Appleton Academy
Bradford, BD12 8AL · Bradford local authority
Bradford’s School Grade C better than 25% of towns in England
What stands out about Appleton Academy
- Its own letter, C+: Key Stage 2 results better than 39% of England’s primary schools
- Its own letter, D: GCSE results near the bottom of England’s secondary schools (better than 6%)
- 24% get grade 5 or above in English and maths, 24 points below England’s schools
- 51% of pupils are eligible for free school meals (more than England’s 30%)
- Ofsted report card, June 2026: achievement needs attention, safeguarding met (shown, not graded)
- 90% of families who put it first got a place for September 2026 (148 of 164)
- Progress 8 of -0.87 in 2023/24, the last year DfE published it: pupils did less well at GCSE than pupils nationally with the same results at 11
- Homes in its postcode sector (BD12 8) sold for a median £148,250; Bradford’s is £155,000
Results
DfE · GCSEs 2025/26, provisional · 168 pupilsEach bar is a group of England’s 3,224 graded secondary schools. The schools Appleton beats are shaded green.
Attainment 8 36
Average grade across 8 GCSEs ×10 · higher than 6% of schools · Bradford avg 42.6
Grade 5+ in English and maths 24%
A strong pass · higher than 6% of schools · Bradford avg 40%
Attainment 8, three years
The mark is England’s average that year
Progress 8, 2023/24
-0.87: below 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 90 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 59%
Met the expected standard, DfE’s 3-year average 2023–2025 · higher than 39% of England’s 14,979 graded primaries · Bradford avg 60%
Each subject, 2025
Met the expected standard; the mark is England’s schools · average scaled score: reading 107, maths 106 (100 = the expected standard)
Disadvantaged pupils, 2025
Met the expected standard in reading, writing and maths: the 34 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 Appleton Academy?
90% of the families who put it first got a place for September 2026.
Years when some first choices missed out: 2019 (6), 2020 (1), 2022 (1), 2024 (7), 2025 (7), 2026 (16). 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. Exceed Academies Trust sets the admissions rules. Apply through Bradford council’s coordinated admissions.
Outline = places offered · green = families who put it first · striped = more first choices than places · the 10 most in demand
90% got their first choice
Bradford and Bradford, side by side
2025/26All 35 graded secondaries in Bradford. 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. Bradford’s schools are coloured by their letter.
Show as a table
| School | Letter | Free school meals | Attainment 8 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ilkley Grammar School | A− | 8% | 56.6 |
| Feversham Girls' Secondary Academy | A− | 35% | 55.3 |
| Dixons Kings Academy | A | 31% | 54.7 |
| Dixons City Academy | A− | 32% | 52.5 |
| Dixons Trinity Academy | A− | 36% | 52.5 |
| Dixons McMillan Academy | B+ | 38% | 52.2 |
| Beckfoot School | A− | 18% | 51.5 |
| Eden Boys' Leadership Academy, Bradford | A− | 36% | 49.8 |
| Bronte Girls' Academy | B− | 38% | 47.9 |
| Bradford Girls' Grammar School | B− | 49% | 46.8 |
| Bingley Grammar School | B− | 28% | 45.6 |
| St Bede's and St Joseph's Catholic College, A Voluntary Academy | B− | 28% | 45.4 |
| Trinity Academy Bradford | B− | 25% | 45 |
| Dixons Cottingley Academy | C+ | 38% | 44.5 |
| Belle Vue Girls' Academy | B− | 41% | 44.4 |
| Carlton Bolling | C | 46% | 43.8 |
| Dixons Allerton Academy | C | 37% | 41.9 |
| Immanuel College | C | 33% | 41.8 |
| Valley Academy | C | 53% | 41.1 |
| Titus Salt School | C− | 28% | 40.8 |
| Carlton Keighley | C | 33% | 40.4 |
| Laisterdyke Leadership Academy | C− | 48% | 38.1 |
| Bradford Forster Academy | C− | 47% | 37.7 |
| Beckfoot Oakbank | D | 37% | 37.7 |
| Beckfoot Upper Heaton | D | 49% | 36.4 |
| Parkside School | D | 27% | 36.4 |
| Hanson Academy | C− | 47% | 36.3 |
| Appleton Academy | D | 51% | 36 |
| Oasis Academy Lister Park | D | 60% | 35.7 |
| Buttershaw Business & Enterprise College Academy | D | 46% | 35.3 |
| Bradford Academy | D | 51% | 35.2 |
| Tong Leadership Academy | D | 43% | 34.7 |
| Beckfoot Thornton | D− | 40% | 34 |
| The Holy Family Catholic School, a Voluntary Academy | D− | 46% | 31.7 |
| Co-op Academy Grange | D− | 57% | 30.1 |
Who goes here
DfE school census, January 20251,254 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
Appleton 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.
Report card, inspection starting June 2026.
Before the report card: Graded inspection: Good, November 2021.
Living near Appleton Academy
For families thinking of moving: what homes cost around the school, and the other schools close by.
Home prices in BD12 8, the school’s postcode sector
Bradford property prices →Median sale price each year, 2010 to 2025
By type, the 36 months to August 2026
Homes in BD12 8 sell for a little under Bradford’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
11 state schoolsLocation
Directions ↗Bradford, BD12 8AL
Appleton Academy: common questions
Is Appleton Academy a good school?
By its published results, well below average: its GCSE results are better than 6% of England’s secondary schools (its letter is D), with an Attainment 8 of 36 and 24% getting grade 5 or above in English and maths, against 47.3 and 47% for England’s schools. Ofsted: a report card in June 2026.
How hard is it to get into Appleton Academy?
For September 2026, 164 families put Appleton Academy first and 148 of them were offered a place; 163 places were offered in all.
What is Appleton Academy’s Ofsted rating?
Its latest inspection (June 2026) gave a report card: achievement needs attention, safeguarding met. Ofsted stopped giving one-word overall grades in September 2024.
How much do houses cost near Appleton Academy?
Homes in its postcode sector, BD12 8, sold for a median £148,250 over the 36 months to August 2026 (190 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; Bradford’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.