St Clere's School

About St Clere's School

St Clere's School sits in a tricky spot academically when you compare its headline metrics against the Thurrock local authority average. The school's Progress 8 score of -0.34 is notably below the LA average of 0.14, meaning pupils here make less progress from Key Stage 2 to GCSE than their peers across the borough. That gap is significant enough to place St Clere's 8th out of 10 secondary schools in Thurrock, putting it in the bottom half locally and the bottom 50 per cent nationally. The Attainment 8 score of 42.5 also trails the typical picture, and the EBacc average point score of 3.75 reflects a curriculum that doesn't push as many pupils through the full English Baccalaureate suite — only 24.2 per cent entered for it, and just 17.5 per cent achieved a grade 5 or above in both English and maths alongside the EBacc. For parents looking at raw outcomes, this is a school where results are below the local norm.

That said, the school's most recent Ofsted inspection in 2025 rated it Good across every category inspected: quality of education, behaviour and attitudes, personal development, leadership and management, and sixth-form provision. This is consistent with its previous Good rating from 2014, so there's stability in leadership under headteacher Jon Purkiss. The Progress 8 banding is officially 'Below average', and the breakdown shows negative scores across English (-0.36), maths (-0.33), the EBacc subjects (-0.45), and open subjects (-0.25). The basics measure — pupils achieving a grade 5 or above in English and maths — sits at 36.5 per cent, which is modest. The sixth form is rated Good too, and the school has an official sixth-form centre, so there's a clear pathway for pupils who want to stay on after Year 11.

On the practical side, St Clere's is a large secondary with 1,438 pupils against a capacity of 1,500, and it's oversubscribed: for 2025/26 entry, there were 610 applications for 236 places, with 242 first-preference applications and 216 offers made to first-preference families. That's a ratio of 2.58 applicants per place, so getting in is competitive. The school offers a wide range of facilities including a swimming pool, theatre, sports hall, tennis courts, and a sixth-form centre, plus clubs like coding, chess, Model UN, and Young Enterprise. SEND provision is broad, covering dyslexia, autism, speech and language needs, and social and emotional mental health support. Parent View responses from 157 families show 82 per cent would recommend the school, with strong agreement that children are happy (84 per cent agree or strongly agree) and that the school has high expectations (80 per cent). This is a school that feels well-run and popular with families, even if its academic results don't match the top performers in Thurrock.

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