Tong Leadership Academy

About Tong Leadership Academy

Tong Leadership Academy’s headline Progress 8 score of -0.61 sits well below the Bradford local authority average of -0.19, meaning pupils here make significantly less academic progress than their peers across other secondary schools in the area. This places the school 26th out of 34 similar schools in Bradford, firmly in the bottom half of the local league table. Nationally, it ranks in the 87th percentile of all schools, a position that reflects a consistent pattern of underperformance relative to the average. The school’s Attainment 8 score of 35.8 is also modest, and only 36.9% of pupils achieved a grade 5 or above in English and maths, compared with a national benchmark that typically sits around 45%. These figures suggest that while the school serves a community with high levels of disadvantage — 39.6% of pupils are eligible for free school meals — the academic outcomes are not keeping pace with the local average, let alone the strongest performers in Bradford.

That said, the school’s most recent Ofsted inspection in October 2023 rated it Good overall, a notable improvement from its previous Requires Improvement rating in 2019. The inspection found Good across all key areas: quality of education, behaviour and attitudes, personal development, and leadership and management. This suggests that while exam results remain below average, the school is now on a more stable footing. The Progress 8 breakdown shows particular weakness in the EBacc subjects (-0.9) and open subjects (-0.68), with English (-0.27) and maths (-0.45) also negative but less severely so. Only 7.4% of pupils entered the full EBacc at grade 5 or above, though 70.5% did enter the EBacc suite of subjects. The sixth form provision was not separately graded in the latest inspection, but the school does offer a Sixth Form Centre for students aged 16 to 19.

Tong Leadership Academy is heavily oversubscribed: for 170 places in 2025/26, it received 367 applications, a ratio of 2.16 applicants per place, with 136 first-preference offers made. This suggests strong local demand despite the middling results, likely driven by its Good Ofsted rating and the range of facilities on offer. The school has a theatre, music rooms, science labs, an astro turf pitch, sports hall, gymnasium, and a chapel. Sports include football, rugby, swimming, hockey, and rowing, while clubs range from Model UN and coding to the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award and Young Enterprise. SEND provision covers specific learning difficulties, moderate learning difficulties, social and emotional mental health needs, speech and language communication needs, physical disabilities, and autistic spectrum disorder. This is a school that suits families who value a broad extracurricular offer and a supportive environment, but who are realistic about academic outcomes that currently trail the local average.

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