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Nicholas Breakspear Catholic School

Academy · ages 11–18 · Roman Catholic · with a sixth form

Above average on 3 of the four headline measures — 26th of 79 for average grade in Hertfordshire.

St Albans · Hertfordshire · one of 80 state secondaries

How we read the data

Summary

Nicholas Breakspear Catholic School sits 26th of 79 state secondaries in Hertfordshire for average GCSE grade. 82.9% of its pupils passed both English and maths, against 71.7% across Hertfordshire. 64.6% reached the stronger grade 5 in both. Subject by subject it is furthest clear of Hertfordshire in business studies and history, and furthest behind in Spanish. Ofsted: Outstanding in November 2023.

It is an academy of 1,134 pupils, taking ages 11 to 18 and running its own sixth form. 11.5% of its pupils are eligible for free school meals, and 12% are on SEN support with a further 4% holding an education, health and care plan. 80.6% were entered for the full EBacc, more than the 47% entered across Hertfordshire, which is a choice about how broad a curriculum to push, and 20.6% took the separate sciences rather than combined. 8.6% of pupils missed a tenth of school or more, better than the 18.2% across Hertfordshire, and 94.4% of its leavers went on to further education.

Subject comparisons are measured at grade 4 or above against Hertfordshire, 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·Hertfordshire

Inspection

Outstanding

Last inspected November 2023

Behaviour and attitudes
Outstanding
Leadership and management
Outstanding
Personal development
Outstanding
Quality of education
Outstanding
  • November 2023 Full inspection Outstanding
  • October 2021 Ungraded inspection School remains Good (Improving)

An ungraded inspection checks whether the existing grade still holds rather than replacing it.

That grade was given under the framework that ran from September 2019 to 2024, when Ofsted still issued one overall grade.

Read the Ofsted report

Attendance

9% of pupils missed a tenth of school or more, against 18% across Hertfordshire and 21% nationally. The comparators are the median secondary school, not an average.

GCSE · Key stage 4·2024/25

Attainment

83%

Passed English & maths grade 4+, an old grade C

above average

Hertfordshire 72% · England 65%

65%

Strong pass in both grade 5+, a strong pass

above average

Hertfordshire 53% · England 45%

56.4

Average grade across 8 Attainment 8, out of 90

in line with average

Hertfordshire 50.6 · England 46.1

81%

Entered for the EBacc the academic core of subjects

well above average

Hertfordshire 47% · England 41%

After Year 11

94% 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

this school Hertfordshire England

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 Literature is the subject most of this year group sat. English Literature tutors on Tutorperch.

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Sixth form · Key stage 5·2024/25

Sixth form

2024/25 · 77 A level students

Ofsted rated sixth-form provision Outstanding at the last inspection

B-

Average A level resultper entry, DfE grade

in line with average

Hertfordshire C+ · England C+

B-

Best three A levelsthe grade a typical offer asks for

13%

AAB or betterat least two in facilitating subjects

in line with average

Hertfordshire 13% · England 12.8%

98%

Stayed the coursefinished what they started

in line with average

Hertfordshire 97.3% · England 95.7%

Applied general qualifications: average result Merit+, 28 students, 90.5% 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

this school Hertfordshire England

After sixth form

Of the 57 students who finished, 66.7% went on to higher education, 1.8% to an apprenticeship, and 12.3% into work. 80.7% 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.
Grades not published
Where a subject was sat by only a few students, the Department for Education publishes how many entered and withholds the grades, so that individual students cannot be identified from the figures. The subject is shown, because the school does teach it, but there is nothing to compare. Most A level groups are small enough for this to apply somewhere on a page.
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

Colney Heath Lane
St Albans
Hertfordshire
AL4 0TT

01727 860079 nbs.herts.sch.co.uk
Headteacher
Mrs Anne Atkinson
Trust
The Diocese of Westminster Academy Trust
Pupils
1,134 of 1,052 places
Spare places
None
Free school meals
12%
SEND
12% on SEN support, 4% with an EHC plan
Separate sciences
21% of the year
Progress 8
Not published · last +0.75 in 2023/24

Other schools in Hertfordshire

79 schools. Distances are straight-line from this school.

Tutorperch School report by Tutorperch
Covers state-funded schools in England; independent schools are not included. The four figures at the top compare against the Department for Education's national release, which counts special schools and alternative provision as well, so it sits slightly below the average of the schools listed on this site. Subject comparisons are pooled from those schools directly.

Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Key stage 4 performance, school characteristics, absence and destinations: Department for Education, 2024/25. Inspection outcomes: Ofsted. Persistent absence comparators are the median secondary school.