Abbs Cross Academy and Arts College

About Abbs Cross Academy and Arts College

Abbs Cross Academy and Arts College is a mixed secondary school in Havering that is essentially full, with 887 pupils on roll against a capacity of 888. The school serves a community with above-average levels of disadvantage: 25.8% of pupils are eligible for free school meals, compared with a national secondary average of around 24%. Demand for places is strong — for the 2025/26 intake, the school received 586 applications for 178 places, an oversubscription ratio of 3.29 to one. Of those, 158 families put Abbs Cross as their first preference, and 147 of those were offered a place, meaning roughly 93% of first-preference applicants were successful. This suggests that while the school is popular, families who rank it first have a very good chance of getting in. The school has no sixth form, so pupils leave at 16, and it has no religious character.

Academically, Abbs Cross sits below the local average on several key measures. Its Progress 8 score of -0.24 is classified as 'Below average' nationally, and compares unfavourably with the Havering local authority average of +0.11. This places the school 13th out of 17 secondary schools in the borough on this metric, and 412th out of 487 in London. The Attainment 8 score is 45.3, and 61% of pupils achieved a grade 4 or above in English and maths, though that drops to 39.5% at grade 5 or above. The EBacc average point score is 3.93, with 62.2% of pupils entering the EBacc suite of subjects, but only 25% achieving a grade 4 or above across all components. In its most recent graded Ofsted inspection in 2017, the school was rated Good overall, with Good for leadership and management, and this was confirmed as unchanged in an ungraded inspection in December 2022. The previous inspection in 2015 had rated the school Inadequate, so the improvement to Good has been sustained.

The school offers a broad range of facilities including a swimming pool, theatre, sports hall, astro turf, tennis courts, and music rooms, plus a sixth form centre despite having no sixth form — this may be used for other purposes. Sports on offer include martial arts, cross country, netball, hockey, football, rugby, and badminton, and there are clubs such as art club, orchestra, choir, book club, and Young Enterprise. SEND provision is extensive, covering specific learning difficulties like dyslexia, moderate to severe learning difficulties, social, emotional and mental health needs, speech and language communication needs, hearing impairment, multi-sensory impairment, physical disability, and autistic spectrum disorder. This makes the school a potentially strong fit for families whose children need additional support in a mainstream setting. Given its oversubscription but high first-preference offer rate, it is a realistic option for local families who prioritise a Good-rated, well-equipped school with strong SEND support, though those seeking top-tier academic outcomes may want to consider higher-performing schools in the borough such as Sacred Heart of Mary Girls' School or The Campion School.

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