The Holy Family Catholic School, a Voluntary Academy
Academy · ages 11–16 · Roman Catholic · no sixth form
Below average on every headline measure — 34th of 35 for average grade in Bradford.
Keighley · Bradford · one of 35 state secondaries
Summary
The Holy Family Catholic School, a Voluntary Academy sits 34th of 35 state secondaries in Bradford for average GCSE grade. 31.9% of its pupils passed both English and maths, against 56.8% across Bradford. 11.3% reached the stronger grade 5 in both. Subject by subject it is furthest clear of Bradford in Spanish, sat by 11% of the year,, and furthest behind in religious studies and maths. Ofsted: Inspected in April 2025, after Ofsted stopped issuing a single overall grade.
It is an academy of 630 pupils, taking ages 11 to 16. 46.3% of its pupils are eligible for free school meals, a high share by national standards, and 19.9% are on SEN support with a further 5% holding an education, health and care plan. 14.9% were entered for the full EBacc, fewer than the 42% entered across Bradford, which is a choice about how broad a curriculum to push. 32.4% of pupils missed a tenth of school or more, worse than the 24.7% across Bradford, and 83.6% of its leavers went on to further education.
Subject comparisons are measured at grade 4 or above against Bradford, 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·Bradford
Inspection
Graded by area
Inspected April 2025
- Behaviour and attitudes
- Requires improvement
- Leadership and management
- Requires improvement
- Personal development
- Requires improvement
- Quality of education
- Requires improvement
- April 2025 Full inspection
Ofsted stopped issuing a single overall grade in September 2024.
Attendance
32% of pupils missed a tenth of school or more, against 25% across Bradford and 21% nationally. The comparators are the median secondary school, not an average.
GCSE · Key stage 4·2024/25
Attainment
15%
Entered for the EBacc the academic core of subjects
well below average
Bradford 42% · England 41%
After Year 11
84% stayed in education, 2% 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.
English Language is the subject most of this year group sat. English Language tutors on Tutorperch.
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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
Spring Gardens Lane
Keighley
West Yorkshire
BD20 6LH
- Head
- Ms S Mather
- Trust
- Blessed Christopher Wharton Catholic Academy Trust
- Pupils
- 630 of 971 places
- Spare places
- 28%
- Free school meals
- 46%
- SEND
- 20% on SEN support, 5% with an EHC plan
- Progress 8
- Not published · last -0.59 in 2023/24
Other schools in Bradford
34 schools. Distances are straight-line from this school.
- Carlton Keighley 0.5 km
- Beckfoot Oakbank 2.4 km
- Bingley Grammar School 5.2 km
- Parkside School 5.6 km
- Beckfoot School 6.9 km
- Dixons Cottingley Academy 8.3 km
- Ilkley Grammar School 8.5 km
- Titus Salt School 9 km
- Belle Vue Girls' Academy 9.2 km
- Beckfoot Upper Heaton 9.5 km
- Dixons Allerton Academy 10.9 km
- St Bede's and St Joseph's Catholic College, A Voluntary Academy 10.9 km
- Bradford Girls' Grammar School 11.3 km
- Beckfoot Thornton 11.3 km
- Oasis Academy Lister Park 12.1 km
- Eden Boys' Leadership Academy, Bradford 12.3 km
- Dixons Kings Academy 12.7 km
- Valley Academy 13 km
- Immanuel College 13.1 km
- Trinity Academy Bradford 13.1 km
- Hanson Academy 13.2 km
- Feversham Girls' Secondary Academy 13.7 km
- Dixons McMillan Academy 14.1 km
- Dixons Trinity Academy 14.3 km
- Carlton Bolling 14.3 km
- Co-op Academy Grange 14.5 km
- Buttershaw Business & Enterprise College Academy 14.7 km
- Dixons City Academy 14.9 km
- Bronte Girls' Academy 15.1 km
- Laisterdyke Leadership Academy 16 km
- Bradford Academy 16.2 km
- Bradford Forster Academy 16.6 km
- Appleton Academy 17.6 km
- Tong Leadership Academy 19.2 km