Gillingham School

About Gillingham School

Gillingham School holds a Good rating from Ofsted, a grade it has maintained consistently across its two most recent inspections, the latest of which took place in 2023. The school’s Progress 8 score sits at -0.18, which places it in the ‘Below average’ national banding and ranks it 12th out of 20 secondary schools in the Dorset local authority. This score is slightly below the Dorset average Progress 8 of -0.09, meaning that, on the whole, pupils at Gillingham make less academic progress from Key Stage 2 to GCSE than their peers across the county. The Attainment 8 score of 45.7 gives a clearer picture of raw achievement, while 66.3% of pupils achieved a grade 4 or above in both English and maths, and 45% achieved a grade 5 or above in those core subjects. The school also has a strong focus on the English Baccalaureate, with 65.6% of pupils entering the EBacc combination of subjects, though only 18.1% achieved the higher grade 5 threshold in those subjects.

At Key Stage 5, the school’s sixth form is rated Good by Ofsted and performs solidly. The average A-Level grade is a C+, with students achieving 32.82 points per entry. The value added score for the sixth form is 0.04, which is rated as ‘Average’ and suggests that students make progress in line with expectations given their prior attainment. The proportion of students achieving at least two AAB grades at A-Level is 13.5%, a metric often used as a benchmark for academic selectivity. In terms of the school’s overall position, Gillingham sits in the bottom 50 nationally by Progress 8, ranking 1,971st out of 3,141 schools. Within the South West region, it ranks 204th out of 306 schools. The school’s Ofsted breakdown shows that every category — quality of education, behaviour and attitudes, personal development, leadership and management, and sixth-form provision — was judged Good in the 2023 inspection.

Gillingham is a large secondary school with 1,670 pupils on roll, operating below its capacity of 1,850. It is oversubscribed: for the 2025/26 academic year, there were 320 total applications for 253 places, with 244 first-preference offers made, giving an oversubscription ratio of 1.26. The school has a broad range of facilities including a swimming pool, astro turf, sports hall, gymnasium, art studios, and a dedicated sixth form centre. It offers ten sports and a wide selection of clubs such as Model UN, Debate, DofE, Young Enterprise, and a gardening club. SEND provision is comprehensive, covering specific learning difficulties like dyslexia, moderate learning difficulties, social and emotional mental health needs, speech and language communication needs, hearing and visual impairments, physical disability, and autistic spectrum disorder. With 19.9% of pupils eligible for free school meals, the school serves a diverse intake. Gillingham is a good fit for families seeking a large, mixed, non-denominational state secondary with a strong sixth form and a wide range of extracurricular opportunities, though its Progress 8 score suggests it may not be the strongest choice for those prioritising the highest academic outcomes.

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