Wardle Academy

About Wardle Academy

Wardle Academy is a large mixed secondary school in Rochdale, serving 1,364 pupils aged 11 to 16. It sits within a local authority where no school currently holds an Outstanding Ofsted rating, and its Progress 8 score of -0.49 places it 10th out of 11 schools in the borough on that metric. That puts it behind the top-performing local peers: Hollingworth Academy (Progress 8 score of -0.02), Matthew Moss High School (-0.03), and Falinge Park High School (-0.03). Nationally, Wardle ranks in the bottom half of schools, sitting at the 82nd percentile among 3,141 secondaries. The school is led by headteacher James Glennie and has no religious character. It is significantly oversubscribed: for the 2025/26 academic year, 260 families put it as their first preference, and the school received 522 total applications for 230 places, giving an oversubscription ratio of 2.27. Despite its below-average Progress 8 score, the level of demand suggests it remains a popular choice locally.

Academically, Wardle Academy’s most recent graded Ofsted inspection in 2017 rated it Good overall, with leadership and management also judged Good. A subsequent ungraded inspection in 2022 confirmed the school remains Good. However, the school’s Progress 8 score of -0.49 is below the local authority average of -0.25, and the Department for Education bands it as “Below average.” Pupils achieved an Attainment 8 score of 40.2, and 53.8% secured a grade 4 or above in both English and maths (the basics 94 measure), though that figure drops to 30.4% at grade 5 or above. The EBacc average point score was 3.49, with 43.9% of pupils entering the EBacc combination of subjects, but only 17.8% achieved a grade 4 or above across all five EBacc components. Progress in English (-0.48), maths (-0.45), and the EBacc subjects (-0.66) all fall below the national average, with the open element of the curriculum showing slightly stronger progress at -0.39.

The school offers a broad range of facilities including a swimming pool, tennis courts, sports hall, science labs, and a library, though it does not have a sixth form or nursery provision. Sports provision is extensive, with rowing, rugby, gymnastics, badminton, cricket, athletics, and basketball among the options, and extracurricular clubs include Film Club, Orchestra, Model UN, Coding, Drama, Duke of Edinburgh, and Book Club. SEND support is well-developed, with provisions covering specific learning difficulties such as 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. Wardle Academy is a good fit for families in Rochdale who want a large, well-subscribed school with strong facilities and a wide range of sports and clubs, but who are comfortable with academic outcomes that sit below both the local and national averages.

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