Netherwood Academy

About Netherwood Academy

Netherwood Academy has turned a corner. In its most recent Ofsted inspection in 2024, the school was rated Good overall, a clear step up from its previous Requires Improvement rating in 2021. The inspection found that the quality of education, personal development, and leadership and management are all now Good, though behaviour and attitudes still require improvement. The most telling academic metric is the school’s Progress 8 score of -0.41, which places it 7th out of 11 secondary schools in Barnsley. That score is below the national average, but it is actually above the Barnsley local authority average of -0.51, meaning pupils here make more progress than the typical student in the area. The school’s Attainment 8 score sits at 42.6, and just over half of pupils (51.1%) achieved a grade 5 or above in English and maths.

Digging deeper into the Progress 8 breakdown, the picture is mixed. Netherwood’s strongest area is the EBacc element, where the score is -0.25, while maths is the weakest at -0.66. English sits at -0.27 and open subjects at -0.5. Only 18% of pupils entered the EBacc, and 12.9% achieved it at grade 5 or above. The school’s EBacc average point score is 3.79. Nationally, Netherwood ranks in the bottom half, sitting at the 78.7th percentile out of 3,141 schools. In Yorkshire and the Humber, it ranks 227th out of 306. With 36.1% of pupils eligible for free school meals, the school serves a significantly disadvantaged community, which provides important context for these results. The school does not have a sixth form, so all pupils leave at 16.

Netherwood is a large secondary, with 1,271 pupils on roll against a capacity of 1,600, and it is oversubscribed. For 2025/26, there were 323 applications for 259 places, with 211 first-preference offers made. The school offers a wide range of facilities including a swimming pool, sports hall, astro turf, gymnasium, art studios, science labs, and a chapel. Sports on offer include swimming, rowing, cricket, and hockey, while clubs range from the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award and Model UN to gardening and Young Enterprise. SEND provision is broad, covering specific learning difficulties like dyslexia, moderate learning difficulties, social, emotional and mental health needs, speech and language needs, hearing and visual impairments, physical disability, and autistic spectrum disorder. This is a school that has improved its Ofsted rating and performs above the local authority average on progress, making it a solid choice for families in Barnsley who want a large, inclusive secondary with strong facilities.

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