints Catholic High School Knowsley · Good. · no spare places
- Eng & maths
- 34%
- Attainment 8
- 40.6
- Absence
- 22%
- Halewood Academy Knowsley · Inspected under the current report card, which gives no overall grade.
- Eng & maths
- 38%
- Attainment 8
- 41.6
- Absence
- 24%
- Kirkby High School Liverpool · Good. · no spare places
- Eng & maths
- 20%
- Attainment 8
- 31.4
- Absence
- 40%
- Lord Derby Academy Liverpool · Good.
- Eng & maths
- 28%
- Attainment 8
- 39.9
- Absence
- 23%
- Saint Edmund Arrowsmith Catholic Academy Prescot · Requires improvement.
- Eng & maths
- 11%
- Attainment 8
- 30.2
- Absence
- 42%
- The Prescot School Liverpool · Requires improvement.
- Eng & maths
- 23%
- Attainment 8
- 35.5
- Absence
- 32%
Pick up to 4 schools to see them side by side in the comparison tool, subject by subject.
Bordering Knowsley
Near a boundary, schools on both sides are usually in reach. Whether a child can apply is set by each school's admission criteria, not by the border.
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.