Bishop's Hatfield Girls' School

About Bishop's Hatfield Girls' School

Bishop's Hatfield Girls' School holds an Outstanding rating from Ofsted, a grade it has maintained since its most recent graded inspection in 2016, with an ungraded visit in 2022 confirming the school remains Outstanding. The most telling academic metric is its Progress 8 score of 0.38, which is classified as 'Above average' nationally. This means that, on average, pupils at this girls' secondary school achieve nearly half a grade more per subject across eight GCSEs than students with similar starting points nationally. To put that in context, the average Progress 8 score for all state secondary schools in Hertfordshire is 0.18, so Bishop's Hatfield is performing well ahead of the local authority norm. The school also ranks first out of five schools in the Welwyn Hatfield area by this measure, and sits comfortably within the top 25% of schools nationally. It is a selective state school in the sense of academic intake, but these results show it adds genuine value beyond what prior attainment alone would predict.

At Key Stage 4, 80.5% of pupils achieved a grade 4 or above in both English and maths, and 63.8% reached the higher grade 5 benchmark. The school's Attainment 8 score sits at 56.7, well above the national average of around 46.5, and the EBacc average point score is 5.13. Over half of pupils (53.7%) entered the EBacc combination of subjects, and 49.7% achieved a grade 4 or above across all five pillars. In the sixth form, the picture is similarly strong: students achieved an average of 39.16 points per entry, equivalent to a B grade, and the best three A-levels averaged a B grade too. The sixth form value-added score is 0.06, which is in the 'Average' band, indicating that students progress broadly as expected from their GCSE starting points. Ofsted rated the sixth form provision as Outstanding in its 2016 inspection, and the school has an official sixth form with 88 pupils in the most recent data.

The school is heavily oversubscribed: for 2025/26 entry, there were 495 applications for 149 places, an oversubscription ratio of 3.32, with 133 offers going to first-preference applicants out of 223 who put it top. Facilities are extensive and include a swimming pool, theatre, sports hall, tennis courts, playing fields, and a dedicated sixth form centre. The school supports a wide range of SEND needs, including dyslexia, autism, speech and language difficulties, and physical disabilities. With a free school meals rate of 18.5%, it serves a reasonably diverse intake. Bishop's Hatfield is a good fit for academically able girls who want strong GCSE and A-level outcomes in a single-sex environment, and for families who value the breadth of extracurricular activities on offer, from rowing and Model UN to the Duke of Edinburgh's Award and Young Enterprise.

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