Ilkley Grammar School
Academy · ages 11–18 · with a sixth form
Above average on 3 of the four headline measures — 1st of 35 for average grade in Bradford.
Ilkley · Bradford · one of 35 state secondaries
Summary
Ilkley Grammar School sits 1st of 35 state secondaries in Bradford for average GCSE grade. 85.2% of its pupils passed both English and maths, against 56.8% across Bradford. 66.9% reached the stronger grade 5 in both. Subject by subject it is furthest clear of Bradford in history and combined science, with nothing measurably behind. Ofsted: Inspected in December 2024, after Ofsted stopped issuing a single overall grade.
It is an academy of 2,219 pupils, taking ages 11 to 18 and running its own sixth form. 7.6% of its pupils are eligible for free school meals, a low share, and 13.2% are on SEN support with a further 5.1% holding an education, health and care plan. 44.4% were entered for the full EBacc, more than the 42% entered across Bradford, which is a choice about how broad a curriculum to push, and 18.6% took the separate sciences rather than combined. 14.1% of pupils missed a tenth of school or more, better than the 24.7% across Bradford, and 89.6% of its leavers went on to further education.
Subject comparisons are measured at grade 4 or above against Bradford, 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·Bradford
Inspection
Graded by area
Last inspected December 2024
- Behaviour and attitudes
- Outstanding
- Leadership and management
- Outstanding
- Personal development
- Outstanding
- Quality of education
- Outstanding
- December 2024 Full inspection
- January 2023 Ungraded inspection School remains Outstanding (Concerns)
An ungraded inspection checks whether the existing grade still holds rather than replacing it.
Ofsted stopped issuing a single overall grade in September 2024.
Attendance
14% of pupils missed a tenth of school or more, against 25% across Bradford and 21% nationally. The comparators are the median secondary school, not an average.
GCSE · Key stage 4·2024/25
Attainment
44%
Entered for the EBacc the academic core of subjects
in line with average
Bradford 42% · England 41%
After Year 11
90% stayed in education, 5% 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.
Maths is the subject most of this year group sat. Maths tutors on Tutorperch.
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Sixth form · Key stage 5·2024/25
Sixth form
2024/25 · 254 A level students
Ofsted rated sixth-form provision Outstanding at the last inspection
B-
Average A level resultper entry, DfE grade
above average
Bradford C+ · England C+
B
Best three A levelsthe grade a typical offer asks for
24%
AAB or betterat least two in facilitating subjects
above average
Bradford 13.9% · England 12.8%
98%
Stayed the coursefinished what they started
in line with average
Bradford 95.5% · England 95.7%
Applied general qualifications: average result Distinction-, 89 students, 90% stayed the course. These are BTECs and similar, graded pass to distinction* rather than A* to E, so the two cannot be compared directly.
A level results by subject
2024/25 · share reaching B or above
After sixth form
Of the 229 students who finished, 57.2% went on to higher education, 3.5% to an apprenticeship, and 23.1% into work. 87.3% were in a sustained destination of some kind six months later.
Destinations are for 2022/23 leavers, the most recent DfE has published. The results above are 2024/25.
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.
- 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.
School details
Cowpasture Road
Ilkley
West Yorkshire
LS29 8TR
- Headteacher
- Mrs Carly Purnell
- Trust
- Moorlands Learning Trust
- Pupils
- 2,219 of 2,031 places
- Spare places
- None
- Free school meals
- 8%
- SEND
- 13% on SEN support, 5% with an EHC plan
- Separate sciences
- 19% of the year
- Progress 8
- Not published · last +0.54 in 2023/24
Other schools in Bradford
34 schools. Distances are straight-line from this school.
- Bingley Grammar School 7.6 km
- Carlton Keighley 8.2 km
- The Holy Family Catholic School, a Voluntary Academy 8.5 km
- Titus Salt School 8.9 km
- Beckfoot School 9 km
- Dixons Cottingley Academy 10.2 km
- Beckfoot Oakbank 10.5 km
- Immanuel College 10.6 km
- Belle Vue Girls' Academy 11.3 km
- Beckfoot Upper Heaton 11.5 km
- Parkside School 11.7 km
- St Bede's and St Joseph's Catholic College, A Voluntary Academy 12 km
- Oasis Academy Lister Park 12.4 km
- Hanson Academy 12.5 km
- Bradford Girls' Grammar School 13.2 km
- Valley Academy 13.4 km
- Dixons Allerton Academy 13.5 km
- Feversham Girls' Secondary Academy 13.7 km
- Eden Boys' Leadership Academy, Bradford 13.8 km
- Carlton Bolling 14.2 km
- Beckfoot Thornton 14.5 km
- Dixons Kings Academy 14.7 km
- Dixons McMillan Academy 15.4 km
- Laisterdyke Leadership Academy 15.4 km
- Dixons Trinity Academy 15.5 km
- Bronte Girls' Academy 15.8 km
- Dixons City Academy 16.1 km
- Co-op Academy Grange 16.5 km
- Bradford Academy 16.9 km
- Bradford Forster Academy 16.9 km
- Buttershaw Business & Enterprise College Academy 17.5 km
- Trinity Academy Bradford 17.5 km
- Tong Leadership Academy 19.3 km
- Appleton Academy 20.1 km