Starbank School

About Starbank School

Starbank School has turned a corner in a big way. In its most recent Ofsted inspection in 2023, the school was rated Good overall, with Good marks for quality of education, behaviour and attitudes, personal development, and leadership and management. That’s a dramatic improvement from its previous inspection in 2019, when it was rated Inadequate. The most telling academic metric is Progress 8, which measures how much pupils improve between the end of primary school and their GCSEs. Starbank’s Progress 8 score is 0.45, meaning pupils here make nearly half a grade more progress per subject than the national average. That score places the school in the top 25 per cent of schools nationally, and 19th out of 83 schools in Birmingham. For context, the local authority average Progress 8 is just 0.09, so Starbank is performing well above its peers in the city.

Digging into the GCSE results from the 2023/24 academic year, the school’s Attainment 8 score is 45.1, and 64.7 per cent of pupils achieved a grade 4 or above in both English and maths. The English Progress 8 score is particularly strong at 1.22, indicating exceptional progress in that subject. Maths progress is also above average at 0.4. The EBacc average point score is 4.18, and 91.9 per cent of pupils entered the EBacc suite of subjects, though only 34.7 per cent achieved the full EBacc at grade 4 or above. The school’s Progress 8 banding is officially ‘Above average’, and it ranks 52nd out of 371 schools in the West Midlands region. With 39.5 per cent of pupils eligible for free school meals, these results show the school is adding real value for a diverse intake.

Starbank is a large all-through school for ages 3 to 16, with 2,199 pupils on roll against a capacity of 2,160, so it is slightly oversubscribed. For the 2025/26 primary phase, there were 225 applications for 113 places, with 102 first-preference offers made. The school has a wide range of facilities including a swimming pool, astro turf, tennis courts, sports hall, and playing fields, plus an ICT suite and a chapel. Sports on offer include cricket, football, netball, rowing, and martial arts, while clubs range from film club and drama to gardening and orchestra. The SEND provision is comprehensive, covering specific learning difficulties like dyslexia, moderate learning difficulty, social emotional and mental health needs, speech and language communication needs, hearing and visual impairments, physical disability, and autistic spectrum disorder. Starbank is a strong choice for Birmingham families who want a large, inclusive secondary that delivers above-average academic progress, particularly in English, and has the facilities to support a broad range of interests.

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