Houlton School
Rugby, CV23 1ED · Warwickshire local authority
Rugby’s School Grade B− better than 53% of towns in England
What stands out about Houlton School
- Its own letter, B: GCSE results better than 55% of England’s secondary schools
- Ofsted: Good, February 2024 (shown, not graded)
- 83% of families who put it first got a place for September 2026 (149 of 179)
- Homes in its postcode sector (CV23 1) sold for a median £369,950; Rugby’s is £270,000
Results
DfE · GCSEs 2025/26, provisional · 177 pupilsEach bar is a group of England’s 3,224 graded secondary schools. The schools Houlton beats are shaded green.
Attainment 8 46
Average grade across 8 GCSEs ×10 · higher than 49% of schools · Warwickshire avg 50
Grade 5+ in English and maths 49%
A strong pass · higher than 60% of schools · Warwickshire avg 52%
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
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 Houlton School?
83% of the families who put it first got a place for September 2026.
Years when some first choices missed out: 2022 (43), 2023 (71), 2024 (51), 2025 (22), 2026 (30). 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. Transforming Lives Educational Trust sets the admissions rules. Apply through Warwickshire council’s coordinated admissions.
Outline = places offered · green = families who put it first · striped = more first choices than places
83% got their first choice
Rugby and Warwickshire, side by side
2025/26All 37 graded secondaries in Warwickshire. 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. Rugby’s schools are coloured by their letter.
Show as a table
| School | Letter | Free school meals | Attainment 8 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stratford Girls' Grammar School | A+ | 3% | 81.9 |
| King Edward VI School | A+ | 3% | 81.1 |
| Rugby High School | A+ | 9% | 77.1 |
| Lawrence Sheriff School | A+ | 10% | 75.7 |
| Alcester Grammar School | A+ | 2% | 75.5 |
| North Leamington School | A | 18% | 56.9 |
| Kenilworth School and Sixth Form | A | 10% | 56.2 |
| Studley High School | A− | 18% | 51.7 |
| Higham Lane School | B+ | 17% | 51 |
| George Eliot Academy | B+ | 35% | 50.9 |
| St Thomas More Catholic Academy and Sixth Form College | B+ | 21% | 50.9 |
| Myton School | A− | 20% | 50.5 |
| Ashlawn School | B+ | 18% | 50.2 |
| Southam College | B | 19% | 49.9 |
| Alcester Academy | B+ | 21% | 48.9 |
| Etone College | B | 32% | 48.2 |
| Stratford Upon Avon School | B | 25% | 47.7 |
| The Queen Elizabeth Academy | B− | 31% | 46.6 |
| Houlton School | B | 20% | 46 |
| Ash Green School | B | 37% | 45.5 |
| Henley In Arden School | B− | 19% | 44.5 |
| Kineton High School | C+ | 22% | 43.9 |
| Rugby Free Secondary School | C | 26% | 43.5 |
| Shipston High School | C | 24% | 43.3 |
| Kingsbury School - A Specialist Science and Mathematics Academy | C+ | 26% | 43.3 |
| The Avon Valley School and Performing Arts College | C+ | 33% | 42.7 |
| Aylesford School Warwick | C | 26% | 42.4 |
| The Polesworth School | C | 20% | 42 |
| The Coleshill School | C | 23% | 42 |
| Campion School | C | 34% | 41.8 |
| Harris Church of England Academy | C | 37% | 41.8 |
| Nuneaton Academy | C | 47% | 41.8 |
| Hartshill Academy | C− | 41% | 40.6 |
| St Benedict's Catholic High School | C− | 32% | 40.5 |
| Bilton School | C− | 31% | 39.3 |
| Nicholas Chamberlaine School | D | 35% | 37.1 |
| Trinity Catholic School | D | 40% | 37.1 |
Who goes here
DfE school census, January 2025710 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
Houlton 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: Good, February 2024.
Living near Houlton School
For families thinking of moving: what homes cost around the school, and the other schools close by.
Home prices in CV23 1, the school’s postcode sector
Rugby property prices →Median sale price each year, 2010 to 2025
By type, the 36 months to August 2026
Homes in CV23 1 sell for well over Rugby’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 ↗Rugby, CV23 1ED
Houlton School: common questions
Is Houlton School a good school?
By its published results, above average: its GCSE results are better than 55% of England’s secondary schools (its letter is B), with an Attainment 8 of 46 and 49% getting grade 5 or above in English and maths, against 47.3 and 47% for England’s schools. Ofsted: Good, February 2024.
How hard is it to get into Houlton School?
For September 2026, 179 families put Houlton School first and 149 of them were offered a place; 172 places were offered in all.
What is Houlton School’s Ofsted rating?
Its latest inspection outcome is Good (February 2024).
How much do houses cost near Houlton School?
Homes in its postcode sector, CV23 1, sold for a median £369,950 over the 36 months to August 2026 (424 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; Rugby’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.