St Aldhelm's Academy
near Poole, BH12 4HS · Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole local authority
Poole’s School Grade A− better than 76% of towns in England
What stands out about St Aldhelm's Academy
- Its own letter, D: GCSE results near the bottom of England’s secondary schools (better than 7%)
- 28% get grade 5 or above in English and maths, 20 points below England’s schools
- 45% of pupils are eligible for free school meals (more than England’s 30%)
- Ofsted report card, March 2026: achievement urgent improvement, safeguarding met (shown, not graded)
- Outside any built-up area: listed with Poole, the nearest town
- Every family who put it first got a place for September 2026 (70 of 70)
- Progress 8 of -0.58 in 2023/24, the last year DfE published it: pupils did less well at GCSE than pupils nationally with the same results at 11
- Homes in its postcode sector (BH12 4) sold for a median £305,000; Poole’s is £339,975
Results
DfE · GCSEs 2025/26, provisional · 152 pupilsEach bar is a group of England’s 3,224 graded secondary schools. The schools St Aldhelm's beats are shaded green.
Attainment 8 35.6
Average grade across 8 GCSEs ×10 · higher than 5% of schools · Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole avg 50.9
Grade 5+ in English and maths 28%
A strong pass · higher than 11% of schools · Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole avg 57%
Attainment 8, three years
The mark is England’s average that year
Progress 8, 2023/24
-0.58: below 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 65 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 St Aldhelm's Academy?
Every family who put it first got a place for September 2026.
Years when some first choices missed out: 2019 (2). 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. Authentic Education Group Limited sets the admissions rules. Apply through Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole council’s coordinated admissions.
Outline = places offered · green = families who put it first · striped = more first choices than places
100% got their first choice
Poole and Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole, side by side
2025/26All 22 graded secondaries in Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole. 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. Poole’s schools are coloured by their letter.
Show as a table
| School | Letter | Free school meals | Attainment 8 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bournemouth School for Girls | A+ | 7% | 72 |
| Bournemouth School | A+ | 7% | 71.2 |
| Poole Grammar School | A+ | 6% | 70.2 |
| Parkstone Grammar School | A+ | 7% | 67.6 |
| Glenmoor Academy | A | 23% | 59.3 |
| Winton Academy | A | 19% | 56.1 |
| Avonbourne Girls Academy | A− | 24% | 54 |
| St Peter's Catholic Comprehensive School | B+ | 14% | 49.2 |
| Twynham School | B | 19% | 48.4 |
| Highcliffe School | B | 16% | 48.1 |
| Poole High School | B | 22% | 48.1 |
| Avonbourne Boys' Academy | B+ | 28% | 47.4 |
| St Edward's Roman Catholic/Church of England School, Poole | B− | 14% | 46.7 |
| The Cornerstone Academy | B+ | 40% | 46.7 |
| The Bourne Academy | B− | 37% | 46.2 |
| Magna Academy | B− | 25% | 45.2 |
| The Bishop of Winchester Academy | B− | 24% | 45.1 |
| Corfe Hills School | C+ | 17% | 44 |
| Livingstone Academy Bournemouth | C+ | 26% | 44 |
| The Grange School | C− | 44% | 39.8 |
| St Aldhelm's Academy | D | 45% | 35.6 |
| Oak Academy | D | 48% | 34 |
Who goes here
DfE school census, January 2025841 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
St Aldhelm's Academy’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.
Report card, inspection starting March 2026. Requires significant improvement
Before the report card: Ungraded inspection: School remains Good, November 2021.
Living near St Aldhelm's Academy
For families thinking of moving: what homes cost around the school, and the other schools close by.
Home prices in BH12 4, the school’s postcode sector
Poole property prices →Median sale price each year, 2010 to 2025
By type, the 36 months to August 2026
Homes in BH12 4 sell for a little under Poole’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
15 state schoolsLocation
Directions ↗near Poole, BH12 4HS
St Aldhelm's Academy: common questions
Is St Aldhelm's Academy a good school?
By its published results, well below average: its GCSE results are better than 7% of England’s secondary schools (its letter is D), with an Attainment 8 of 35.6 and 28% getting grade 5 or above in English and maths, against 47.3 and 47% for England’s schools. Ofsted: a report card in March 2026.
How hard is it to get into St Aldhelm's Academy?
For September 2026, 70 families put St Aldhelm's Academy first and all of them were offered a place; 152 places were offered in all.
What is St Aldhelm's Academy’s Ofsted rating?
Its latest inspection (March 2026) gave a report card: achievement urgent improvement, safeguarding met. Ofsted stopped giving one-word overall grades in September 2024.
How much do houses cost near St Aldhelm's Academy?
Homes in its postcode sector, BH12 4, sold for a median £305,000 over the 36 months to August 2026 (278 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; Poole’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.