River Academy

Free school · ages 11–18 · with a sixth form

In line with Reading across the board.

Reading · Reading · one of 11 state secondaries

Summary

River Academy is a state secondary in Reading. Ofsted: No inspection outcome published.

It is a free school of 373 pupils, taking ages 11 to 18 and running its own sixth form. 33.2% of its pupils are eligible for free school meals, a high share by national standards. 12.2% of pupils missed a tenth of school or more, better than the 19.1% across Reading.

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

Inspection

Not yet inspected

Read the Ofsted report

Attendance

12% of pupils missed a tenth of school or more, against 19% across Reading and 21% nationally. The comparators are the median secondary school, not an average.

GCSE · Key stage 4·2024/25

Attainment

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

Reading 66% · England 65%

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Strong pass in both grade 5+, a strong pass

Reading 51% · England 45%

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Average grade across 8 Attainment 8, out of 90

Reading 50.2 · England 46.1

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Entered for the EBacc the academic core of subjects

Reading 53% · England 41%

GCSE results by subject

2024/25 · share reaching grade 4 or above · a standard pass, the old grade C

this school England at grade 4

No subject-level results published for this school.

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

7 Richfield Avenue
Reading
Berkshire
RG1 8EQ

01182 160400 river-academy.co.uk

Head: Mr Andrew Hartley
Trust: Maiden Erlegh Trust
Pupils: 373 of 1,200 places
Spare places: 84%
Free school meals: 33%
Progress 8: Not published