Our Lady's RC High School
Local authority school · ages 11–16 · Roman Catholic · no sixth form
In line with Manchester across the board — 11th of 30 for average grade in Manchester.
Manchester · Manchester · one of 32 state secondaries
Summary
Our Lady's RC High School sits 11th of 30 state secondaries in Manchester for average GCSE grade. 67.1% of its pupils passed both English and maths, against 61.3% across Manchester. 45.9% reached the stronger grade 5 in both. Subject by subject it is furthest clear of Manchester in Spanish and English Language, with nothing measurably behind. Ofsted: Inspected in November 2025 under the current report card, which grades 7 areas separately and gives no overall word.
It is a school of 1,046 pupils, taking ages 11 to 16. 45.3% of its pupils are eligible for free school meals, a high share by national standards, and 11.1% are on SEN support with a further 4.8% holding an education, health and care plan. 40.6% were entered for the full EBacc, fewer than the 46.7% entered across Manchester, which is a choice about how broad a curriculum to push, and 10.6% took the separate sciences rather than combined. 10.7% of pupils missed a tenth of school or more, better than the 17.2% across Manchester, and 92% of its leavers went on to further education.
Subject comparisons are measured at grade 4 or above against Manchester, 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·Manchester
Inspection
Graded by area
Last inspected November 2025
- Achievement
- Strong standard
- Attendance and behaviour
- Strong standard
- Curriculum and teaching
- Strong standard
- Inclusion
- Strong standard
- Leadership and management
- Strong standard
- Personal development
- Strong standard
- Safeguarding
- Met
- November 2025 Report card inspection Graded by area
- November 2021 Ungraded inspection School remains Good
An ungraded inspection checks whether the existing grade still holds rather than replacing it.
Ofsted’s current report card grades each area separately and gives no overall word.
Attendance
11% of pupils missed a tenth of school or more, against 17% across Manchester and 21% nationally. The comparators are the median secondary school, not an average.
GCSE · Key stage 4·2024/25
Attainment
67%
Passed English & maths grade 4+, an old grade C
in line with average
Manchester 61% · England 65%
49.1
Average grade across 8 Attainment 8, out of 90
in line with average
Manchester 44.8 · England 46.1
41%
Entered for the EBacc the academic core of subjects
in line with average
Manchester 47% · England 41%
After Year 11
92% stayed in education, 3% 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
Alworth Road
Higher Blackley
Manchester
M9 0RP
- Headteacher
- Mr Lee Ormsby
- Pupils
- 1,046 of 1,050 places
- Spare places
- None
- Free school meals
- 45%
- SEND
- 11% on SEN support, 5% with an EHC plan
- Separate sciences
- 11% of the year
- Progress 8
- Not published · last +0.33 in 2023/24
Other schools in Manchester
31 schools. Distances are straight-line from this school.
- Co-op Academy Manchester 0.9 km
- Co-op Academy North Manchester 2.3 km
- The King David High School 2.9 km
- Abraham Moss Community School 3 km
- St Matthew's RC High School 3.4 km
- Manchester Communication Academy 3.9 km
- Eden Girls' Leadership Academy, Manchester 4.3 km
- Eden Boys' Leadership Academy, Manchester 4.5 km
- The East Manchester Academy 6.7 km
- Trinity CofE High School 8 km
- Dean Trust Ardwick 8.3 km
- Co-op Academy Belle Vue 8.4 km
- St Peter's RC High School 8.7 km
- Manchester Academy 8.8 km
- Wright Robinson College 8.9 km
- Cedar Mount Academy 10 km
- Manchester Enterprise Academy Central 10.1 km
- William Hulme's Grammar School 10.3 km
- Whalley Range 11-18 High School 10.6 km
- Levenshulme High School 11.1 km
- CHS South 11.4 km
- Chorlton High School 11.5 km
- Loreto High School Chorlton 11.8 km
- Burnage Academy for Boys 12.1 km
- Didsbury High School 12.1 km
- The Barlow RC High School 13.5 km
- Parrs Wood High School 14.4 km
- Dixons Brooklands Academy 15.8 km
- Saint Paul's Catholic High School 17.4 km
- Manchester Enterprise Academy 17.6 km
- Dixons Newall Green Academy 17.6 km