Academy@Worden

About Academy@Worden

Academy@Worden is a mixed 11-16 state secondary in South Ribble, part of the Lancashire local authority. Among the 90 secondary schools in the county, it sits at rank 49 by Progress 8 score, placing it in the middle of the pack. Its Progress 8 score of -0.25 is below the Lancashire average of -0.11, and within South Ribble it ranks 8th out of 11 schools. The top-performing peers in the area include Preston Muslim Girls High School, Eden Boys' School, Preston, and Holy Cross Catholic High School, all of which post significantly higher Progress 8 scores. The school is oversubscribed: for 158 places in the 2025/26 academic year, it received 379 applications, with 98 first-preference offers. That works out at 2.4 applications per place, suggesting strong local demand despite the middling ranking. With 618 pupils on roll against a capacity of 590, the school is running slightly over capacity.

Academy@Worden’s most recent Ofsted inspection in January 2025 rated it Good across all four graded areas: quality of education, behaviour and attitudes, personal development, and leadership and management. This is consistent with its previous inspection in 2012, which also judged overall effectiveness as Good. In the 2023/24 exam results, the school’s Attainment 8 score was 41.6, and 54.1% of pupils achieved a grade 4 or above in English and maths, with 36.7% reaching grade 5 or above. The EBacc entry rate was 32.7%, and 17.3% of pupils achieved the EBacc at grade 4 or above. Progress 8 was -0.25, which the Department for Education bands as Average. Within that, English was a relative strength with a Progress 8 score of +0.13, while maths was weaker at -0.44. The EBacc average point score was 3.7.

The school offers a broad range of facilities including art studios, tennis courts, a swimming pool, a library, a sports hall, and a chapel. Sports on offer include football, swimming, hockey, athletics, netball, tennis, rugby, and gymnastics, and there are clubs covering drama, coding, eco club, Duke of Edinburgh, debate, science club, and book club. SEND provisions are well-documented, covering specific learning difficulties like dyslexia, moderate learning difficulty, social emotional and mental health needs, speech language and communication needs, hearing and visual impairments, physical disability, and autistic spectrum disorder. Parent View responses from 68 respondents between September 2024 and September 2025 show 75% would recommend the school. Strong agreement was high on behaviour (50% strongly agreed the school ensures good behaviour) and on clubs and activities (53% strongly agreed). This is a school that suits families who value a Good-rated, oversubscribed local option with strong SEND support and a wide extracurricular offer, but who are realistic about academic outcomes that sit slightly below the local average.

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