Bedlington Academy

About Bedlington Academy

Bedlington Academy has turned a significant corner since its last full inspection. The school was rated Inadequate in 2015, but its most recent Ofsted inspection in 2022 awarded it a Good rating across every category, including overall effectiveness, quality of education, behaviour and attitudes, personal development, leadership and management, and sixth-form provision. That turnaround is the headline story here, but the exam data tells a more nuanced tale. The school’s Progress 8 score for 2023/24 sits at -0.26, which is slightly below the national average and places it in the ‘Below average’ banding. That said, it is only a fraction behind the Northumberland local authority average of -0.22, and it ranks 11th out of 16 secondary schools in the county on this metric. For a school that was in special measures less than a decade ago, that is a solid, if not spectacular, position.

Looking more closely at the academic outcomes, the Attainment 8 score of 45.2 is respectable, and 68.8% of pupils achieved a grade 4 or above in English and maths (the basics 9-4 measure). However, the proportion achieving grade 5 or above in both subjects drops to 45.3%, and only 10.2% of pupils entered the EBacc at the higher grade threshold. The EBacc average point score of 3.84 is modest. In the sixth form, the picture is brighter: the school’s value-added score of -0.22 is banded as ‘Average’, and the average points per entry of 36.77 equates to a B- grade. The best three A-levels averaged a B grade, and 23.1% of entries achieved AAB or higher. With only 24 pupils in the sixth-form cohort, the numbers are small, but the outcomes suggest that students who stay on post-16 tend to perform well relative to their starting points.

Bedlington Academy is a secondary school with a sixth form, serving 828 pupils against a capacity of 850. It is oversubscribed: for 2025/26, there were 232 applications for 162 places, with 166 first-preference applications and 161 offers made to first-preference applicants, giving an oversubscription ratio of 1.43. The school has a high proportion of pupils eligible for free school meals at 31.2%, well above the national average, and offers a broad range of SEND provisions covering dyslexia, moderate learning difficulties, social and emotional mental health needs, speech and language challenges, physical disabilities, and autistic spectrum disorder. Facilities include a swimming pool, sports hall, astro turf, tennis courts, music rooms, and a sixth-form centre. Clubs range from Eco Club and Coding to the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award and Model United Nations. This is a school that has clearly stabilised and improved, and while its academic results are not yet pushing into the top tier of Northumberland, it offers a well-supported environment for a wide range of students, particularly those who may benefit from strong pastoral and SEND support.

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