Farmor's School

About Farmor's School

Farmor's School in Fairford has turned a corner. Its most recent Ofsted inspection, in 2021, awarded a Good rating across every category — quality of education, behaviour and attitudes, personal development, leadership and management, and sixth-form provision. That's a clear improvement from its previous inspection in 2017, when the school was rated Requires Improvement overall. On the exam front, the most telling metric is Progress 8, which measures how much pupils improve between the end of primary school and GCSEs compared with pupils nationally. Farmor's scored 0.03, meaning its students achieve almost exactly what you'd expect given their starting points. That's a solid, middle-of-the-road result, though it sits below the Gloucestershire local authority average of 0.19. Within the Cotswold district, the school ranks fifth out of six secondary schools on this measure, and nationally it sits around the middle of the pack.

Looking more closely at the 2023/24 GCSE results, the average Attainment 8 score was 50.1, which translates to roughly a strong pass in each of a student's best eight subjects. Nearly three-quarters of pupils (74.2%) achieved a grade 4 or above in both English and maths, though the figure drops to 49.7% when you look at the stronger grade 5 or above threshold. The EBacc average point score was 4.27, and just under a quarter of pupils entered the full EBacc suite of subjects. At A-level, the school's sixth form performed above average in terms of progress, with a value-added score of 0.14 and a progress banding of 'Above average'. Students averaged 35.21 points per entry, equivalent to a B- grade, and the best three A-levels came out at a C+ average. With 91 pupils in the sixth form, it's a sizeable but not enormous post-16 cohort.

Farmor's is a mixed, non-denominational secondary school and sixth form for 11 to 18 year olds, with 1,042 pupils on roll — slightly over its official capacity of 1,012. It's oversubscribed: for 2025/26 entry, there were 297 applications for 162 places, with 189 first-preference applications and 161 offers made to first-preference families. That's a ratio of 1.83 applicants per place. The school offers a wide range of facilities including a swimming pool, sports hall, gymnasium, art studios, music rooms, science labs and a dedicated sixth form centre. Sports on offer include rugby, hockey, netball, tennis and dance, while clubs range from the Duke of Edinburgh's Award and Young Enterprise to coding, film club and Model UN. SEND provision is broad, covering specific learning difficulties like dyslexia, autistic spectrum disorder, speech and language needs, and social, emotional and mental health support. This is a school that suits families looking for a solid, improving local comprehensive with a strong sixth form and plenty of extracurricular options, particularly if they live within the Cotswold catchment.

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