Lift Unity City
Academy · ages 11–16 · no sixth form
Below average on 2 of the four headline measures — 7th of 8 for average grade in Middlesbrough.
Middlesbrough · Middlesbrough · one of 8 state secondaries
Summary
Lift Unity City sits 7th of 8 state secondaries in Middlesbrough for average GCSE grade. 41.3% of its pupils passed both English and maths, against 57.3% across Middlesbrough. 20.6% reached the stronger grade 5 in both. Subject by subject only English Language and combined science sits measurably behind Middlesbrough. Ofsted: Inspected in April 2026 under the current report card, which grades 7 areas separately and gives no overall word.
It is an academy of 1,033 pupils, taking ages 11 to 16. 72% of its pupils are eligible for free school meals, a high share by national standards, and 13.5% are on SEN support with a further 2.6% holding an education, health and care plan. 24.5% were entered for the full EBacc, fewer than the 28.2% entered across Middlesbrough, which is a choice about how broad a curriculum to push, and 11.6% took the separate sciences rather than combined. 37.5% of pupils missed a tenth of school or more, worse than the 26.7% across Middlesbrough, and 68.5% of its leavers went on to further education.
Subject comparisons are measured at grade 4 or above against Middlesbrough, 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·Middlesbrough
Inspection
Graded by area
Last inspected April 2026
- Achievement
- Needs attention
- Attendance and behaviour
- Expected standard
- Curriculum and teaching
- Needs attention
- Inclusion
- Expected standard
- Leadership and management
- Expected standard
- Personal development
- Expected standard
- Safeguarding
- Met
- April 2026 Report card inspection Graded by area
- May 2022 Full inspection Good
Ofsted’s current report card grades each area separately and gives no overall word.
Attendance
38% of pupils missed a tenth of school or more, against 27% across Middlesbrough and 21% nationally. The comparators are the median secondary school, not an average.
GCSE · Key stage 4·2024/25
Attainment
34.2
Average grade across 8 Attainment 8, out of 90
in line with average
Middlesbrough 41.1 · England 46.1
25%
Entered for the EBacc the academic core of subjects
in line with average
Middlesbrough 28% · England 41%
After Year 11
69% 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.
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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
Ormesby Road
Middlesbrough
TS3 8RE
- Principal
- Mrs Jill Gray
- Trust
- Lift Schools
- Pupils
- 1,033 of 1,050 places
- Spare places
- 4%
- Free school meals
- 72%
- SEND
- 14% on SEN support, 3% with an EHC plan
- Separate sciences
- 12% of the year
- Progress 8
- Not published · last -0.87 in 2023/24
Other schools in Middlesbrough
7 schools. Distances are straight-line from this school.
- Outwood Academy Ormesby 1.4 km
- Trinity Catholic College 2.5 km
- Outwood Academy Riverside 2.8 km
- Outwood Academy Acklam 3.4 km
- The King's Academy 3.9 km
- Macmillan Academy 4.4 km
- Acklam Grange School 4.5 km