The Ashcombe School
Dorking, RH4 1LY · Surrey local authority
Dorking’s School Grade A− better than 82% of towns in England
What stands out about The Ashcombe School
- Its own letter, A−: GCSE results better than 84% of England’s secondary schools
- 61% get grade 5 or above in English and maths, 14 points above England’s schools
- 12% of pupils are eligible for free school meals (fewer than England’s 30%)
- Ofsted: Good, May 2024 (shown, not graded)
- 80% of families who put it first got a place for September 2026 (215 of 268)
- Progress 8 of +0.27 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 (RH4 1) sold for a median £450,000; Dorking’s is £440,000
Results
DfE · GCSEs 2025/26, provisional · 233 pupilsEach bar is a group of England’s 3,224 graded secondary schools. The schools The Ashcombe beats are shaded green.
Attainment 8 55.2
Average grade across 8 GCSEs ×10 · higher than 85% of schools · Surrey avg 51.8
Grade 5+ in English and maths 61%
A strong pass · higher than 83% of schools · Surrey avg 56%
Attainment 8, three years
The mark is England’s average that year
Progress 8, 2023/24
+0.27: 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 28 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 The Ashcombe School?
80% of the families who put it first got a place for September 2026.
Years when some first choices missed out: 2019 (58), 2020 (48), 2021 (50), 2022 (48), 2023 (30), 2024 (21), 2025 (45), 2026 (53). 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. South East Surrey Schools Education Trust sets the admissions rules. Apply through Surrey council’s coordinated admissions.
Outline = places offered · green = families who put it first · striped = more first choices than places
80% got their first choice
Dorking and Surrey, side by side
2025/26All 56 graded secondaries in Surrey. 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. Dorking’s schools are coloured by their letter.
Show as a table
| School | Letter | Free school meals | Attainment 8 |
|---|---|---|---|
| St Andrew's Catholic School | A+ | 6% | 65.4 |
| Gordon's School | A+ | 3% | 64.8 |
| Hinchley Wood School | A | 7% | 63 |
| St Peter's Catholic School | A | 7% | 62.5 |
| Rosebery School | A | 7% | 61.6 |
| Weydon School | A | 8% | 61.2 |
| Salesian School, Chertsey | A | 8% | 61.2 |
| St John the Baptist Catholic Comprehensive School, Woking | A | 8% | 60.5 |
| George Abbot School | A | 12% | 60.4 |
| St Paul's Catholic College | A | 13% | 60 |
| St Bede's School | A | 6% | 59.5 |
| Guildford County School | A | 10% | 59.2 |
| Woolmer Hill School | A | 11% | 58.9 |
| Heathside School | A | 9% | 57.1 |
| Howard of Effingham School | A | 11% | 56.7 |
| Glebelands School | A− | 14% | 56.5 |
| Glyn School | A | 8% | 56.4 |
| Cobham Free School | A | 15% | 56 |
| All Hallows Catholic School | A | 15% | 55.6 |
| Broadwater School | A− | 19% | 55.3 |
| The Ashcombe School | A− | 12% | 55.2 |
| Tomlinscote School | A− | 7% | 54.9 |
| Rodborough | A | 13% | 54.7 |
| Royal Alexandra and Albert School | A− | 11% | 54.5 |
| Thamesmead School | A− | 17% | 52.7 |
| Ash Manor School | B+ | 19% | 51.8 |
| The Bishop Wand Church of England School | A− | 10% | 51.7 |
| Woking High School | B+ | 19% | 51.4 |
| Reigate School | A− | 20% | 51.3 |
| The Winston Churchill School A Specialist Sports College | B+ | 19% | 51.1 |
| Blenheim High School | B+ | 16% | 51.1 |
| Farnham Heath End | B+ | 19% | 51.1 |
| Esher Church of England High School | B | 21% | 50 |
| Fullbrook School | B+ | 14% | 49.8 |
| Collingwood College | B | 17% | 49.5 |
| Therfield School | B+ | 20% | 48.9 |
| The Matthew Arnold School | B | 21% | 48.8 |
| Hoe Valley School | B+ | 25% | 48.3 |
| The Bishop David Brown School | B | 29% | 48.1 |
| Merstham Park School | B | 28% | 47.4 |
| Warlingham School | C+ | 21% | 46.8 |
| Kings College Guildford | B− | 28% | 46.8 |
| de Stafford School | C+ | 27% | 45.3 |
| Carrington School | C+ | 29% | 44.8 |
| The Magna Carta School | C+ | 25% | 44.7 |
| Chertsey High School | B− | 19% | 44.7 |
| Oxted School | C+ | 19% | 43.6 |
| The Beacon School | C+ | 19% | 42.7 |
| Three Rivers Academy | C+ | 27% | 42.6 |
| Jubilee High School | C+ | 29% | 42.5 |
| Oakwood School | C− | 17% | 41.9 |
| Christ's College, Guildford | C | 24% | 41.7 |
| Kings International College | C− | 23% | 40.2 |
| The Priory Church of England School | C− | 18% | 39.9 |
| Epsom and Ewell High School | C− | 23% | 39.4 |
| Thomas Knyvett College | D | 40% | 38.7 |
Who goes here
DfE school census, January 20251,513 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 Ashcombe 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.
Ungraded inspection: School remains Good, May 2024.
Living near The Ashcombe School
For families thinking of moving: what homes cost around the school, and the other schools close by.
Home prices in RH4 1, the school’s postcode sector
Dorking property prices →Median sale price each year, 2010 to 2025
By type, the 36 months to August 2026
Homes in RH4 1 sell for about the same as Dorking’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
6 state schoolsLocation
Directions ↗
Dorking, RH4 1LY
The Ashcombe School: common questions
Is The Ashcombe School a good school?
By its published results, well above average: its GCSE results are better than 84% of England’s secondary schools (its letter is A−), with an Attainment 8 of 55.2 and 61% getting grade 5 or above in English and maths, against 47.3 and 47% for England’s schools. Ofsted: Good, May 2024.
How hard is it to get into The Ashcombe School?
For September 2026, 268 families put The Ashcombe School first and 215 of them were offered a place; 223 places were offered in all.
What is The Ashcombe School’s Ofsted rating?
Its latest inspection outcome is Good (May 2024).
How much do houses cost near The Ashcombe School?
Homes in its postcode sector, RH4 1, sold for a median £450,000 over the 36 months to August 2026 (284 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; Dorking’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.