St Philip Howard Catholic Voluntary Academy
Academy · ages 11–16 · Roman Catholic · no sixth form
Below average on 3 of the four headline measures — 37th of 45 for average grade in Derbyshire.
Glossop · Derbyshire · one of 45 state secondaries
Summary
St Philip Howard Catholic Voluntary Academy sits 37th of 45 state secondaries in Derbyshire for average GCSE grade. 51.4% of its pupils passed both English and maths, against 65.1% across Derbyshire. 25.2% reached the stronger grade 5 in both. Subject by subject it is furthest clear of Derbyshire in biology, sat by 27% of the year,, and furthest behind in religious studies and geography. Ofsted: Inspected in January 2026 under the current report card, which grades 7 areas separately and gives no overall word.
It is an academy of 577 pupils, taking ages 11 to 16. 28.8% of its pupils are eligible for free school meals, and 10.8% are on SEN support with a further 2.7% holding an education, health and care plan. 18% were entered for the full EBacc, fewer than the 29.8% entered across Derbyshire, which is a choice about how broad a curriculum to push, and 27% took the separate sciences rather than combined. 25.1% of pupils missed a tenth of school or more, worse than the 21.7% across Derbyshire, and 84% of its leavers went on to further education.
Subject comparisons are measured at grade 4 or above against Derbyshire, 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·Derbyshire
Inspection
Graded by area
Last inspected January 2026
- Achievement
- Expected standard
- Attendance and behaviour
- Strong standard
- Curriculum and teaching
- Expected standard
- Inclusion
- Expected standard
- Leadership and management
- Expected standard
- Personal development
- Strong standard
- Safeguarding
- Met
- January 2026 Report card inspection Graded by area
- October 2021 Full inspection Good
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 22% across Derbyshire and 21% nationally. The comparators are the median secondary school, not an average.
GCSE · Key stage 4·2024/25
Attainment
40.5
Average grade across 8 Attainment 8, out of 90
in line with average
Derbyshire 45 · England 46.1
After Year 11
84% stayed in education, 5% 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
Sunlaws Street
Glossop
Derbyshire
SK13 8DR
- Head
- Mr Michael Kays
- Trust
- ST Ralph Sherwin Catholic Multi Academy Trust
- Pupils
- 577 of 589 places
- Spare places
- 4%
- Free school meals
- 29%
- SEND
- 11% on SEN support, 3% with an EHC plan
- Separate sciences
- 27% of the year
- Progress 8
- Not published · last +0.22 in 2023/24
Other schools in Derbyshire
44 schools. Distances are straight-line from this school.
- Glossopdale School and Sixth Form 1.9 km
- New Mills School 8.7 km
- Chapel-en-le-Frith High School 13.9 km
- Hope Valley College 17.2 km
- St Thomas More Catholic Voluntary Academy 20.2 km
- Buxton Community School 21.4 km
- Lady Manners School 31.9 km
- Dronfield Henry Fanshawe School 36.1 km
- St Mary's Catholic High School, A Catholic Voluntary Academy 39.5 km
- Brookfield Community School 39.9 km
- Whittington Green School 40.5 km
- Outwood Academy Newbold 40.5 km
- Eckington School 41.2 km
- Parkside Community School 41.7 km
- Highfields School 43.1 km
- Outwood Academy Hasland Hall 44.2 km
- Springwell Community College 44.6 km
- Netherthorpe School 45.3 km
- Tupton Hall School 46.5 km
- Anthony Gell School 47.8 km
- Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School 49.1 km
- Heritage High School 49.1 km
- The Bolsover School 51.1 km
- Tibshelf Community School 52.4 km
- David Nieper Academy 54.3 km
- Shirebrook Academy 54.9 km
- Swanwick Hall School 55.4 km
- Frederick Gent School 56.4 km
- Belper School and Sixth Form Centre 56.9 km
- The Ripley Academy 58 km
- John Flamsteed Community School 58.9 km
- The Ecclesbourne School 59.5 km
- Heanor Gate Spencer Academy 61.8 km
- Aldercar High School 61.8 km
- John Port Spencer Academy 66.3 km
- Ormiston Ilkeston Enterprise Academy 67.5 km
- Saint John Houghton Catholic Voluntary Academy 67.7 km
- Kirk Hallam Community Academy 67.9 km
- Friesland School 72.4 km
- Wilsthorpe School 74.5 km
- The Long Eaton School 75.7 km
- Mercia Academy 77.2 km
- The Pingle Academy 78.3 km
- Granville Academy 79.2 km