State-fundedAcademy converter · Central Bedfordshire · LU7 3DY
Secondary with sixth form · ages 13–18
Vandyke Upper School is a state-funded school in Central Bedfordshire, teaching pupils aged 13 to 18.
| 2023–24 | 2022–23 | 2021–22 | 3-year average | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Progress 8 | +0.0151st percentile | +0.2066th percentile | +0.2065th percentile | +0.1462nd percentile |
| Attainment 8 | 44.748th percentile | 49.066th percentile | 49.356th percentile | 47.758th percentile |
Progress 8 for 2023–24 was +0.01 — average, the 51st percentile nationally. Pupils here left with much the grades you would expect of pupils who had the same results at the end of primary school.
The 95% confidence interval for 2023–24 runs -0.13 to +0.16. That range includes zero, so on this year's figures the school cannot be told apart from an average one — treat small differences between schools with care. It has been broadly steady across the years shown.
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 | 43%49th percentile |
|---|---|
| EBacc average point score | 3.8646th 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 | -0.03 | +0.46 | +0.01 | +0.15 |
| Middle starters | +0.09 | +0.20 | +0.38 | +0.22 |
| Higher starters | -0.11 | -0.03 | +0.10 | -0.01 |
| 2026 entry | 2025 entry | 2024 entry | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Per place | — | 1.15× | 1.21× |
This is how sought-after a school is, not how good it is — demand tracks house prices and older siblings as much as anything a school does. It is also not your chance of getting in: a school with two applicants per place can still admit everyone living near it, while a less popular school a mile further away turns you down. Distance is usually what decides it, and that depends on your address.
| Overall absence | 7.6%69th percentile |
|---|---|
| Persistently absent pupils | 20.6%72nd 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.
School remains Good
The outcome of an ungraded inspection, which checks whether a school's previous grade still holds rather than issuing a new one.
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 Vandyke 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.