John Ruskin School
Coniston, LA21 8EW · Westmorland and Furness local authority
What stands out about John Ruskin School
- Its own letter, C+: GCSE results better than 39% of England’s secondary schools
- 38% get grade 5 or above in English and maths, 10 points below England’s schools
- Over capacity: 247 pupils for 230 places
- 11% of pupils are eligible for free school meals (fewer than England’s 30%)
- Ofsted: Inspected, March 2025 (shown, not graded)
- 88% of families who put it first got a place for September 2026 (46 of 52)
- Progress 8 of +0.50 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 (LA21 8) sold for a median £395,000; Coniston’s is £383,000
Results
DfE · GCSEs 2025/26, provisional · 48 pupilsEach bar is a group of England’s 3,224 graded secondary schools. The schools John Ruskin beats are shaded green.
Attainment 8 46
Average grade across 8 GCSEs ×10 · higher than 49% of schools · Westmorland and Furness avg 45.1
Grade 5+ in English and maths 38%
A strong pass · higher than 30% of schools · Westmorland and Furness avg 41%
Attainment 8, three years
The mark is England’s average that year
Progress 8, 2023/24
+0.50: 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).
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 John Ruskin School?
88% of the families who put it first got a place for September 2026.
Years when some first choices missed out: 2020 (6), 2021 (1), 2023 (3), 2024 (15), 2025 (8), 2026 (6). 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. Westmorland and Furness council sets the admissions rules. Apply through Westmorland and Furness council’s coordinated admissions.
Outline = places offered · green = families who put it first · striped = more first choices than places
88% got their first choice
Coniston and Westmorland and Furness, side by side
2025/26All 19 graded secondaries in Westmorland and Furness. 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. Coniston’s schools are coloured by their letter.
Show as a table
| School | Letter | Free school meals | Attainment 8 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Queen Elizabeth Grammar School Penrith | A+ | 5% | 65.2 |
| Queen Elizabeth School | A | 8% | 58.4 |
| Kirkby Stephen Grammar School | A− | 21% | 50.2 |
| Cartmel Priory CofE School | B | 14% | 49.8 |
| The Queen Katherine School | B | 17% | 49.3 |
| Ulverston Victoria High School | B− | 16% | 48.3 |
| Kirkbie Kendal School | B | 16% | 47.5 |
| John Ruskin School | C+ | 11% | 46 |
| Settlebeck School | B− | 13% | 45.7 |
| Dallam School | C+ | 15% | 44.1 |
| The Lakes School | C | 17% | 42.1 |
| Dowdales School | C− | 21% | 41.1 |
| Furness Academy | C− | 29% | 40.8 |
| Appleby Grammar School | C− | 18% | 40.7 |
| Walney Academy | C− | 28% | 40.5 |
| Ullswater Community College | C− | 21% | 39.5 |
| Chetwynde School | D | 17% | 38.5 |
| St Bernards Catholic High School, Barrow | C− | 28% | 38.5 |
| Samuel King's School | D− | 19% | 30.2 |
Who goes here
DfE school census, January 2025242 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
John Ruskin 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: Good, October 2019. Ungraded inspection: Improved significantly, March 2025.
Living near John Ruskin School
For families thinking of moving: what homes cost around the school, and the other schools close by.
Home prices in LA21 8, the school’s postcode sector
Coniston property prices →Median sale price each year, 2010 to 2025
By type, the 36 months to August 2026
Homes in LA21 8 sell for a little over Coniston’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
1 state schoolLocation
Directions ↗
Coniston, LA21 8EW
John Ruskin School: common questions
Is John Ruskin School a good school?
By its published results, below average: its GCSE results are better than 39% of England’s secondary schools (its letter is C+), with an Attainment 8 of 46 and 38% getting grade 5 or above in English and maths, against 47.3 and 47% for England’s schools. Ofsted: Inspected, March 2025.
How hard is it to get into John Ruskin School?
For September 2026, 52 families put John Ruskin School first and 46 of them were offered a place; 46 places were offered in all.
What is John Ruskin School’s Ofsted rating?
Its latest inspection outcome is Inspected (March 2025).
How much do houses cost near John Ruskin School?
Homes in its postcode sector, LA21 8, sold for a median £395,000 over the 36 months to August 2026 (46 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; Coniston’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.