Birkenhead High School Academy
Birkenhead, CH43 1TY · Wirral local authority
Birkenhead’s School Grade C better than 26% of towns in England
What stands out about Birkenhead High School Academy
- Its own letter, B: Key Stage 2 results better than 60% of England’s primary schools
- Its own letter, B: GCSE results better than 56% of England’s secondary schools
- Ofsted: Good, April 2023 (shown, not graded)
- 68% of families who put it first got a place for September 2026 (111 of 163)
- Progress 8 of +0.43 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 (CH43 1) sold for a median £175,000; Birkenhead’s is £175,000
Results
DfE · GCSEs 2025/26, provisional · 134 pupilsEach bar is a group of England’s 3,224 graded secondary schools. The schools Birkenhead High School beats are shaded green.
Attainment 8 49.1
Average grade across 8 GCSEs ×10 · higher than 65% of schools · Wirral avg 47.2
Grade 5+ in English and maths 44%
A strong pass · higher than 47% of schools · Wirral avg 47%
Attainment 8, three years
The mark is England’s average that year
Progress 8, 2023/24
+0.43: 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 31 pupils DfE counts as disadvantaged (free school meals in the last 6 years, or looked after) and the rest, beside England’s schools
Reading, writing and maths 66%
Met the expected standard, DfE’s 3-year average 2023–2025 · higher than 60% of England’s 14,979 graded primaries · Wirral avg 56%
Each subject, 2025
Met the expected standard; the mark is England’s schools · average scaled score: reading 105, maths 103 (100 = the expected standard)
Disadvantaged pupils, 2025
Met the expected standard in reading, writing and maths: the 13 disadvantaged pupils 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 Birkenhead High School Academy?
68% of the families who put it first got a place for September 2026.
Years when some first choices missed out: 2019 (93), 2020 (54), 2021 (53), 2022 (38), 2023 (51), 2024 (56), 2025 (50), 2026 (52). 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. Gdst Academy Trust sets the admissions rules. Apply through Wirral council’s coordinated admissions.
Outline = places offered · green = families who put it first · striped = more first choices than places
68% got their first choice
Birkenhead and Wirral, side by side
2025/26All 20 graded secondaries in Wirral. 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. Birkenhead’s schools are coloured by their letter.
Show as a table
| School | Letter | Free school meals | Attainment 8 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wirral Grammar School for Girls | A+ | 10% | 70.9 |
| West Kirby Grammar School | A+ | 8% | 68.6 |
| Wirral Grammar School for Boys | A+ | 11% | 68.2 |
| Upton Hall School FCJ | A+ | 10% | 65.6 |
| Calday Grange Grammar School | A+ | 8% | 63.7 |
| St Anselm's College | A+ | 11% | 63.1 |
| Birkenhead High School Academy | B | 20% | 49.1 |
| Pensby High School | B− | 25% | 45.9 |
| Weatherhead High School | C+ | 43% | 44.2 |
| Prenton High School for Girls | C− | 47% | 40.8 |
| St John Plessington Catholic College | C− | 43% | 39.4 |
| Birkenhead Park School | D | 69% | 39.1 |
| Woodchurch High School | D | 43% | 38.5 |
| South Wirral High School | D | 37% | 38.1 |
| Hilbre High School | D | 31% | 37.8 |
| Ridgeway High School | D | 61% | 37.7 |
| Co-op Academy Bebington | D− | 53% | 36.3 |
| The Mosslands School | D− | 41% | 34.5 |
| St Mary's Catholic College, A Voluntary Academy | D− | 47% | 34 |
| Co-op Academy Oldershaw | D− | 63% | 29 |
Who goes here
DfE school census, January 20251,212 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.
Birkenhead High School 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.
Graded inspection: Good, April 2023.
Living near Birkenhead High School Academy
For families thinking of moving: what homes cost around the school, and the other schools close by.
Home prices in CH43 1, the school’s postcode sector
Birkenhead property prices →Median sale price each year, 2010 to 2025
By type, the 36 months to August 2026
Homes in CH43 1 sell for about the same as Birkenhead’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
27 state schoolsLocation
Directions ↗
Birkenhead, CH43 1TY
Birkenhead High School Academy: common questions
Is Birkenhead High School Academy a good school?
By its published results, above average: its GCSE results are better than 56% of England’s secondary schools (its letter is B), with an Attainment 8 of 49.1 and 44% getting grade 5 or above in English and maths, against 47.3 and 47% for England’s schools. Ofsted: Good, April 2023.
How hard is it to get into Birkenhead High School Academy?
For September 2026, 163 families put Birkenhead High School Academy first and 111 of them were offered a place; 116 places were offered in all.
What is Birkenhead High School Academy’s Ofsted rating?
Its latest inspection outcome is Good (April 2023).
How much do houses cost near Birkenhead High School Academy?
Homes in its postcode sector, CH43 1, sold for a median £175,000 over the 36 months to August 2026 (111 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; Birkenhead’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.