Great Sankey High School

About Great Sankey High School

Great Sankey High School holds a Good rating from Ofsted following its most recent graded inspection in 2017, and a subsequent ungraded visit in 2023 confirmed the school remains Good. The most telling academic metric for this large Warrington secondary is its Progress 8 score of -0.32, which places it below the national average. That score means that, on average, pupils here achieve about a third of a grade less per subject across eight key GCSEs than students with similar starting points nationally. It is a similar story locally: the Warrington local authority average Progress 8 score is -0.29, so Great Sankey sits just a fraction below its neighbours. The school ranks 9th out of 13 secondary schools in the borough on this measure, placing it in the bottom half of local schools. In the North West region it ranks 286th out of 445, and nationally it sits in the 73rd percentile, meaning roughly a quarter of schools nationally perform worse on Progress 8.

Looking closer at the GCSE results from 2023/24, 46.2% of pupils achieved a grade 5 or above in English and maths, while 74% achieved a grade 4 or above. The Attainment 8 score sits at 49.2, which is around the national average. The school enters a high proportion of pupils for the EBacc — 86.3% — though only 22.1% actually achieve the full EBacc at grade 5 or above. The EBacc average point score is 4.6. In English, Progress 8 is essentially flat at 0.02, but maths is weaker at -0.39, and the open element (other GCSEs) is -0.39 too. At sixth form, the picture is brighter: the school’s value-added score of 0.17 is rated as above average, with a best three A-levels grade of B- and an average points per entry of 33.28, equivalent to a C+. This suggests students who stay on for A-levels make stronger progress relative to their starting points than they did at GCSE.

Great Sankey is a large school with 2,087 pupils on roll, close to its capacity of 2,175, and it is oversubscribed: for 2025/26 entry there were 635 applications for 337 places, a ratio of 1.88 applicants per place. All 310 first-preference applicants were offered a place. The school has a broad range of facilities including a sixth form centre, gymnasium, tennis courts, astro turf, playing fields, ICT suites, art studios and a chapel. Sports on offer include netball, football, rugby, cricket, gymnastics and dance, while clubs range from the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award and Young Enterprise to chess, book club, choir and Model UN. The school has a dedicated sixth form and provides support for a wide range of special educational needs, including dyslexia, autism, speech and language needs, and physical disabilities. With a below-average Progress 8 at GCSE but a stronger sixth form, this school may suit families who value a broad curriculum and a large, well-subscribed community, particularly those whose children are likely to continue into the sixth form.

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