Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School, Horncastle
Academy · ages 11–18 · selective · with a sixth form
Above average on every headline measure — 5th of 54 for average grade in Lincolnshire.
Horncastle · Lincolnshire · one of 54 state secondaries
Summary
Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School, Horncastle sits 5th of 54 state secondaries in Lincolnshire for average GCSE grade. 98.4% of its pupils passed both English and maths, against 62.9% across Lincolnshire. 89.4% reached the stronger grade 5 in both. Subject by subject it is furthest clear of Lincolnshire in geography and history, with nothing measurably behind. Ofsted: Good in June 2024.
It is a selective academy of 788 pupils, taking ages 11 to 18 and running its own sixth form. 11.6% of its pupils are eligible for free school meals, and 8.1% are on SEN support with a further 0.8% holding an education, health and care plan. 89.4% were entered for the full EBacc, more than the 37.2% entered across Lincolnshire, which is a choice about how broad a curriculum to push, and 62.6% took the separate sciences rather than combined. 10.2% of pupils missed a tenth of school or more, better than the 23.4% across Lincolnshire, and 96.7% of its leavers went on to further education.
Subject comparisons are measured at grade 4 or above against Lincolnshire, 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·Lincolnshire
Inspection
Good
Inspected June 2024
- Behaviour and attitudes
- Good
- Leadership and management
- Good
- Personal development
- Good
- Quality of education
- Good
- June 2024 Full inspection Good
That grade was given under the framework that ran from September 2019 to 2024, when Ofsted still issued one overall grade.
Attendance
10% of pupils missed a tenth of school or more, against 23% across Lincolnshire and 21% nationally. The comparators are the median secondary school, not an average.
GCSE · Key stage 4·2024/25
Attainment
98%
Passed English & maths grade 4+, an old grade C
well above average
Lincolnshire 63% · England 65%
66.2
Average grade across 8 Attainment 8, out of 90
well above average
Lincolnshire 45.1 · England 46.1
89%
Entered for the EBacc the academic core of subjects
well above average
Lincolnshire 37% · England 41%
After Year 11
97% stayed in education, 1% 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 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 · 96 A level students
Ofsted rated sixth-form provision Good at the last inspection
B-
Average A level resultper entry, DfE grade
above average
Lincolnshire C+ · England C+
B-
Best three A levelsthe grade a typical offer asks for
33%
AAB or betterat least two in facilitating subjects
above average
Lincolnshire 13.9% · England 12.8%
98%
Stayed the coursefinished what they started
in line with average
Lincolnshire 97.1% · England 95.7%
Applied general qualifications: average result Distinction, 66 students. 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 114 students who finished, 69.3% went on to higher education, 2.6% to an apprenticeship, and 20.2% into work. 93% 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
West Street
Horncastle
Lincolnshire
LN9 5AD
- Headteacher
- Mr Simon Furness
- Trust
- Horncastle Education Trust
- Pupils
- 788 of 920 places
- Spare places
- 14%
- Free school meals
- 12%
- SEND
- 8% on SEN support, 1% with an EHC plan
- Separate sciences
- 63% of the year
- Progress 8
- Not published · last +0.28 in 2023/24
Other schools in Lincolnshire
53 schools. Distances are straight-line from this school.
- The Banovallum School 1.1 km
- The Barnes Wallis Academy 12.2 km
- King Edward VI Academy 14.8 km
- William Lovell Church of England Academy 15.6 km
- King Edward VI Grammar School 18.7 km
- Louth Academy 19.3 km
- Queen Elizabeth's Grammar Alford - A Selective Academy 20.2 km
- John Spendluffe Foundation Technology College 21 km
- The Priory Pembroke Academy 22.8 km
- Branston Community Academy 22.9 km
- De Aston School 23.6 km
- The Giles Academy 24.9 km
- Haven High Academy 25.5 km
- Boston High School 25.7 km
- William Farr CofE Comprehensive School 26 km
- Lincoln Christ's Hospital School 26.8 km
- The Boston Grammar School 27 km
- Lincoln UTC 27.6 km
- Lincoln Castle Academy 28.1 km
- The Priory Academy LSST 28.3 km
- St Peter and St Paul, Catholic Voluntary Academy 29.4 km
- The Priory Witham Academy 29.9 km
- Carre's Grammar School 30 km
- The Priory City of Lincoln Academy 30.1 km
- St George's Academy 30.3 km
- Kesteven and Sleaford High School Selective Academy 30.6 km
- Skegness Academy 30.9 km
- Skegness Grammar School 31.1 km
- Sir Robert Pattinson Academy 31.4 km
- Somercotes Academy 31.4 km
- North Kesteven Academy 31.7 km
- Thomas Middlecott Academy 32.1 km
- Sir William Robertson Academy, Welbourn 33.6 km
- Cowley Academy 34.3 km
- Caistor Yarborough Academy 34.4 km
- Caistor Grammar School 34.5 km
- University Academy Holbeach 45.5 km
- The Priory Ruskin Academy 47.2 km
- Spalding Academy 47.2 km
- Spalding Grammar School 47.4 km
- Spalding High School 47.5 km
- Kesteven and Grantham Girls' School 47.5 km
- The Gainsborough Academy 47.6 km
- The King's School, Grantham 47.7 km
- The Queen Elizabeth's High School, Gainsborough 49 km
- University Academy Long Sutton 49.2 km
- West Grantham Church of England Secondary Academy 49.3 km
- Walton Academy 49.8 km
- Bourne Academy 51.2 km
- Charles Read Academy 51.6 km
- Bourne Grammar School 52.5 km
- The Deepings School 60.6 km
- Stamford Welland Academy 65.7 km