Guest, Sign inJoin
A

Queen Elizabeth School

SecondaryAges 11–18AcademySixth form

Kirkby Lonsdale, LA6 2HJ · Westmorland and Furness local authority

Kirkby Lonsdale’s School Grade A+ better than 97% of towns in England

Its letter
90%
of England’s secondaries have lower GCSE results
Getting in
240/258
first choices offered a place, 2026 (England: 84%)
How full
1,155 pupils
94% of its 1,228 places
Free school meals
8%
8 in 100 pupils eligible · outlined square = England’s schools (30)
The gist

What stands out about Queen Elizabeth School

  • Its own letter, A: GCSE results better than 90% of England’s secondary schools
  • 70% get grade 5 or above in English and maths, 22 points above England’s schools
  • 8% of pupils are eligible for free school meals (fewer than England’s 30%)
  • Ofsted: Good, October 2022 (shown, not graded)
  • 93% of families who put it first got a place for September 2026 (240 of 258)
  • Progress 8 of +0.37 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 (LA6 2) sold for a median £394,000; Kirkby Lonsdale’s is £341,666

Results

DfE · GCSEs 2025/26, provisional · 126 pupils

Each bar is a group of England’s 3,224 graded secondary schools. The schools Queen Elizabeth beats are shaded green.

Attainment 8 58.4

Average grade across 8 GCSEs ×10 · higher than 90% of schools · Westmorland and Furness avg 45.1

20304050607080England avg 47.3Queen Elizabeth 58.4

Grade 5+ in English and maths 70%

A strong pass · higher than 90% of schools · Westmorland and Furness avg 41%

0%20%40%60%80%100%England avg 47.3%Queen Elizabeth 70%

Attainment 8, three years

The mark is England’s average that year

2023/24
58.5
2024/25
59.6
2025/26
58.4

Progress 8, 2023/24

−1 behind0 = national+1 ahead

+0.37: 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 10 pupils DfE counts as disadvantaged (free school meals in the last 6 years, or looked after) and the rest, beside England’s schools

Disadvantaged
51.1England 38.6
Not disadvantaged
59.1England 50.6
Grade 4 or above in English and maths89%
England’s schools 66% · Westmorland and Furness 62% · a standard pass

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.

Getting in

How hard is it to get a place at Queen Elizabeth School?

93% of the families who put it first got a place for September 2026.

258
families put it first for September 2026
248
places offered
93%
of first choices offered a place (England’s secondaries: 84%)
First choices and places, by year of entry
20192020202120222023202420252026
Families who put it firstPlaces offered
Red figures: first choices not offered a place

Years when some first choices missed out: 2019 (15), 2020 (37), 2021 (3), 2022 (62), 2023 (55), 2024 (19), 2025 (19), 2026 (18). 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. Lunesdale Learning Trust sets the admissions rules. Apply through Westmorland and Furness council’s coordinated admissions.

Demand for secondary schools nearby, September 2026

Outline = places offered · green = families who put it first · striped = more first choices than places

1.06 per place
94% got their first choice
Queen Elizabeth
1.04 per place
93% got their first choice
1.00 per place
97% got their first choice
0.96 per place
99% got their first choice
0.84 per place
100% got their first choice
0.74 per place
100% got their first choice

Kirkby Lonsdale and Westmorland and Furness, side by side

2025/26

All 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. Kirkby Lonsdale’s schools are coloured by their letter.

30364248546010%20%30%Pupils eligible for free school meals →Attainment 8 →Queen Elizabeth
ABCDElsewhere in Westmorland and FurnessQueen Elizabeth
Show as a table
SchoolLetterFree school mealsAttainment 8
Queen Elizabeth Grammar School PenrithA+5%65.2
Queen Elizabeth SchoolA8%58.4
Kirkby Stephen Grammar SchoolA−21%50.2
Cartmel Priory CofE SchoolB14%49.8
The Queen Katherine SchoolB17%49.3
Ulverston Victoria High SchoolB−16%48.3
Kirkbie Kendal SchoolB16%47.5
John Ruskin SchoolC+11%46
Settlebeck SchoolB−13%45.7
Dallam SchoolC+15%44.1
The Lakes SchoolC17%42.1
Dowdales SchoolC−21%41.1
Furness AcademyC−29%40.8
Appleby Grammar SchoolC−18%40.7
Walney AcademyC−28%40.5
Ullswater Community CollegeC−21%39.5
Chetwynde SchoolD17%38.5
St Bernards Catholic High School, BarrowC−28%38.5
Samuel King's SchoolD−19%30.2

Who goes here

DfE school census, January 2025

1,156 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.

SEN support
19.2%England 14%
EHC plan
3%England 3.2%
English as an additional language
1.7%England 19%
Free school meals in the last 6 years
9.3%England 29.6%

Girls and boys

Girls 50%Boys 50%
Its letter

Queen Elizabeth School’s letter

Its own results against England’s schools, not the town’s School Grade.

Secondary: Attainment 8 and grade 5+ English and maths ABetter than 90% of 3,224 schools
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.

A+ 95+A 85–94A− 75–84B+ 65–74B 55–64B− 45–54C+ 35–44C 25–34C− 15–24D 5–14D− 0–4

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

Ofsted inspections

Shown, not graded: Ofsted is never part of a letter or the School Grade.

Graded inspection: Good, October 2022.

The full reports on Ofsted ↗

Living nearby

Living near Queen Elizabeth School

For families thinking of moving: what homes cost around the school, and the other schools close by.

Home prices in LA6 2, the school’s postcode sector

Kirkby Lonsdale property prices →
£394,000
median sale, 170 sales in 36 months · Kirkby Lonsdale £341,666

Median sale price each year, 2010 to 2025

£100K£200K£300K£400K£500K2010201520202025LA6 2Kirkby Lonsdale
LA6 2Kirkby Lonsdale

By type, the 36 months to August 2026

Detached
£680K
Semi-detached
£380K
Terraced
£312K
Flat
£194K
LA6 2Kirkby Lonsdale

Homes in LA6 2 sell for well over Kirkby Lonsdale’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 school
0.5 mi1 mi1.5 miNA−AQueen Elizabeth School
ABCDNo letterPrimarySecondary / all-through

Kirkby Lonsdale, LA6 2HJ

Queen Elizabeth School: common questions

Is Queen Elizabeth School a good school?

By its published results, well above average: its GCSE results are better than 90% of England’s secondary schools (its letter is A), with an Attainment 8 of 58.4 and 70% getting grade 5 or above in English and maths, against 47.3 and 47% for England’s schools. Ofsted: Good, October 2022.

How hard is it to get into Queen Elizabeth School?

For September 2026, 258 families put Queen Elizabeth School first and 240 of them were offered a place; 248 places were offered in all.

What is Queen Elizabeth School’s Ofsted rating?

Its latest inspection outcome is Good (October 2022).

How much do houses cost near Queen Elizabeth School?

Homes in its postcode sector, LA6 2, sold for a median £394,000 over the 36 months to August 2026 (170 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; Kirkby Lonsdale’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.