Highfield Leadership Academy
Academy · ages 11–16 · no sixth form
Below average on 1 of the four headline measures — 6th of 8 for average grade in Blackpool.
Blackpool · Blackpool · one of 8 state secondaries
Summary
Highfield Leadership Academy sits 6th of 8 state secondaries in Blackpool for average GCSE grade. 42.1% of its pupils passed both English and maths, against 51.2% across Blackpool. 19.6% reached the stronger grade 5 in both. Subject by subject only English Language and combined science sits measurably behind Blackpool. Ofsted: Requires improvement in March 2024.
It is an academy of 751 pupils, taking ages 11 to 16. 55.9% of its pupils are eligible for free school meals, a high share by national standards, and 22.4% are on SEN support with a further 0.9% holding an education, health and care plan. 25.2% were entered for the full EBacc, more than the 17.8% entered across Blackpool, which is a choice about how broad a curriculum to push. 43.6% of pupils missed a tenth of school or more, worse than the 28.7% across Blackpool, and 71.8% of its leavers went on to further education.
Subject comparisons are measured at grade 4 or above against Blackpool, 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·Blackpool
Inspection
Requires improvement
Inspected March 2024
- Behaviour and attitudes
- Requires improvement
- Leadership and management
- Requires improvement
- Personal development
- Good
- Quality of education
- Requires improvement
- March 2024 Full inspection Requires improvement
That grade was given under the framework that ran from September 2019 to 2024, when Ofsted still issued one overall grade.
Attendance
44% of pupils missed a tenth of school or more, against 29% across Blackpool and 21% nationally. The comparators are the median secondary school, not an average.
GCSE · Key stage 4·2024/25
Attainment
42%
Passed English & maths grade 4+, an old grade C
in line with average
Blackpool 51% · England 65%
25%
Entered for the EBacc the academic core of subjects
in line with average
Blackpool 18% · England 41%
After Year 11
72% stayed in education, 2% 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.
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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
Highfield Road
Blackpool
Lancashire
FY4 3JZ
- Head
- Mrs Kim Greenwood
- Trust
- Star Academies
- Pupils
- 751 of 1,200 places
- Spare places
- 45%
- Free school meals
- 56%
- SEND
- 22% on SEN support, 1% with an EHC plan
- Progress 8
- Not published · last -0.96 in 2023/24
Other schools in Blackpool
7 schools. Distances are straight-line from this school.
- Armfield Academy 1.2 km
- South Shore Academy 1.3 km
- St George's School A Church of England Academy 1.5 km
- St Mary's Catholic Academy 4.4 km
- Unity Academy Blackpool 5.4 km
- Blackpool Aspire Academy 5.5 km
- Montgomery Academy 7.6 km