Lift Clacton

About Lift Clacton

Lift Clacton was rated Good in its most recent Ofsted inspection in 2024, a significant improvement from its previous Requires Improvement rating in 2022. The school received Good across all categories including quality of education, behaviour and attitudes, personal development, leadership and management, and its sixth-form provision. However, the headline exam metric tells a more challenging story. The school’s Progress 8 score stands at -0.83, meaning pupils on average achieve nearly a grade less per subject than their peers nationally with similar starting points. This places Lift Clacton in the bottom 50 nationally, ranking 2,941st out of 3,141 schools. Within the Tendring local authority, it sits sixth out of six schools, and across Essex as a whole it ranks 69th out of 86 state secondary schools. The local authority average Progress 8 score is -0.18, so Lift Clacton’s result is significantly below that benchmark.

Looking more closely at the academic data, the school’s Attainment 8 score is 30.3, and the basics measure shows 38% of pupils achieved a grade 5 or above in English and maths, dropping to 20.5% at grade 5 or above. The EBacc entry rate is low at 11%, and only 4.9% of pupils achieved the EBacc at grade 4 or above. In the sixth form, the picture is more mixed. The value-added score is 0.11, which is in line with the national average, and the average points per entry is 31.71, equivalent to a C+ grade. The best three A-levels average grade is B-, and 11.1% of entries achieved AAB or higher. With only 18 pupils in the sixth-form cohort, these figures should be treated with caution, but they suggest that students who stay on post-16 make progress broadly in line with the national average, unlike the school’s KS4 performance.

Lift Clacton is a large secondary school with 1,516 pupils, operating at near full capacity of 1,550. It is oversubscribed: for the 2025/26 academic year, there were 306 applications for 212 places, with 195 first-preference offers made. The school has a high proportion of pupils eligible for free school meals at 53.8%, well above the national average. Facilities are strong for a state school, including an astro turf, swimming pool, tennis courts, sports hall, and a sixth form centre. The school offers a wide range of sports and clubs including rowing, dance, chess, Duke of Edinburgh, and Model UN. SEND provision covers eight areas including dyslexia, autistic spectrum disorder, and speech and language needs. This is a school that has made clear progress in its leadership and behaviour since its previous inspection, but families should weigh the below-average Progress 8 score against the improved Ofsted rating and the breadth of facilities and extracurricular opportunities on offer.

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