Sir Frederick Gibberd College

About Sir Frederick Gibberd College

Sir Frederick Gibberd College in Harlow received a Requires Improvement rating from Ofsted following its most recent graded inspection in December 2024, though the picture is more nuanced than that single label suggests. The school’s sixth form provision and personal development were both judged Good, while behaviour and attitudes, leadership and management, and the quality of education were all rated Requires Improvement. On the most telling exam metric, the school’s Progress 8 score sits at -0.09, which is above the Essex local authority average of -0.18 and places it 32nd out of 86 similar schools in the county. That score is classified as Average by the Department for Education’s banding system, meaning pupils here make progress broadly in line with the national average. The school’s Attainment 8 score of 46.2 and its EBacc average point score of 4.12 provide further context for parents weighing up academic outcomes.

Digging into the GCSE results, 47.4 per cent of pupils achieved a grade 5 or above in English and maths, while 70.7 per cent achieved a grade 4 or above in those core subjects. The EBacc entry rate stands at 41.4 per cent, with 26.7 per cent of pupils achieving the EBacc at grade 4 or above and 19 per cent at grade 5 or above. In terms of subject-level Progress 8 breakdowns, English shows a positive score of 0.23, maths is essentially flat at 0.01, and the EBacc subjects sit at -0.2. The open element, which covers other GCSEs, is -0.25. Nationally, the school ranks 1,752 out of 3,141 schools on Progress 8, placing it in the bottom half but not the bottom tier. Within the East of England region, it sits 200th out of 350 schools. These figures suggest a school where core English provision is a relative strength, but there is room for improvement across the broader curriculum.

The school is significantly oversubscribed: for 2025/26 entry, it received 437 applications for 178 places, with 169 first-preference applications and 157 first-preference offers made. That oversubscription ratio of 2.46 to one reflects strong local demand. Facilities include a library, theatre, science labs, swimming pool, dining hall, playing fields and a sixth form centre, with sports ranging from rugby and football to martial arts and swimming. Clubs on offer include Model UN, art club, book club, chess, film club, choir and Young Enterprise. The school has a broad range of SEND provisions covering specific learning difficulties, moderate learning difficulty, social, emotional and mental health needs, speech and language communication needs, hearing and visual impairments, multi-sensory impairment, physical disability and autistic spectrum disorder. Parent View data from 116 respondents shows 80 per cent would recommend the school, with particularly strong agreement that children feel safe and that the school has high expectations.

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