The Valley Leadership Academy

The Valley Leadership Academy at a glance

Located in Bacup, Lancashire, The Valley Leadership Academy is a secondary school, classified by the DfE as an academy sponsor led. The school educates roughly 589 pupils aged 11 to 16. Ofsted judged the school to be 'Requires improvement' at its most recent inspection. In the most recent GCSE results, pupils achieved an average Attainment 8 score of 32.6, well below the national average of 46. That marks an improvement of 3.0 points in its Attainment 8 score on the previous year. On our composite score, which combines the DfE attainment measures above, this places it in the lower half of secondary schools nationally.

30% of pupils achieved a grade 5 or above in both English and maths, well below the national average of about 45%. 50% achieved a standard pass (grade 4+) in English and maths. The school serves a community with above-average levels of disadvantage: about 47% of pupils have been eligible for free school meals in the last six years, compared with roughly 24% nationally — useful context when reading the results above. If you are considering The Valley Leadership Academy, it may be worth asking how leaders have responded to Ofsted's findings and what has changed since the inspection. This overview is generated automatically from the latest published DfE performance tables and Ofsted data; figures are rounded, and you can check the originals via the official links further down the page.