Westwood College

About Westwood College

Westwood College is a state-funded, mixed secondary school in the Staffordshire Moorlands, part of the Staffordshire local authority. It caters for pupils aged 13 to 18 and currently has 770 students on roll, against a capacity of 911. In the local rankings based on Progress 8 scores, it sits 3rd out of 7 schools in the Staffordshire Moorlands area. The top-performing peers in the same local authority include The Friary School, St John Fisher Catholic College, and Newcastle and Stafford Colleges Group, all of which post higher ranking scores. The school is led by headteacher Rowena Jukes and has no religious character. Its most recent Ofsted inspection, carried out in May 2024, rated the school as Requires Improvement overall, a downgrade from its previous Good rating in 2012. The inspection found that quality of education, personal development, and behaviour and attitudes all require improvement, though the sixth-form provision was judged to be Good.

Academically, Westwood College’s 2023/24 results show a Progress 8 score of -0.13, which is slightly above the Staffordshire local authority average of -0.18. This places the school in the bottom 50 nationally by this measure, but within the West Midlands it ranks 192nd out of 371 schools. The Attainment 8 score is 44.6, and 69.8% of pupils achieved a grade 4 or above in English and maths, though the figure drops to 43.4% for grade 5 or above. The EBacc average point score is 3.9, with 27.5% of pupils entering the EBacc and 19% achieving it. In the sixth form, the average points per entry is 28.24, equivalent to a C- grade, and the value-added score is -0.25, which is rated as below average. The best three A-levels average grade is a C, with 3.2% of entries achieving AAB or higher. The school’s Progress 8 score in maths is positive at 0.12, while English and EBacc subjects are slightly negative.

The school offers a range of facilities including music rooms, a library, tennis courts, art studios, a sixth form centre, playing fields, and science labs. Sports on offer include tennis, rugby, cricket, basketball, rounders, football, rowing, and dance, while extracurricular clubs cover drama, choir, eco club, gardening, art club, chess, newspaper, Young Enterprise, and Model UN. Westwood College has a broad SEND provision, supporting pupils with specific learning difficulties like dyslexia, moderate learning difficulties, social, emotional and mental health needs, speech, language and communication needs, hearing impairment, multi-sensory impairment, physical disability, and autistic spectrum disorder. With 14.5% of pupils eligible for free school meals, the school serves a mixed catchment. It is not oversubscribed, and its official sixth form means it suits families looking for a single-site option from age 13 through to 18, particularly those who value a wide range of clubs and sports alongside a sixth form rated Good by Ofsted.

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