Honywood School

About Honywood School

Honywood School is a state secondary for 11-16 year olds in Braintree, Essex, and it is a school that local families clearly want to get into. For the 2025/26 admissions round, the school received 477 applications for 175 places, giving an oversubscription ratio of 2.73. Of those, 191 were first-preference applications, and 162 first-preference offers were made. This level of demand suggests that parents in the area see something worthwhile here. The school is rated Good by Ofsted following its most recent inspection in December 2022, a rating it has held consistently across both its recent inspections. The inspection report gave top marks of Good across all four key areas: quality of education, behaviour and attitudes, personal development, and leadership and management. With 821 pupils on roll against a capacity of 800, the school is operating slightly above its intended size, which is another sign of its popularity.

Academically, Honywood’s results present a mixed picture. In the 2023/24 exams, its Progress 8 score was -0.33, which is below the national average and places the school in the bottom 50 nationally. This is also below the Essex local authority average of -0.18. The Attainment 8 score was 45.1, and the English Baccalaureate average point score was 3.88. On the positive side, 66.1% of pupils achieved a grade 4 or above in both English and maths, though this drops to 45.5% when looking at grade 5 or above. The school’s Progress 8 banding is described as ‘Below average’, and it ranks 49th out of 86 schools of the same type in Essex. Within the Braintree local area, it sits 5th out of 8 schools. The school does not have a sixth form, so pupils will need to move on after Year 11.

The school offers a solid range of facilities including science labs, a sports hall, music rooms, tennis courts, an ICT suite, a library, and even a chapel. Sports provision is broad, with options like rowing, gymnastics, cross country, swimming, and the usual team sports. There is also a decent selection of clubs, from Model UN and coding to gardening and drama. For families with children who have additional needs, the school lists a wide range of SEND provisions, covering specific learning difficulties like dyslexia, moderate and profound learning difficulties, speech and language needs, hearing and visual impairments, physical disabilities, and autistic spectrum disorder. With 18% of pupils eligible for free school meals, the school serves a community with above-average disadvantage. Honywood is a popular, Good-rated school that will suit families who value a broad extracurricular offer and strong SEND support, but who are also realistic about its academic performance relative to the strongest grammar and comprehensive schools in Essex.

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