State secondary schools in Walsall
19 schools · West Midlands · 2024/25 Department for Education figures
Walsall has 19 state secondaries, 17 of them with sixth forms, 2 grammar schools among them. 77.4% of families got their first choice last year, worse than most of England. Results run from 8.6% to 97.2% passing English and maths, a spread of 89 points, with a middle school at 31.6%, below England's 45.4%.
Of those Ofsted has graded, 2 rated Outstanding, 11 Good, 1 Requires improvement. 5 schools carry no overall grade at all — either inspected since Ofsted stopped issuing one in September 2024, or never inspected.
Walsall against England
State-funded schools, 2024/25
Getting a place
2026/27 secondary admissions round, across Walsall
77.4%
Got their first choiceof those who applied
England 84%
91.4%
Got one of their threefirst, second or third
0.1%
Got no offer at allfrom any preference
17%
Appeals upheld56 of 339 heard
These are figures for Walsall 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 Walsall's 19 schools, the share passing English and maths runs from 9% to 97%. That is a spread of 89 percentage points, wider 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.
Walsall 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 Queen Mary's Grammar School Walsall · 34 entries 94%
- 2 Barr Beacon School Walsall · 27 entries 85%
- 3 Grace Academy Darlaston Wednesbury · 22 entries 77%
- 4 Bloxwich Academy Walsall · 32 entries 41%
- 5 Ormiston Shelfield Community Academy Walsall · 40 entries 40%
- 6 Shire Oak Academy Walsall · 56 entries 34%
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Every school in Walsall
Schools in neighbouring authorities are not in this list, because admissions run per authority. See bordering areas.
5 of 19 have no spare places. Sort the list, or narrow it first.
- Aldridge School - A Science College Walsall · Good.
- Eng & maths
- 41%
- Attainment 8
- 45.2
- Absence
- 22%
- Barr Beacon School Walsall · Good. · no spare places
- Eng & maths
- 62%
- Attainment 8
- 51
- Absence
- 16%
- Bloxwich Academy Walsall · Inspected under the current report card, which gives no overall grade.
- Eng & maths
- 25%
- Attainment 8
- 32.9
- Absence
- 37%
- Blue Coat Church of England Academy Walsall · Good.
- Eng & maths
- 18%
- Attainment 8
- 37.4
- Absence
- 22%
- Brownhills Ormiston Academy Walsall · Good.
- Eng & maths
- 34%
- Attainment 8
- 37.1
- Absence
- 25%
- Grace Academy Darlaston Wednesbury · Inspected under the current report card, which gives no overall grade.
- Eng & maths
- 30%
- Attainment 8
- 41.2
- Absence
- 32%
- Joseph Leckie Academy Walsall · Inspected under the current report card, which gives no overall grade. · no spare places
- Eng & maths
- 31%
- Attainment 8
- 42.4
- Absence
- 30%
- Ormiston Shelfield Community Academy Walsall · Good.
- Eng & maths
- 26%
- Attainment 8
- 38.4
- Absence
- 24%
- Pool Hayes Academy Willenhall · Good.
- Eng & maths
- 30%
- Attainment 8
- 37.7
- Absence
- 26%
- Queen Mary's Grammar School Walsall · Outstanding. · no spare places
- Eng & maths
- 97%
- Attainment 8
- 74.2
- Absence
- 8%
- Queen Mary's High School Walsall · Inspected under the current report card, which gives no overall grade.
- Eng & maths
- 95%
- Attainment 8
- 73.5
- Absence
- 7%
- Shire Oak Academy Walsall · Inspected, after Ofsted stopped issuing a single overall grade.
- Eng & maths
- 26%
- Attainment 8
- 35
- Absence
- 38%
- St Francis of Assisi Catholic College Walsall · Inspected under the current report card, which gives no overall grade.
- Eng & maths
- 59%
- Attainment 8
- 53.2
- Absence
- 18%
- St Thomas More Catholic School, Willenhall Willenhall · Good. · no spare places
- Eng & maths
- 32%
- Attainment 8
- 41.4
- Absence
- 24%
- The Streetly Academy Sutton Coldfield · Good.
- Eng & maths
- 36%
- Attainment 8
- 42.1
- Absence
- 22%
- Walsall Academy Walsall · Inspected under the current report card, which gives no overall grade. · no spare places
- Eng & maths
- 38%
- Attainment 8
- 43.9
- Absence
- 24%
- Walsall Studio School Walsall · Inspected, after Ofsted stopped issuing a single overall grade.
- Eng & maths
- 9%
- Attainment 8
- 26.9
- Absence
- 48%
- West Walsall E-ACT Academy Walsall · Good.
- Eng & maths
- 35%
- Attainment 8
- 39.9
- Absence
- 23%
- Willenhall E-ACT Academy Willenhall · Inspected, after Ofsted stopped issuing a single overall grade.
- Eng & maths
- 20%
- Attainment 8
- 34.7
- Absence
- 26%
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 Walsall
15 of Walsall's 17 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.
- Queen Mary's Grammar School B 36%
- Queen Mary's High School C+ 26%
- Shire Oak Academy C- 22%
- West Walsall E-ACT Academy C- 15%
- The Streetly Academy Sutton Coldfield C 14%
- Walsall Academy C+ 12%
- Pool Hayes Academy Willenhall D+ 11%
- Barr Beacon School C- 10%
- St Francis of Assisi Catholic College C+ 9%
- Blue Coat Church of England Academy D 7%
- Aldridge School - A Science College C- 7%
- Ormiston Shelfield Community Academy D+ 7%
- St Thomas More Catholic School, Willenhall Willenhall D+ 6%
- Joseph Leckie Academy C- 3%
- Grace Academy Darlaston Wednesbury D+ 0%
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.
Bordering Walsall
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.
- 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.