The City Academy Bristol
Academy · ages 11–18 · with a sixth form
Below average on every headline measure — 19th of 22 for average grade in Bristol, City of.
Bristol · Bristol, City of · one of 24 state secondaries
Summary
The City Academy Bristol sits 19th of 22 state secondaries in Bristol, City of for average GCSE grade. 51.1% of its pupils passed both English and maths, against 64.9% across Bristol, City of. 29.9% reached the stronger grade 5 in both. Subject by subject only history and religious studies sits measurably behind Bristol, City of. Ofsted: Good in April 2019, confirmed in November 2024.
It is an academy of 977 pupils, taking ages 11 to 18 and running its own sixth form. 47.8% of its pupils are eligible for free school meals, a high share by national standards, and 21.3% are on SEN support with a further 4% holding an education, health and care plan. 25.9% were entered for the full EBacc, fewer than the 35.8% entered across Bristol, City of, which is a choice about how broad a curriculum to push, and 11.5% took the separate sciences rather than combined. 32% of pupils missed a tenth of school or more, worse than the 25.9% across Bristol, City of, and 85.4% of its leavers went on to further education.
Subject comparisons are measured at grade 4 or above against Bristol, City of, 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·Bristol, City of
Inspection
Good
Last inspected November 2024
The grade itself is 7 years old.
- November 2024 Ungraded inspection Standards maintained
- April 2019 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
32% of pupils missed a tenth of school or more, against 26% across Bristol, City of and 21% nationally. The comparators are the median secondary school, not an average.
GCSE · Key stage 4·2024/25
Attainment
51%
Passed English & maths grade 4+, an old grade C
below average
Bristol, City of 65% · England 65%
30%
Strong pass in both grade 5+, a strong pass
well below average
Bristol, City of 46% · England 45%
38.5
Average grade across 8 Attainment 8, out of 90
below average
Bristol, City of 46.4 · England 46.1
26%
Entered for the EBacc the academic core of subjects
below average
Bristol, City of 36% · England 41%
After Year 11
85% stayed in education (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
Russell Town Avenue
Bristol
Avon
BS5 9JH
- Head
- Mr Ben Tucker
- Trust
- Cabot Learning Federation
- Pupils
- 977 of 975 places
- Spare places
- 1%
- Free school meals
- 48%
- SEND
- 21% on SEN support, 4% with an EHC plan
- Separate sciences
- 12% of the year
- Progress 8
- Not published · last +0.07 in 2023/24
Other schools in Bristol, City of
23 schools. Distances are straight-line from this school.
- Fairfield High School 1.9 km
- E-Act Montpelier High School 2.2 km
- St Mary Redcliffe and Temple School 2.4 km
- Bristol Brunel Academy 2.4 km
- Oasis Academy Temple Quarter 2.4 km
- Bristol Metropolitan Academy 2.8 km
- Cotham School 2.8 km
- Bristol Cathedral Choir School 2.9 km
- Trinity Academy 3 km
- Redland Green School 3.2 km
- Oasis Academy Brislington 4.1 km
- Oasis Academy Daventry Road 4.4 km
- Oasis Academy John Williams 4.5 km
- Orchard School Bristol 4.5 km
- St Bernadette Catholic Secondary School 4.9 km
- Ashton Park School 5.3 km
- Bristol Free School 5.8 km
- Bedminster Down School 5.9 km
- Bridge Learning Campus 6.3 km
- E-Act Merchants' Academy 6.5 km
- Blaise High School 7.2 km
- St Bede's Catholic College 8.2 km
- Oasis Academy Brightstowe 8.5 km