Somerset Studio School
Free school · ages 14–19 · with a sixth form
Below average on every headline measure — 14th of 14 for average grade in Bath and North East Somerset.
Radstock · Bath and North East Somerset · one of 14 state secondaries
Summary
Somerset Studio School sits 14th of 14 state secondaries in Bath and North East Somerset for average GCSE grade. 31.3% of its pupils passed both English and maths, against 68.4% across Bath and North East Somerset. 12.5% reached the stronger grade 5 in both. Subject by subject only physics and chemistry sits measurably behind Bath and North East Somerset. Ofsted: Good in March 2018, confirmed in January 2024.
It is a free school of 152 pupils, taking ages 14 to 19 and running its own sixth form. 28% of its pupils are eligible for free school meals, and 46.9% are on SEN support with a further 12.5% holding an education, health and care plan. 0% were entered for the full EBacc, fewer than the 43.8% entered across Bath and North East Somerset, which is a choice about how broad a curriculum to push, and 62.5% took the separate sciences rather than combined. 47.8% of pupils missed a tenth of school or more, worse than the 23.1% across Bath and North East Somerset, and 65.5% of its leavers went on to further education.
Subject comparisons are measured at grade 4 or above against Bath and North East Somerset, 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·Bath and North East Somerset
Inspection
Good
Last inspected January 2024
The grade itself is 8 years old.
- January 2024 Ungraded inspection School remains Good
- March 2018 Full inspection Good
An ungraded inspection checks whether the existing grade still holds rather than replacing it.
That grade was given under the framework Ofsted used before September 2019.
Attendance
48% of pupils missed a tenth of school or more, against 23% across Bath and North East Somerset and 21% nationally. The comparators are the median secondary school, not an average.
GCSE · Key stage 4·2024/25
Attainment
31%
Passed English & maths grade 4+, an old grade C
well below average
Bath and North East Somerset 68% · England 65%
13%
Strong pass in both grade 5+, a strong pass
well below average
Bath and North East Somerset 49% · England 45%
30.5
Average grade across 8 Attainment 8, out of 90
below average
Bath and North East Somerset 47.9 · England 46.1
0%
Entered for the EBacc the academic core of subjects
well below average
Bath and North East Somerset 44% · England 41%
After Year 11
66% stayed in education, 10% 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.
Maths is the subject most of this year group sat. Maths tutors on Tutorperch.
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Sixth form · Key stage 5·2024/25
Sixth form
2024/25
After sixth form
Of the 1 student who finished, 20% went on to higher education, 6.7% to an apprenticeship, and 60% into work. 90% 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.
- 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
Knobsbury Lane
Radstock
Somerset
BA3 3NQ
- Headteacher
- Mr Bruce Hain
- Trust
- Midsomer Norton Schools Partnership
- Pupils
- 152 of 300 places
- Spare places
- 54%
- Free school meals
- 28%
- SEND
- 47% on SEN support, 13% with an EHC plan
- Separate sciences
- 63% of the year
- Progress 8
- Not published · last -0.31 in 2023/24
Other schools in Bath and North East Somerset
13 schools. Distances are straight-line from this school.
- Writhlington School 0.1 km
- Norton Hill Academy 3.5 km
- Somervale Secondary School 3.9 km
- Saint Gregory's Catholic College 8.3 km
- Beechen Cliff School 10.8 km
- Hayesfield Girls School 10.9 km
- Ralph Allen School 11.2 km
- Oldfield School 12 km
- St Mark's CofE School 13.7 km
- Wellsway School 14.3 km
- IKB Academy 14.5 km
- Lift Broadlands 15.5 km
- Chew Valley School 15.5 km