The Orchard School
Canterbury, CT1 3QQ · Kent local authority
Canterbury’s School Grade B− better than 49% of towns in England
What stands out about The Orchard School
- No letter for this school: the reason is below.
- 73% of pupils are eligible for free school meals (more than England’s 25%)
- Ofsted report card, February 2026: achievement needs attention, safeguarding met (shown, not graded)
- Homes in its postcode sector (CT1 3) sold for a median £332,496; Canterbury’s is £300,000
Results
DfE · GCSEs 2025/26, provisional · 18 pupilsEach bar is a group of England’s 3,224 graded secondary schools. The schools The Orchard beats are shaded green.
Attainment 8 7.4
Average grade across 8 GCSEs ×10 · higher than 0% of schools · Kent avg 48.6
Grade 5+ in English and maths 0%
A strong pass · higher than 0% of schools · Kent avg 49%
Attainment 8, three years
The mark is England’s average that year
Progress 8, 2023/24
-1.47: 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).
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.
Who goes here
DfE school census, January 2025110 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
No letter for The Orchard School
Special schools aren’t given a letter: their pupils’ needs differ too much for results to compare with mainstream schools.
Letters go to England’s open mainstream state schools with published Key Stage 2 or GCSE results (grammar schools included), each against the schools of its own phase.
Ofsted inspections
Shown, not graded: Ofsted is never part of a letter or the School Grade.
Report card, inspection starting February 2026.
Before the report card: Ungraded inspection: School remains Good, October 2021.
Living near The Orchard School
For families thinking of moving: what homes cost around the school, and the other schools close by.
Home prices in CT1 3, the school’s postcode sector
Canterbury property prices →Median sale price each year, 2010 to 2025
By type, the 36 months to August 2026
Homes in CT1 3 sell for a little over Canterbury’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
14 state schoolsLocation
Directions ↗Canterbury, CT1 3QQ
The Orchard School: common questions
What is The Orchard School’s Ofsted rating?
Its latest inspection (February 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 Orchard School?
Homes in its postcode sector, CT1 3, sold for a median £332,496 over the 36 months to August 2026 (569 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; Canterbury’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.