Houlton School

About Houlton School

Houlton School in Rugby received a Good rating in its most recent Ofsted inspection in February 2024, with inspectors awarding a Grade 2 for overall effectiveness, quality of education, personal development, behaviour and attitudes, and leadership and management. This is a solid, consistent report card across the board. The school’s most telling academic metric is its oversubscription data: for the 2025/26 intake, Houlton received 587 applications for just 182 places, a ratio of 3.23 applicants per spot. Of those, 169 families listed it as their first preference, and 147 of those were offered a place. That level of demand suggests a school that local parents trust and want to get into, even though it sits in a local authority with seven Outstanding-rated secondary schools, including the selective Lawrence Sheriff School just 4.5 kilometres away.

On academic outcomes, Houlton’s Progress 8 score is not provided in the available data, but the local authority average for Warwickshire secondary schools is 0.02, which is broadly in line with the national average. The school’s Ofsted breakdown shows no previous inspection rating to compare against, so this Good judgement stands as its first graded assessment. With 20 per cent of pupils eligible for free school meals, Houlton serves a more diverse intake than some of its grammar school neighbours, and the Good rating across all five Ofsted categories — particularly behaviour and attitudes — suggests the school is managing that well. The absence of a sixth form provision in the inspection report means the school currently operates as an 11-16 secondary, though its facilities include a Sixth Form Centre, so that may change in future.

The school sits on a large site with playing fields, tennis courts, a theatre, and a library, and offers a broad range of sports including rugby, netball, basketball, football, cricket, and dance. Clubs run the gamut from art and book club to coding, drama, choir, and gardening. SEND provision is comprehensive, covering specific learning difficulties like dyslexia, moderate learning difficulty, social, emotional and mental health needs, speech and language issues, visual impairment, and autistic spectrum disorder. With 710 pupils against a capacity of 1,000, there is room to grow, but the oversubscription figures show that getting a place is competitive. This is a school that will suit families in the Rugby area who want a well-regarded, non-selective state secondary with strong behaviour standards and a wide extracurricular offer, but who are prepared to play the admissions lottery.

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