SF School Facts UK

Data and methods

Everything on this site is published by the government under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Nothing is estimated unless this page says so.

Sources

SourceWhat it givesVersion used
Get Information About Schools (DfE)The school register: name, address, type, phase, age range, capacity, pupil numbers, trust, ward, LSOA, coordinates14 August 2026
DfE performance tables — key stage 2Expected and higher standard in reading, writing and maths; average scaled scores2024/25
DfE performance tables — key stage 4Attainment 8, grade 4+/5+ in English and maths, EBacc2024/25
DfE performance tables — key stage 4Progress 8 and its confidence interval2023/24
DfE performance tables — key stage 5A level average points and grade per entry2024/25
School census (DfE)Pupils on roll, free school meals, EAL, SEN2024/25
DfE pupil absence statisticsOverall and persistent absence2024/25
DfE destination measuresWhat pupils did after GCSEs and after sixth form2024/25
DfE progression to higher education or trainingProgression to a degree and to a top third HE provider2021/22 leavers
Ofsted management informationLatest inspection outcome, date and report linkAs at 30 June 2026
ONS Census 2021Neighbourhood qualifications, tenure, car availability and economic activity by LSOACensus 2021

Two gaps in the official data, and what we do about them

There is no Progress 8 for 2024/25

Progress 8 compares GCSE results against where pupils started at the end of primary school. The 2024/25 Year 11 cohort would have sat key stage 2 tests in summer 2020, when they were cancelled. With no baseline, DfE published Progress 8 as "not applicable" for every school in England. We therefore show 2023/24, clearly labelled with its year, and show 2024/25 attainment alongside it.

There are no primary progress measures at all

Key stage 2 progress was measured from a key stage 1 baseline. Statutory key stage 1 tests ended in 2023, so no primary progress measure has been published since. For primary schools, attainment is now the only official measure — and attainment tracks intake closely. That is the gap the peer comparison below is meant to fill.

What "a top third university" means

DfE ranks higher education providers by the average entry qualifications of the students they admit, and reports the share of a school's leavers who went to one in the top third. It is not a league table of universities and it says nothing about teaching quality — but it is the only public measure that distinguishes getting into higher education from getting into a competitive course, and it separates schools far more sharply than the headline progression rate. Nationally 20.9% of leavers reach one; the range across schools runs from nil to almost nine in ten.

It follows a different, earlier group of leavers than the destination figures published in the performance tables, and counts anyone arriving within two years rather than the term after leaving. The two are shown separately and labelled with their own cohorts rather than blended into one number.

Derived figures

Comparison with schools of a similar intake

Schools are split into five equal groups by the share of pupils who are disadvantaged (eligible for free school meals at any point in the last six years, as recorded in the performance tables). Within each group, schools are ranked on the headline attainment measure for their phase, and the school's position within its own group is reported. It answers a different question from a league table: not "did this school get high results" but "did it do well for the pupils it actually teaches".

This is a percentile within a group, not a value-added model. It does not adjust for prior attainment, and it is not a substitute for Progress 8 — it is what can be computed honestly from the data that exists.

Reading Progress 8 through its confidence interval

DfE publishes a confidence interval with every Progress 8 score. Where that interval includes zero, the school's result is not statistically distinguishable from the national average, and we say so rather than reporting the point estimate as a fact. Only where the whole interval sits above or below zero do we describe pupils as having made more or less progress than similar pupils nationally.

Distance

Straight-line distance between the postcode centroid and the school's recorded location, converted from the Ordnance Survey national grid. It is not walking or driving distance, and it is not a catchment boundary.

Neighbourhood figures

Census 2021 counts for the lower layer super output area containing the school — about 1,500 residents. They describe the area the school sits in, which is not the same as the families who attend it, particularly for selective, faith and independent schools.

What is deliberately not here

Catchment maps, parent reviews, and any score that blends unrelated measures into a single star rating. Each of those adds an appearance of precision the underlying data does not support.