Chesterton Community Sports College

About Chesterton Community Sports College

Chesterton Community Sports College is a mixed state secondary in Newcastle-under-Lyme, part of Staffordshire local authority. Among the ten secondary schools in its immediate LA area, it ranks fourth by Progress 8 score, placing it in the top half locally. Its nearest high-performing peers include The Friary School, St John Fisher Catholic College, and Newcastle and Stafford Colleges Group, all of which sit above it in the local rankings. The school is significantly oversubscribed: for 195 places in 2025/26, it received 324 applications, with 186 first-preference offers. That level of demand suggests strong local reputation, especially given that 34.9% of its 903 pupils are eligible for free school meals, well above the national average. The school has no sixth form, so pupils leave at 16, and it does not have a religious character. Its most recent Ofsted inspection, in 2022, rated it Good across all categories, including behaviour and attitudes, personal development, and leadership and management — a consistent improvement from its previous Good rating in 2010.

Academically, Chesterton’s Progress 8 score of -0.1 is classed as Average nationally, and it sits above the Staffordshire LA average of -0.18. Its Attainment 8 score of 43.8 means the average pupil achieves just under a grade 5 per subject. In English and maths, 65.7% of pupils achieved a grade 4 or above, while 29.2% reached grade 5 or above. The EBacc average point score is 3.91, and 59% of pupils entered the EBacc suite of subjects, though only 23% achieved a grade 4 or above across all five components. Progress in the open element of the curriculum is slightly positive at 0.03, but progress in English and maths is negative, at -0.28 and -0.24 respectively. The school ranks in the bottom 50 nationally by Progress 8, but within the West Midlands it sits around the middle, at 178th out of 371 schools. These results point to a school that supports most pupils to meet baseline expectations, though high-attaining students may find less stretch in core subjects.

The school’s facilities are notably strong for a state secondary: it has a swimming pool, theatre, chapel, astro turf, sports hall, and gymnasium, and offers a wide range of sports including rowing, rugby, hockey, and cross country. Clubs include Coding, Art Club, the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, Science Club, and Young Enterprise. SEND provision is broad, covering specific learning difficulties like dyslexia, moderate learning difficulty, social and emotional mental health needs, speech and language communication needs, multi-sensory impairment, and autistic spectrum disorder. With 903 pupils against a capacity of 870, the school is slightly over capacity, and oversubscription is high at 1.66 applicants per place. This is a school that suits families looking for a well-equipped, inclusive community secondary with strong extracurricular breadth, particularly in sport and the arts, and where the academic profile is solidly average rather than selective. Its lack of a sixth form means pupils will need to plan for post-16 options elsewhere.

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