Bedford Free School
Bedford, MK42 9AD · Bedford local authority
Bedford’s School Grade C better than 27% of towns in England
What stands out about Bedford Free School
- Its own letter, A−: GCSE results better than 77% of England’s secondary schools
- 58% get grade 5 or above in English and maths, 11 points above England’s schools
- Over capacity: 536 pupils for 500 places
- Ofsted: Inspected, April 2025 (shown, not graded)
- 64% of families who put it first got a place for September 2026 (108 of 168)
- Progress 8 of +1.11 in 2023/24, the last year DfE published it: pupils did better at GCSE than pupils nationally with the same results at 11
- Homes in its postcode sector (MK42 9) sold for a median £263,122; Bedford’s is £325,000
Results
DfE · GCSEs 2025/26, provisional · 103 pupilsEach bar is a group of England’s 3,224 graded secondary schools. The schools Bedford Free beats are shaded green.
Attainment 8 51
Average grade across 8 GCSEs ×10 · higher than 73% of schools · Bedford avg 45.1
Grade 5+ in English and maths 58%
A strong pass · higher than 79% of schools · Bedford avg 44%
Attainment 8, three years
The mark is England’s average that year
Progress 8, 2023/24
+1.11: above average. How pupils did at GCSE against pupils nationally with the same results at 11. Not published since 2023/24 (no Key Stage 2 tests in 2020 and 2021).
Disadvantaged pupils, 2025/26
Attainment 8 for the 27 pupils DfE counts as disadvantaged (free school meals in the last 6 years, or looked after) and the rest, beside England’s schools
England’s figures are of its graded mainstream state schools, each school counted once; grammar schools are included, which is why the right-hand tail is long. Small cohorts are suppressed.
How hard is it to get a place at Bedford Free School?
64% of the families who put it first got a place for September 2026.
Years when some first choices missed out: 2019 (79), 2020 (90), 2021 (120), 2022 (116), 2023 (114), 2024 (93), 2025 (92), 2026 (60). The council runs the coordinated admissions; each school’s rules (siblings, distance, faith) decide who gets in. DfE doesn’t publish the furthest distance offered, so check the council’s admissions booklet for that. Advantage Schools sets the admissions rules. Apply through Bedford council’s coordinated admissions.
Outline = places offered · green = families who put it first · striped = more first choices than places
64% got their first choice
Bedford and Bedford, side by side
2025/26All 12 graded secondaries in Bedford. Schools with more pupils on free school meals usually score lower, so a school above the crowd for its free school meals is doing better than its intake predicts. Bedford’s schools are coloured by their letter.
Show as a table
| School | Letter | Free school meals | Attainment 8 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Goldington Academy | A− | 23% | 52 |
| Bedford Free School | A− | 30% | 51 |
| Lincroft Academy | B+ | 14% | 50.4 |
| Sharnbrook Academy | B | 15% | 47.7 |
| Daubeney Academy | B | 29% | 46.1 |
| Wootton Academy | C+ | 19% | 44.8 |
| Bedford Academy | C | 40% | 44.4 |
| Wixams Academy | C+ | 23% | 43.9 |
| St Thomas More Catholic School | C | 22% | 41 |
| Mark Rutherford School | C− | 30% | 40.7 |
| Biddenham International School and Sports College | C− | 36% | 40.3 |
| Kempston Academy | D | 30% | 38.4 |
Who goes here
DfE school census, January 2025525 pupils. SEN support is extra help in school for a special educational need; an EHC plan is the council’s legal plan for pupils who need more.
Girls and boys
Bedford Free School’s letter
Its own results against England’s schools, not the town’s School Grade.
How school letters are worked out
Each school’s measure is compared with every graded school in England of the same phase: for primaries, the share of pupils meeting the expected standard in reading, writing and maths (DfE’s three-year average); for secondaries, Attainment 8 and the share with grade 5 or above in English and maths, each turned into a z-score against England’s schools and averaged. The letter comes from the share of those schools it beats, in the same bands as every grade on the site. The same method gives U.S. schools their letters, against their own state.
Graded: England’s open mainstream state schools with published results (grammar schools included, which select by test). Not graded: special schools, alternative provision, nurseries, 16–19 colleges, UTCs and studio schools, Welsh schools. Ofsted plays no part.
Ofsted inspections
Shown, not graded: Ofsted is never part of a letter or the School Grade.
Graded inspection: Outstanding, January 2020. Ungraded inspection: Standards maintained, April 2025.
Living near Bedford Free School
For families thinking of moving: what homes cost around the school, and the other schools close by.
Home prices in MK42 9, the school’s postcode sector
Bedford property prices →Median sale price each year, 2010 to 2025
By type, the 36 months to August 2026
Homes in MK42 9 sell for well under Bedford’s typical price. HM Land Registry Price Paid, standard sales. Catchments aren’t published, so the postcode sector stands in for “around the school”.
Schools within 1.6 miles
22 state schoolsLocation
Directions ↗Bedford, MK42 9AD
Bedford Free School: common questions
Is Bedford Free School a good school?
By its published results, well above average: its GCSE results are better than 77% of England’s secondary schools (its letter is A−), with an Attainment 8 of 51 and 58% getting grade 5 or above in English and maths, against 47.3 and 47% for England’s schools. Ofsted: Inspected, April 2025.
How hard is it to get into Bedford Free School?
For September 2026, 168 families put Bedford Free School first and 108 of them were offered a place; 109 places were offered in all.
What is Bedford Free School’s Ofsted rating?
Its latest inspection outcome is Inspected (April 2025).
How much do houses cost near Bedford Free School?
Homes in its postcode sector, MK42 9, sold for a median £263,122 over the 36 months to August 2026 (313 sales).
Sources: DfE Get Information about Schools (16 October 2026), Key Stage 2 performance tables (2023–2025, three-year average) and Key Stage 4 (2025/26, provisional); Ofsted state-funded school inspections as at 30 September 2026. All under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
Also: DfE Key Stage 4 performance, schools data (2023/24 and 2024/25 final, 2025/26 provisional) and Key Stage 2 performance tables 2024/25 by subject; DfE school census, January 2025; DfE school-level applications and offers, September 2019 to 2026 entry; HM Land Registry Price Paid by postcode sector, 2010 to August 2026.
A school’s letter is our own summary of its published results against England’s schools of the same phase; Bedford’s School Grade is a separate grade, built from the results of the schools in and around the town against other towns. Map: © OpenStreetMap contributors.
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Contains HM Land Registry data © Crown copyright and database right 2026. Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2026 (ONS boundaries). Northern Ireland: Source: NISRA; contains Land & Property Services data and Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland information, © Crown copyright, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Scotland: contains National Records of Scotland data, Registers of Scotland data and SEPA data, © Crown copyright / © SEPA 2025, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.