The Dean Academy
Lydney, GL15 5DZ · Gloucestershire local authority
Lydney’s School Grade B− better than 46% of towns in England
What stands out about The Dean Academy
- Its own letter, C: GCSE results better than 27% of England’s secondary schools
- 34% get grade 5 or above in English and maths, 13 points below England’s schools
- Room to spare: 816 pupils for 1,095 places
- Ofsted report card, January 2026: achievement needs attention, safeguarding met (shown, not graded)
- 99% of families who put it first got a place for September 2026 (161 of 162)
- Progress 8 of +0.02 in 2023/24, the last year DfE published it: pupils did about as well at GCSE as pupils nationally with the same results at 11
- Homes in its postcode sector (GL15 5) sold for a median £249,500; Lydney’s is £252,500
Results
DfE · GCSEs 2025/26, provisional · 117 pupilsEach bar is a group of England’s 3,224 graded secondary schools. The schools The Dean beats are shaded green.
Attainment 8 43.1
Average grade across 8 GCSEs ×10 · higher than 33% of schools · Gloucestershire avg 51.5
Grade 5+ in English and maths 34%
A strong pass · higher than 22% of schools · Gloucestershire avg 54%
Attainment 8, three years
The mark is England’s average that year
Progress 8, 2023/24
+0.02: about 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 40 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 The Dean Academy?
99% of the families who put it first got a place for September 2026.
Years when some first choices missed out: 2023 (1), 2026 (1). 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. The Athelstan Trust sets the admissions rules. Apply through Gloucestershire council’s coordinated admissions.
Outline = places offered · green = families who put it first · striped = more first choices than places
99% got their first choice
Lydney and Gloucestershire, side by side
2025/26All 40 graded secondaries in Gloucestershire. 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. Lydney’s schools are coloured by their letter.
Show as a table
| School | Letter | Free school meals | Attainment 8 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pate's Grammar School | A+ | 6% | 82.4 |
| Sir Thomas Rich's School | A+ | 6% | 75.2 |
| Denmark Road High School | A+ | 6% | 74.8 |
| Stroud High School | A+ | 3% | 74.7 |
| The Crypt School | A+ | 4% | 73.3 |
| Marling School | A+ | 4% | 73.2 |
| Ribston Hall High School | A+ | 8% | 67.6 |
| Balcarras School | A | 6% | 62.1 |
| The High School Leckhampton | A | 10% | 59.7 |
| The Cotswold Academy | A | 15% | 58.7 |
| Farmor's School | A | 13% | 54.8 |
| Churchdown School | A− | 18% | 53.3 |
| Cirencester Deer Park School | A− | 16% | 51.4 |
| Katharine Lady Berkeley's School | B+ | 11% | 50.7 |
| Chipping Campden School | B+ | 20% | 50.4 |
| Cheltenham Bournside School and Sixth Form Centre | B | 24% | 49.6 |
| Cleeve School | B+ | 21% | 49.4 |
| Henley Bank High School | B | 32% | 48.9 |
| Severn Vale School | B | 23% | 48.7 |
| Cirencester Kingshill School | B+ | 20% | 48.4 |
| Thomas Keble School | B− | 18% | 47.3 |
| Five Acres High School | B− | 28% | 45.9 |
| Maidenhill School | B | 26% | 45.6 |
| Chosen Hill School | C+ | 18% | 45.1 |
| Rednock School | C+ | 22% | 44.8 |
| Holmleigh Park High School | C+ | 35% | 44.5 |
| Pittville School | C | 35% | 44.2 |
| Dene Magna and Sixth Form | C | 22% | 44.1 |
| Winchcombe School | C+ | 22% | 44 |
| Barnwood Park School | C+ | 36% | 43.4 |
| The Dean Academy | C | 34% | 43.1 |
| Sir William Romney's School | C− | 22% | 42.4 |
| Newent Community School and Sixth Form Centre | C | 24% | 42.4 |
| Wyedean School and Sixth Form Centre | C | 17% | 41.9 |
| Gloucester Academy | C | 42% | 41.5 |
| Archway School | D | 29% | 41.4 |
| St Peter's Catholic High School and Sixth Form Centre | C− | 25% | 40.9 |
| Tewkesbury Academy | D | 25% | 38.4 |
| All Saints' Academy, Cheltenham | D | 39% | 37.7 |
| SGS Forest High School | D− | 37% | 32.9 |
Who goes here
DfE school census, January 2025734 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
The Dean 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 January 2026.
Before the report card: Graded inspection: Good, September 2021.
Living near The Dean Academy
For families thinking of moving: what homes cost around the school, and the other schools close by.
Home prices in GL15 5, the school’s postcode sector
Lydney property prices →Median sale price each year, 2010 to 2025
By type, the 36 months to August 2026
Homes in GL15 5 sell for about the same as Lydney’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
4 state schoolsLocation
Directions ↗Lydney, GL15 5DZ
The Dean Academy: common questions
Is The Dean Academy a good school?
By its published results, below average: its GCSE results are better than 27% of England’s secondary schools (its letter is C), with an Attainment 8 of 43.1 and 34% getting grade 5 or above in English and maths, against 47.3 and 47% for England’s schools. Ofsted: a report card in January 2026.
How hard is it to get into The Dean Academy?
For September 2026, 162 families put The Dean Academy first and 161 of them were offered a place; 165 places were offered in all.
What is The Dean Academy’s Ofsted rating?
Its latest inspection (January 2026) gave a report card: achievement needs attention, safeguarding met. Ofsted stopped giving one-word overall grades in September 2024.
How much do houses cost near The Dean Academy?
Homes in its postcode sector, GL15 5, sold for a median £249,500 over the 36 months to August 2026 (517 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; Lydney’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.