Ss John Fisher and Thomas More Roman Catholic High School
Local authority school · ages 11–16 · Roman Catholic · no sixth form
Below average on 1 of the four headline measures — 43rd of 81 for average grade in Lancashire.
Colne · Lancashire · one of 81 state secondaries
Summary
Ss John Fisher and Thomas More Roman Catholic High School sits 43rd of 81 state secondaries in Lancashire for average GCSE grade. 68.1% of its pupils passed both English and maths, against 63.9% across Lancashire. 43.1% reached the stronger grade 5 in both. Subject by subject only art, sat by 20% of the year, sits measurably behind Lancashire. Ofsted: Inspected in May 2026 under the current report card, which grades 7 areas separately and gives no overall word.
It is a school of 812 pupils, taking ages 11 to 16. 31.7% of its pupils are eligible for free school meals, a high share by national standards, and 6.9% are on SEN support with a further 1.3% holding an education, health and care plan. 19.4% were entered for the full EBacc, fewer than the 34.3% entered across Lancashire, which is a choice about how broad a curriculum to push, and 17.5% took the separate sciences rather than combined. 25% of pupils missed a tenth of school or more, worse than the 19.4% across Lancashire, and 80.1% of its leavers went on to further education.
Subject comparisons are measured at grade 4 or above against Lancashire, 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·Lancashire
Inspection
Graded by area
Last inspected May 2026
- Achievement
- Expected standard
- Attendance and behaviour
- Expected standard
- Curriculum and teaching
- Expected standard
- Inclusion
- Expected standard
- Leadership and management
- Expected standard
- Personal development
- Strong standard
- Safeguarding
- Met
- May 2026 Report card inspection Graded by area
- October 2023 Full inspection Requires improvement
Ofsted’s current report card grades each area separately and gives no overall word.
Attendance
25% of pupils missed a tenth of school or more, against 19% across Lancashire and 21% nationally. The comparators are the median secondary school, not an average.
GCSE · Key stage 4·2024/25
Attainment
68%
Passed English & maths grade 4+, an old grade C
in line with average
Lancashire 64% · England 65%
44.1
Average grade across 8 Attainment 8, out of 90
in line with average
Lancashire 45.1 · England 46.1
19%
Entered for the EBacc the academic core of subjects
well below average
Lancashire 34% · England 41%
After Year 11
80% stayed in education, 7% 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.
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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
Gibfield Road
Colne
Lancashire
BB8 8JT
- Headteacher
- Mr Paul Dugdale
- Pupils
- 812 of 900 places
- Spare places
- 9%
- Free school meals
- 32%
- SEND
- 7% on SEN support, 1% with an EHC plan
- Separate sciences
- 18% of the year
- Progress 8
- Not published · last -0.45 in 2023/24
Other schools in Lancashire
80 schools. Distances are straight-line from this school.
- Colne Primet Academy 0.3 km
- Pendle Vale College 0.6 km
- Colne Park High School 2.9 km
- Marsden Heights Community College 3.1 km
- Sir John Thursby Community College 5.1 km
- Blessed Trinity Roman Catholic College, A Voluntary Academy 6.4 km
- Unity College 7.4 km
- West Craven High School 7.4 km
- Burnley High School 8.9 km
- Shuttleworth College 9.1 km
- Bowland High 13 km
- Ribblesdale School 13.4 km
- Clitheroe Royal Grammar School 13.5 km
- Accrington Academy 15.3 km
- Accrington St Christopher's Church of England High School 15.6 km
- St Augustine's Roman Catholic High School, a Voluntary Academy 16 km
- The Hollins 16.2 km
- Alder Grange School 16.5 km
- Mount Carmel Roman Catholic High School, Hyndburn 16.8 km
- The Valley Leadership Academy 17.1 km
- The Hyndburn Academy 17.3 km
- Rhyddings 17.4 km
- Bacup and Rawtenstall Grammar School 17.4 km
- All Saints' Roman Catholic High School, a Voluntary Academy 18.3 km
- Haslingden High School and Sixth Form 19.5 km
- Whitworth Community High School 21 km
- St Cecilia's RC High School 27.4 km
- Longridge High School 27.5 km
- Walton-Le-Dale High School 33 km
- Brownedge St Mary's Catholic High School 33.5 km
- Preston Muslim Girls High School 33.8 km
- Eden Boys' School, Preston 34 km
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- Christ The King Catholic High School 34.5 km
- Archbishop Temple Church of England High School 34.6 km
- Corpus Christi Catholic High School 34.7 km
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- Fulwood Academy 35.5 km
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- Parklands High School 36.7 km
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- Holy Cross Catholic High School 37.2 km
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- Southlands High School 37.9 km
- All Hallows Catholic High School 38.2 km
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- Bishop Rawstorne Church of England Academy 43.2 km
- Carr Hill High School 45.2 km
- Lancaster Royal Grammar School 45.3 km
- Lancaster High School 45.3 km
- Ripley St Thomas Church of England Academy 45.5 km
- Tarleton Academy 45.8 km
- Lancaster Girls' Grammar School 45.9 km
- Our Lady's Catholic College 46.4 km
- Carnforth High School 48.7 km
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- Maharishi Free School 49.7 km
- Morecambe Bay Academy 50.2 km
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- Bay Leadership Academy 51 km
- Burscough Priory Academy 51.1 km
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- St Bede's Catholic High School, Lytham 51.6 km
- Hodgson Academy 52 km
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- Millfield Science & Performing Arts College 53.3 km
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