Testbourne Community School

About Testbourne Community School

Testbourne Community School, a mixed state secondary for 11-16 year olds in Basingstoke and Deane, holds a Good rating from its most recent Ofsted inspection in 2023, with all assessed areas — quality of education, personal development, behaviour and attitudes, and leadership and management — each rated Good. The school’s most telling academic metric is its Progress 8 score of 0.09, which places it above the Hampshire local authority average of -0.17. This positive score means that, on average, pupils at Testbourne achieve nearly a tenth of a grade more per subject than students with similar starting points nationally. The school ranks first among the seven schools in its immediate Basingstoke and Deane area for Progress 8, and sits 19th out of 80 similar schools across the wider Hampshire authority. Its Attainment 8 score of 51.6 further underscores solid academic performance, with over three-quarters of pupils achieving a grade 4 or above in both English and maths.

Digging deeper into the exam data, Testbourne’s Progress 8 banding is classified as Average, though the breakdown reveals interesting variation. Pupils performed strongest in the EBacc subjects, with a Progress 8 score of 0.26, while English also showed a positive contribution at 0.17. Maths, however, lagged slightly behind at -0.18, suggesting room for improvement in that department. The school’s EBacc entry rate stands at 50.5%, meaning half of pupils take the full suite of English Baccalaureate subjects, and 32.6% achieve a grade 4 or above in those subjects. The basics measure shows 77.2% of pupils secured a grade 4 or above in both English and maths, dropping to 50.5% at the stronger grade 5 threshold. Compared with the previous Ofsted inspection in 2010, when the school was rated Outstanding overall, the current Good rating reflects a shift in standards, though the school remains a strong performer locally.

Testbourne is a popular school, oversubscribed for the 2025/26 academic year with 295 applications for 206 places, and 185 of those offers going to first-preference applicants. The school offers a broad range of facilities including a swimming pool, sports hall, playing fields, science labs, and an ICT suite, with sports ranging from gymnastics and swimming to rugby and martial arts. Clubs such as debate, coding, orchestra, and Young Enterprise provide enrichment beyond the classroom. For families with children who have additional needs, the school lists provisions for a wide spectrum of needs including dyslexia, autistic spectrum disorder, speech and language difficulties, and social, emotional and mental health support. With no sixth form, pupils will need to plan for post-16 options elsewhere. Testbourne suits families who value a solid, above-average academic track record in a well-equipped, oversubscribed community school.

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