The Lacon Childe School

About The Lacon Childe School

The Lacon Childe School’s headline Progress 8 score of -0.28 is a meaningful outlier in Shropshire, sitting comfortably above the local authority average of -0.37 for state secondary schools. That gap of nearly a tenth of a grade per subject places it in the top half of the county’s 21 schools of its type, ranked 8th. It’s a solidly average performer nationally, sitting in the 30th percentile, but within Shropshire it’s a school that’s doing better than the typical local alternative. The school is oversubscribed — 158 applications for 114 places in 2025/26, with 107 first-preference offers from 108 first-preference applications — which suggests families in the area see it as a viable choice. That said, the most recent Ofsted inspection in June 2024 rated the school Requires Improvement overall, a downgrade from its previous Good rating in 2012. The inspection found behaviour and attitudes, leadership, and quality of education all require improvement, though personal development was judged Good.

Academically, the picture is mixed but not without strengths. The school’s Attainment 8 score of 45.1 is reasonable, and 64.1% of pupils achieved a grade 4 or above in English and maths, though that drops to 43.7% at grade 5 or above. The EBacc average point score of 3.84 is modest, and only 27.2% of pupils entered the EBacc combination of subjects. Breaking down Progress 8, the school performs weakest in the EBacc bucket (-0.49) and open subjects (-0.2), while English is closest to the national average at -0.1. Maths is slightly below at -0.26. The school’s Progress 8 banding is officially ‘Average’, which is a fair summary: pupils leave with broadly expected progress, but there’s clear room to improve in the EBacc subjects. The school serves a relatively disadvantaged intake, with 22% of pupils eligible for free school meals, which is above the national average and makes the above-average Progress 8 relative to the LA more notable.

The school is a secondary modern with no sixth form, so pupils leave at 16, and it’s a mixed, non-religious state school in Shropshire. Facilities are decent for a school of its size: science labs, an astro turf pitch, tennis courts, a gym, music rooms, and an ICT suite. There’s a chapel on site, which is unusual for a non-religious school. Sports provision is strong, with rowing, hockey, swimming, and martial arts alongside more traditional options like cricket and netball. The clubs list includes Chess, Science Club, DofE, Debate, Orchestra, Art Club, and Coding, offering a reasonable breadth of enrichment. SEND provision is comprehensive, covering dyslexia, moderate learning difficulty, SEMH, speech and language needs, and autistic spectrum disorder, with a resourced provision on site. For families in Shropshire looking for a mainstream secondary that outperforms the local average on progress, is oversubscribed, and offers a wide range of activities, Lacon Childe is a pragmatic choice — but the Requires Improvement rating means it’s one to watch closely.

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