Thomas Gainsborough School
Sudbury, CO10 0NH · Suffolk local authority
Sudbury’s School Grade C+ better than 39% of towns in England
What stands out about Thomas Gainsborough School
- Its own letter, B−: GCSE results better than 49% of England’s secondary schools
- Over capacity: 1,603 pupils for 1,400 places
- Ofsted: Inspected, November 2024 (shown, not graded)
- Every family who put it first got a place for September 2026 (260 of 260)
- Progress 8 of +0.21 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 (CO10 0) sold for a median £305,000; Sudbury’s is £277,250
Results
DfE · GCSEs 2025/26, provisional · 277 pupilsEach bar is a group of England’s 3,224 graded secondary schools. The schools Thomas Gainsborough beats are shaded green.
Attainment 8 46.7
Average grade across 8 GCSEs ×10 · higher than 53% of schools · Suffolk avg 43.4
Grade 5+ in English and maths 44%
A strong pass · higher than 46% of schools · Suffolk avg 40%
Attainment 8, three years
The mark is England’s average that year
Progress 8, 2023/24
+0.21: 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 47 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 Thomas Gainsborough School?
Every family who put it first got a place for September 2026.
Years when some first choices missed out: 2019 (67), 2020 (21), 2021 (30), 2022 (56), 2023 (54), 2024 (27), 2025 (27). 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. Unity Schools Partnership sets the admissions rules. Apply through Suffolk council’s coordinated admissions.
Outline = places offered · green = families who put it first · striped = more first choices than places
100% got their first choice
Sudbury and Suffolk, side by side
2025/26All 43 graded secondaries in Suffolk. 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. Sudbury’s schools are coloured by their letter.
Show as a table
| School | Letter | Free school meals | Attainment 8 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sybil Andrews Academy | A− | 15% | 52.6 |
| Hartismere School | A− | 12% | 52.4 |
| St Benedict's Catholic School | B+ | 12% | 51.9 |
| Debenham High School | A− | 14% | 51.5 |
| East Bergholt High School | B+ | 17% | 49.8 |
| Northgate High School | B+ | 20% | 49.5 |
| East Point Academy | B+ | 44% | 49.2 |
| Copleston High School | B | 20% | 48.3 |
| Thomas Mills High School & Sixth Form | B− | 19% | 47.8 |
| Stradbroke High School | B | 22% | 47.4 |
| Kesgrave High School | B | 15% | 47 |
| Sir John Leman High School | B | 23% | 46.7 |
| Thomas Gainsborough School | B− | 20% | 46.7 |
| Benjamin Britten Academy of Music and Mathematics | B | 31% | 46.6 |
| Thurston Community College | B− | 19% | 45.9 |
| Hadleigh High School | C+ | 23% | 45.6 |
| St Alban's Catholic High School | C+ | 21% | 45.3 |
| Farlingaye High School | C+ | 19% | 45.2 |
| Claydon High School | B− | 23% | 45.2 |
| Bury St Edmunds County High School | B− | 26% | 44.8 |
| Stour Valley Community School | C+ | 19% | 44.5 |
| Newmarket Academy | C | 23% | 43.6 |
| Ormiston Sudbury Academy | C | 36% | 43.2 |
| Stowmarket High School | C | 21% | 42.5 |
| King Edward VI CEVC School | C | 22% | 42.4 |
| Pakefield High School | C+ | 38% | 42.3 |
| Bungay High School | C− | 26% | 42.1 |
| Ormiston Endeavour Academy | C− | 32% | 40.4 |
| Ipswich Academy | C− | 42% | 40.3 |
| Felixstowe School | C | 26% | 40.3 |
| Holbrook Academy | C− | 23% | 40.1 |
| Stowupland High School | D | 29% | 40.1 |
| Ixworth High School | C− | 22% | 39.7 |
| Castle Manor Academy | D | 30% | 39.5 |
| Mildenhall College Academy | C− | 24% | 39.5 |
| Breckland School | C− | 26% | 38.9 |
| Samuel Ward Academy | C− | 18% | 38.2 |
| Westbourne Academy | C− | 39% | 38.2 |
| Ormiston Denes Academy | D | 58% | 37.7 |
| Chantry Academy | C− | 39% | 36.7 |
| Stoke High School - Ormiston Academy | D | 42% | 36 |
| Alde Valley Academy | D | 33% | 33.9 |
| Beccles High School | D− | 50% | 25.4 |
Who goes here
DfE school census, January 20251,615 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
Thomas Gainsborough 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.
Graded inspection (no overall grade since September 2024), November 2024. Ungraded inspection: School remains Good (Improving), September 2023.
Living near Thomas Gainsborough School
For families thinking of moving: what homes cost around the school, and the other schools close by.
Home prices in CO10 0, the school’s postcode sector
Sudbury property prices →Median sale price each year, 2010 to 2025
By type, the 36 months to August 2026
Homes in CO10 0 sell for a little over Sudbury’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
3 state schoolsLocation
Directions ↗Sudbury, CO10 0NH
Thomas Gainsborough School: common questions
Is Thomas Gainsborough School a good school?
By its published results, about average: its GCSE results are better than 49% of England’s secondary schools (its letter is B−), with an Attainment 8 of 46.7 and 44% getting grade 5 or above in English and maths, against 47.3 and 47% for England’s schools. Ofsted: Inspected, November 2024.
How hard is it to get into Thomas Gainsborough School?
For September 2026, 260 families put Thomas Gainsborough School first and all of them were offered a place; 271 places were offered in all.
What is Thomas Gainsborough School’s Ofsted rating?
Its latest inspection outcome is Inspected (November 2024).
How much do houses cost near Thomas Gainsborough School?
Homes in its postcode sector, CO10 0, sold for a median £305,000 over the 36 months to August 2026 (612 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; Sudbury’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.