The Robert Smyth Academy
Academy · ages 11–19 · with a sixth form
Above average on 2 of the four headline measures — 8th of 43 for average grade in Leicestershire.
Market Harborough · Leicestershire · one of 44 state secondaries
Summary
The Robert Smyth Academy sits 8th of 43 state secondaries in Leicestershire for average GCSE grade. 73.2% of its pupils passed both English and maths, against 66.6% across Leicestershire. 62.6% reached the stronger grade 5 in both. Subject by subject it is furthest clear of Leicestershire in combined science and English Language, with nothing measurably behind. Ofsted: Good in September 2017, confirmed in November 2022.
It is an academy of 1,349 pupils, taking ages 11 to 19 and running its own sixth form. 12.2% of its pupils are eligible for free school meals, and 21.2% are on SEN support with a further 2.2% holding an education, health and care plan. 85.5% were entered for the full EBacc, more than the 41.5% entered across Leicestershire, which is a choice about how broad a curriculum to push, and 15.1% took the separate sciences rather than combined. 12.9% of pupils missed a tenth of school or more, better than the 20.1% across Leicestershire, and 84.5% of its leavers went on to further education.
Subject comparisons are measured at grade 4 or above against Leicestershire, 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·Leicestershire
Inspection
Good
Last inspected November 2022
The grade itself is 8 years old.
- November 2022 Ungraded inspection School remains Good
- September 2017 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
13% of pupils missed a tenth of school or more, against 20% across Leicestershire and 21% nationally. The comparators are the median secondary school, not an average.
GCSE · Key stage 4·2024/25
Attainment
73%
Passed English & maths grade 4+, an old grade C
in line with average
Leicestershire 67% · England 65%
53
Average grade across 8 Attainment 8, out of 90
in line with average
Leicestershire 46.2 · England 46.1
86%
Entered for the EBacc the academic core of subjects
well above average
Leicestershire 42% · England 41%
After Year 11
85% stayed in education, 4% 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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Sixth form · Key stage 5·2024/25
Sixth form
2024/25 · 133 A level students
C+
Average A level resultper entry, DfE grade
in line with average
Leicestershire C+ · England C+
C+
Best three A levelsthe grade a typical offer asks for
10%
AAB or betterat least two in facilitating subjects
in line with average
Leicestershire 14.1% · England 12.8%
94%
Stayed the coursefinished what they started
in line with average
Leicestershire 94.9% · England 95.7%
A level results by subject
2024/25 · share reaching B or above
After sixth form
Of the 4 students who finished, 58.3% went on to higher education, 2.5% to an apprenticeship, and 27% into work. 89% 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.
- Grades not published
- Where a subject was sat by only a few students, the Department for Education publishes how many entered and withholds the grades, so that individual students cannot be identified from the figures. The subject is shown, because the school does teach it, but there is nothing to compare. Most A level groups are small enough for this to apply somewhere on a page.
- 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
Burnmill Road
Market Harborough
Leicestershire
LE16 7JG
- Acting Principal
- Miss Kate Nicholson
- Trust
- Tudor Grange Academies Trust
- Pupils
- 1,349 of 1,420 places
- Spare places
- 10%
- Free school meals
- 12%
- SEND
- 21% on SEN support, 2% with an EHC plan
- Separate sciences
- 15% of the year
- Progress 8
- Not published · last +0.37 in 2023/24
Other schools in Leicestershire
43 schools. Distances are straight-line from this school.
- Welland Park Academy 1.3 km
- Kibworth Mead Academy 7.3 km
- Beauchamp College 15.1 km
- Gartree High School 15.2 km
- Manor High School 15.9 km
- Wigston Academy 16.8 km
- Wigston College 16.9 km
- South Wigston High School 17.8 km
- Countesthorpe Academy 17.8 km
- Lutterworth College 19.5 km
- Lutterworth High School 19.7 km
- Thomas Estley Community College 20.8 km
- Brockington College 22 km
- The Winstanley School 23 km
- The Roundhill Academy 25.1 km
- The Cedars Academy 25.9 km
- Wreake Valley Academy 26.2 km
- The Martin High School Anstey 28 km
- Brookvale Groby Learning Campus 28.3 km
- Bosworth Academy 29 km
- Heath Lane Academy 29.5 km
- Hastings High School 29.8 km
- The Hinckley School 29.8 km
- Long Field Spencer Academy 30.5 km
- Redmoor Academy 32.1 km
- John Ferneley College 32.9 km
- Rawlins 33.3 km
- South Charnwood High School 33.5 km
- Humphrey Perkins School 33.7 km
- Saint Martin's Catholic Voluntary Academy 33.7 km
- Woodbrook Vale School 35.3 km
- The Market Bosworth School 36 km
- Limehurst Academy 37.4 km
- De Lisle College Loughborough Leicestershire 38 km
- The Castle Rock School 38.2 km
- Charnwood College 38.2 km
- Ibstock School 39.3 km
- The Newbridge School 39.4 km
- Iveshead School 40.1 km
- Ashby School 46.7 km
- Ivanhoe School 47 km
- Castle Donington College 48.1 km
- The Priory Belvoir Academy 50.7 km