The Duston School
Northampton, NN5 6XA · West Northamptonshire local authority
Northampton’s School Grade B better than 64% of towns in England
What stands out about The Duston School
- Its own letter, B+: Key Stage 2 results better than 66% of England’s primary schools
- Its own letter, B−: GCSE results better than 48% of England’s secondary schools
- 68% meet the expected standard in reading, writing and maths, 6 points above England’s schools
- Over capacity: 2,064 pupils for 1,830 places
- 16% of pupils are eligible for free school meals (fewer than England’s 30%)
- Ofsted report card, March 2026: achievement strong standard, safeguarding met (shown, not graded)
- 76% of families who put it first got a place for September 2026 (238 of 313)
- Progress 8 of +0.14 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 (NN5 6) sold for a median £280,000; Northampton’s is £260,000
Results
DfE · GCSEs 2025/26, provisional · 277 pupilsEach bar is a group of England’s 3,224 graded secondary schools. The schools The Duston beats are shaded green.
Attainment 8 46
Average grade across 8 GCSEs ×10 · higher than 49% of schools · West Northamptonshire avg 46.8
Grade 5+ in English and maths 44%
A strong pass · higher than 47% of schools · West Northamptonshire avg 46%
Attainment 8, three years
The mark is England’s average that year
Progress 8, 2023/24
+0.14: 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 63 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 68%
Met the expected standard, DfE’s 3-year average 2023–2025 · higher than 66% of England’s 14,979 graded primaries · West Northamptonshire avg 62%
Each subject, 2025
Met the expected standard; the mark is England’s schools · average scaled score: reading 107, maths 105 (100 = the expected standard)
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 Duston School?
76% of the families who put it first got a place for September 2026.
Years when some first choices missed out: 2019 (13), 2020 (19), 2021 (43), 2022 (57), 2023 (73), 2024 (30), 2025 (53), 2026 (75). 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. Luminara Education Trust sets the admissions rules. Apply through West Northamptonshire council’s coordinated admissions.
Outline = places offered · green = families who put it first · striped = more first choices than places · the 10 most in demand
76% got their first choice
Northampton and West Northamptonshire, side by side
2025/26All 21 graded secondaries in West Northamptonshire. 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. Northampton’s schools are coloured by their letter.
Show as a table
| School | Letter | Free school meals | Attainment 8 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Northampton School for Girls | A | 17% | 59.2 |
| Northampton School for Boys | A | 11% | 59 |
| Wootton Park School | A | 9% | 54.7 |
| Northampton Academy | A− | 27% | 53.3 |
| Caroline Chisholm School | B+ | 13% | 52 |
| Sponne School | B+ | 13% | 51.4 |
| Chenderit School | B+ | 15% | 50.2 |
| Guilsborough Academy | B− | 15% | 46.6 |
| The Duston School | B− | 16% | 46 |
| Elizabeth Woodville School | C+ | 17% | 45.2 |
| Weston Favell Academy | B− | 36% | 44.9 |
| Campion School | B− | 20% | 44.8 |
| Abbeyfield School | C | 28% | 44.6 |
| Malcolm Arnold Academy | B− | 25% | 44.4 |
| Magdalen College School | C+ | 11% | 44.2 |
| Kingsthorpe College | C | 24% | 43.5 |
| Moulton School and Science College | C | 19% | 42.6 |
| St Thomas Becket Catholic School | C | 30% | 41.5 |
| The Parker E-ACT Academy | C− | 25% | 40.1 |
| Northampton International Academy | D | 27% | 38.9 |
| DSLV E-ACT Academy | D | 35% | 36.1 |
Who goes here
DfE school census, January 20252,018 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 Duston School’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.
Before the report card: Graded inspection: Good, June 2021.
Living near The Duston School
For families thinking of moving: what homes cost around the school, and the other schools close by.
Home prices in NN5 6, the school’s postcode sector
Northampton property prices →Median sale price each year, 2010 to 2025
By type, the 36 months to August 2026
Homes in NN5 6 sell for a little over Northampton’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
10 state schoolsLocation
Directions ↗Northampton, NN5 6XA
The Duston School: common questions
Is The Duston School a good school?
By its published results, about average: its GCSE results are better than 48% of England’s secondary schools (its letter is B−), with an Attainment 8 of 46 and 44% 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 The Duston School?
For September 2026, 313 families put The Duston School first and 238 of them were offered a place; 262 places were offered in all.
What is The Duston School’s Ofsted rating?
Its latest inspection (March 2026) gave a report card: achievement strong standard, safeguarding met. Ofsted stopped giving one-word overall grades in September 2024.
How much do houses cost near The Duston School?
Homes in its postcode sector, NN5 6, sold for a median £280,000 over the 36 months to August 2026 (879 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; Northampton’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.