Aldridge UTC Darwen
Darwen, BB3 1AF · Blackburn with Darwen local authority
Darwen’s School Grade D better than 7% of towns in England
What stands out about Aldridge UTC Darwen
- 19% get grade 5 or above in English and maths, 28 points below England’s schools
- No letter for this school: the reason is below.
- 46% of pupils are eligible for free school meals (more than England’s 30%)
- Ofsted report card, January 2026: achievement expected standard, safeguarding met (shown, not graded)
- Progress 8 of -0.82 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 (BB3 1) sold for a median £134,000; Darwen’s is £140,000
Results
DfE · GCSEs 2025/26, provisional · 62 pupilsEach bar is a group of England’s 3,224 graded secondary schools. The schools Aldridge UTC Darwen beats are shaded green.
Attainment 8 31.7
Average grade across 8 GCSEs ×10 · higher than 1% of schools · Blackburn with Darwen avg 46.4
Grade 5+ in English and maths 19%
A strong pass · higher than 3% of schools · Blackburn with Darwen avg 46%
Attainment 8, three years
The mark is England’s average that year
Progress 8, 2023/24
-0.82: 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 26 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.
Who goes here
DfE school census, January 2025264 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 Aldridge UTC Darwen
UTCs and studio schools aren’t given a letter: they take pupils at 14 from a wide area, so their GCSE results don’t compare with schools that teach from 11.
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 January 2026.
Before the report card: Ungraded inspection: School remains Good, September 2021.
Living near Aldridge UTC Darwen
For families thinking of moving: what homes cost around the school, and the other schools close by.
Home prices in BB3 1, the school’s postcode sector
Darwen property prices →Median sale price each year, 2010 to 2025
By type, the 36 months to August 2026
Homes in BB3 1 sell for a little under Darwen’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
13 state schoolsLocation
Directions ↗Darwen, BB3 1AF
Aldridge UTC Darwen: common questions
What is Aldridge UTC Darwen’s Ofsted rating?
Its latest inspection (January 2026) gave a report card: achievement expected standard, safeguarding met. Ofsted stopped giving one-word overall grades in September 2024.
How much do houses cost near Aldridge UTC Darwen?
Homes in its postcode sector, BB3 1, sold for a median £134,000 over the 36 months to August 2026 (329 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; Darwen’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.