State-fundedCommunity school · Dorset · BH22 9EY
Secondary with sixth form · ages 13–19
Ferndown Upper School is a state-funded school in Dorset, teaching pupils aged 13 to 19.
| 2023–24 | 2022–23 | 2021–22 | 3-year average | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Progress 8 | +0.3475th percentile | +0.7292nd percentile | +0.5787th percentile | +0.5486th percentile |
| Attainment 8 | 48.364th percentile | 49.367th percentile | 51.666th percentile | 49.767th percentile |
Progress 8 for 2023–24 was +0.34 — above average, the 75th percentile nationally. On average pupils left with grades about 0.34 of a grade per subject higher than pupils across England who had the same results at the end of primary school.
The 95% confidence interval for 2023–24 runs +0.16 to +0.53. That sits entirely above zero, so the above-average result is very unlikely to be chance. It has moved around a good deal across the years shown, from +0.34 to +0.72. The three-year average is the steadier number to judge it on.
Attainment 8 is the average grade pupils leave with across eight GCSEs; it tells you where they ended up, and tracks the intake a school admits as much as anything the school does. Progress 8 compares those grades with pupils nationally who had the same results at the end of primary school, so it is the better measure of what a school added.
| Grade 5+ in English & Maths | 50%65th percentile |
|---|---|
| EBacc average point score | 3.7240th percentile |
A school can post a respectable overall score while coasting one group and carrying the average on another. The row that matters to you is the one your own child sits in.
| 2023–24 | 2022–23 | 2021–22 | 3-year average | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lower starters | +0.59 | +0.74 | +0.58 | +0.64 |
| Middle starters | +0.36 | +0.68 | +0.61 | +0.55 |
| Higher starters | -0.10 | +0.83 | +0.42 | +0.38 |
Not published — this school has no applications and offers figures in the Department for Education data.
| Overall absence | 7.8%66th percentile |
|---|---|
| Persistently absent pupils | 22.1%65th percentile |
Absence is worth reading next to results: it is a plainer signal of whether pupils are turning up and engaged than any grade average. Across the schools in this dataset the overall absence rate averages 9.0%, so this school is below the norm.
Achievement: Strong standard · Behaviour: Strong standard · Leadership: Strong standard
Inspected under Ofsted's 2025 report cards, which replaced the single overall grade with a grade per area on a five-point scale from Exceptional to Urgent improvement.
The GCSE results here are for 2023–24 and earlier, which describes pupils who have already left. Nothing on this page covers where pupils go next, A-level or sixth-form results, pastoral care, how far a school pushes music, sport or drama, or how it feels to walk around — and those are the things parents most often say settled it. Visit at an open evening before you rank a school.
Nor is any of it a prediction of a place. Whether your child is offered one depends on the school's admission criteria and, most often, on how far you live from the gate.
See Ferndown Upper School on the map →Compare it with every other secondary school nearby, filter on results, admissions pressure or Ofsted, and sort the schools closest to your own postcode.