Alder Community High School

About Alder Community High School

Alder Community High School is a mixed secondary school in Tameside that currently houses 924 pupils, 24 over its official capacity of 900, and the demand to get in is strong. For the 2025/26 admissions cycle, the school received 408 applications for 170 places, an oversubscription ratio of 2.4, and 164 of those offers went to first-preference families. The proportion of pupils eligible for free school meals sits at 28.8%, which is notably higher than the national average for secondary schools, suggesting the school serves a community with above-average levels of economic disadvantage. Despite being oversubscribed, the school's intake profile reflects a broad mix of local families, with the high FSM figure pointing to a significant proportion of pupils who may need additional support. The school does not have a sixth form, so students leave at 16, and it has no religious character, making it a straightforward community option for families across Tameside.

Academically, Alder's most recent data places it in the middle of the pack locally. Its Progress 8 score of -0.28 is below the Tameside average of -0.19, meaning pupils on average achieve slightly less than expected compared with their peers nationally. The school ranks 8th out of 16 secondary schools in the local authority, putting it in the bottom half of Tameside's state secondaries. Attainment 8 sits at 43, and 37.5% of pupils achieved a grade 5 or above in English and maths, compared with 66.3% at grade 4 or above. The EBacc entry rate is 32.6%, with 19% achieving the full EBacc at grade 5 or above. In its most recent Ofsted inspection in April 2024, the school was rated Requires Improvement overall, though inspectors judged behaviour and attitudes, personal development, and leadership and management all as Good. The quality of education was the area flagged as needing improvement, a downgrade from its previous Good rating in 2014.

The school offers a solid range of facilities including a theatre, sports hall, astro turf, gymnasium, music rooms, and a library, plus a sixth form centre despite having no official sixth form. Sports provision covers tennis, netball, swimming, hockey, athletics, and cross country, while extracurricular clubs include drama, Young Enterprise, the Duke of Edinburgh's Award, choir, debate, and coding. SEND support is comprehensive, with provisions for dyslexia, moderate learning difficulties, social and emotional mental health needs, speech and language issues, hearing and visual impairments, physical disabilities, and autistic spectrum disorder. This breadth of support, combined with the high FSM intake and oversubscribed admissions, suggests Alder is a school that serves a diverse and demanding local community. It will suit families who value a wide range of activities and strong pastoral care, but who are comfortable with academic results that sit slightly below the local average and an Ofsted rating that is currently under improvement.

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