Thorpe St Andrew School and Sixth Form
Academy · ages 11–18 · with a sixth form
Above average on 1 of the four headline measures — 12th of 53 for average grade in Norfolk.
Norwich · Norfolk · one of 53 state secondaries
Summary
Thorpe St Andrew School and Sixth Form sits 12th of 53 state secondaries in Norfolk for average GCSE grade. 70.7% of its pupils passed both English and maths, against 65.3% across Norfolk. 50.2% reached the stronger grade 5 in both. Subject by subject it is furthest clear of Norfolk in combined science and English Language, and furthest behind in physics, sat by 32% of the year, and chemistry, sat by 32% of the year. Ofsted: Inspected in April 2025, after Ofsted stopped issuing a single overall grade.
It is an academy of 1,830 pupils, taking ages 11 to 18 and running its own sixth form. 16.7% of its pupils are eligible for free school meals, and 10.1% are on SEN support with a further 2.7% holding an education, health and care plan. 48.1% were entered for the full EBacc, more than the 43.3% entered across Norfolk, which is a choice about how broad a curriculum to push, and 31.3% took the separate sciences rather than combined. 19.1% of pupils missed a tenth of school or more, better than the 22% across Norfolk, and 94.1% of its leavers went on to further education.
Subject comparisons are measured at grade 4 or above against Norfolk, 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·Norfolk
Inspection
Graded by area
Inspected April 2025
- Behaviour and attitudes
- Good
- Leadership and management
- Good
- Personal development
- Good
- Quality of education
- Good
- April 2025 Full inspection
Ofsted stopped issuing a single overall grade in September 2024.
Attendance
19% of pupils missed a tenth of school or more, against 22% across Norfolk and 21% nationally. The comparators are the median secondary school, not an average.
GCSE · Key stage 4·2024/25
Attainment
49.2
Average grade across 8 Attainment 8, out of 90
in line with average
Norfolk 45.2 · England 46.1
48%
Entered for the EBacc the academic core of subjects
in line with average
Norfolk 43% · England 41%
After Year 11
94% 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.
Maths is the subject most of this year group sat. Maths tutors on Tutorperch.
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Sixth form · Key stage 5·2024/25
Sixth form
2024/25 · 110 A level students
Ofsted rated sixth-form provision Good at the last inspection
C+
Average A level resultper entry, DfE grade
in line with average
Norfolk C+ · England C+
B-
Best three A levelsthe grade a typical offer asks for
14%
AAB or betterat least two in facilitating subjects
in line with average
Norfolk 10.3% · England 12.8%
76%
Stayed the coursefinished what they started
below average
Norfolk 92.9% · England 95.7%
Applied general qualifications: average result Distinction, 74 students, 80% stayed the course. These are BTECs and similar, graded pass to distinction* rather than A* to E, so the two cannot be compared directly.
A level results by subject
2024/25 · share reaching B or above
After sixth form
Of the 202 students who finished, 45.5% went on to higher education, 7.9% to an apprenticeship, and 30.7% into work. 84.7% 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
Laundry Lane
Thorpe St Andrew
Norwich
Norfolk
NR7 0XS
- Principal
- Mrs Penny Bignell
- Trust
- Broad Horizons Education Trust
- Pupils
- 1,830 of 2,060 places
- Spare places
- 11%
- Free school meals
- 17%
- SEND
- 10% on SEN support, 3% with an EHC plan
- Separate sciences
- 31% of the year
- Progress 8
- Not published · last +0.14 in 2023/24
Other schools in Norfolk
52 schools. Distances are straight-line from this school.
- The Open Academy 2.2 km
- Sprowston Community Academy 2.7 km
- Sewell Park Academy 4.1 km
- Jane Austen College 4.2 km
- Notre Dame High School, Norwich 4.3 km
- Hewett Academy 5.2 km
- City of Norwich School, An Ormiston Academy 6.1 km
- Framingham Earl High School 6.3 km
- University Technical College Norfolk 6.6 km
- Hellesdon High School 7.2 km
- City Academy Norwich 7.3 km
- Broadland High Ormiston Academy 9.8 km
- Ormiston Victory Academy 9.9 km
- Hethersett Academy 12.3 km
- Acle Academy 12.5 km
- Taverham High School 12.7 km
- Hobart High School 14.3 km
- Wymondham High Academy 17.4 km
- Long Stratton High School 18.4 km
- Stalham High School 18.7 km
- Aylsham High School 19 km
- North Walsham High School 20.3 km
- Flegg High Ormiston Academy 21 km
- Reepham High School and College 21.5 km
- Wymondham College 22.6 km
- Lynn Grove Academy 24.6 km
- Ormiston Venture Academy 25 km
- Caister Academy 25.2 km
- Great Yarmouth Charter Academy 25.7 km
- Cliff Park Ormiston Academy 26.2 km
- Attleborough Academy 26.2 km
- The Harleston Sancroft Academy (a 3-16 Church of England School) 26.7 km
- Old Buckenham High School 27 km
- Dereham Neatherd High School 27.4 km
- Northgate High School 28.5 km
- Cromer Academy 32.1 km
- Diss High School 32.8 km
- Sheringham High School 35 km
- Wayland Academy 36.7 km
- Litcham School 39.1 km
- Fakenham Academy 41.3 km
- The Nicholas Hamond Academy 45 km
- The Thetford Academy 46.7 km
- Alderman Peel High School 48.6 km
- Iceni Secondary Academy 55.3 km
- Springwood High School 63.7 km
- King's Lynn Academy 64.6 km
- King Edward VII Academy 64.9 km
- Downham Market Academy 65.4 km
- Smithdon High School 66.7 km
- St Clement's High School 72.6 km
- Marshland High School 79.1 km