St John Bosco Arts College

About St John Bosco Arts College

St John Bosco Arts College is a Roman Catholic girls’ secondary school in the Liverpool local authority, where it sits 16th out of 30 schools of its type. That places it just above the middle of the pack in a local landscape where the top performers are The Blue Coat School, Cardinal Heenan Catholic High School, and Archbishop Blanch CofE High School. The school is oversubscribed: for 2025/26 it received 331 applications for 206 places, with 183 offers going to first-preference applicants. That level of demand suggests it holds a solid reputation among Liverpool families, particularly those seeking a single-sex Catholic education. The school has a sixth form and is non-selective, with a capacity of 1,064 pupils and a current roll of 1,051. Around 45 per cent of pupils are eligible for free school meals, which is notably higher than the national average and gives a sense of the school’s inclusive intake.

Academically, the school’s most recent Ofsted inspection in 2021 rated it Good across the board, including for behaviour and attitudes, personal development, and sixth-form provision. Its Progress 8 score for 2023/24 was -0.47, which is below the national average and slightly below the Liverpool LA average of -0.4. The school’s attainment 8 score sits at 39.7, and 45.6 per cent of pupils achieved a grade 5 or above in English and maths. At A-level, the school’s value added score was -0.69, placing it in the ‘well below average’ banding, with an average points per entry of 28.61, equivalent to a C grade. The EBacc entry rate is high at 78.1 per cent, though only 13.6 per cent of pupils achieved the EBacc at grade 5 or above. These results point to a school that is ambitious in its curriculum offer but where outcomes, particularly in maths and the EBacc subjects, are an area of focus.

The school is well equipped with facilities including a swimming pool, theatre, chapel, science labs, and a sixth form centre. Sports on offer include hockey, gymnastics, dance, and martial arts, while clubs range from Model UN and Young Enterprise to the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award and orchestra. SEND provision is broad, covering specific learning difficulties, speech and language needs, autism, and physical disabilities, among others. For families considering St John Bosco, the key draw is a Catholic girls’ school with strong community demand, a wide range of extracurricular opportunities, and a pastoral environment that Ofsted judged to be good. It will particularly suit parents who value a faith-based setting and are comfortable with a school that is working to improve academic outcomes from a below-average starting point, especially in the core EBacc subjects.

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