Academic Performance & Exam Results
Evaluating a secondary school's academic success requires looking beyond simple pass rates. The Department for Education uses several headline metrics to gauge how well a school supports its pupils academically. On this page, we break down Highcliffe School's most recent published exam outcomes—primarily from the 2024-2025 academic year—and explain what these figures mean in the context of the wider Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole (BCP) local authority.
Attainment 8: 47
What it measures: Attainment 8 calculates the average achievement of pupils in up to eight government-approved qualifications, including English and Mathematics (which are double-weighted). It provides a snapshot of raw academic achievement at the end of Key Stage 4.
For 2024-2025, Highcliffe School achieved an Attainment 8 score of 47. This score ranks the school 12 of 22 across all BCP secondary schools with published data. The BCP regional average across all schools (including selective grammars) is 50.77, indicating that Highcliffe School performs below this overall average. When looking nationally, the England state-funded mainstream mean for the prior year was 46.3.
Notably, the Attainment 8 score for disadvantaged pupils at the school sits at 35.1, highlighting the ongoing national challenge of the attainment gap. Looking at the year-on-year trend, the school's overall Attainment 8 shifted from 50.6 in 2023-2024 to the current 47.
Progress 8: -0.05 (2023-2024)
What it measures: Progress 8 captures the progress a pupil makes from the end of primary school to the end of secondary school, compared to pupils across England who achieved similar results at the end of Key Stage 2. A score of 0 indicates average progress; a positive score means students made more progress than expected.
Please note: Progress 8 was not published for 2024-2025 (no KS2 baseline for that cohort). Value shown is the most recent available year (2023-2024).
Based on the available data from 2023-2024, Highcliffe School holds a Progress 8 score of -0.05, with a confidence interval between -0.24 and 0.13. This places the school 16 of 21 locally. For comparison, the BCP average for non-selective schools in that period was 0.11.
The Basics: English and Maths
What it measures: The "Basics" metric tracks the percentage of pupils achieving a passing grade in both English and Mathematics GCSEs. A grade 4 is considered a "standard pass," while a grade 5 represents a "strong pass."
In the 2024-2025 cohort of 1565 pupils, 45.7% achieved a strong pass (grades 9-5) in both core subjects. This compares to 54.9% in the previous academic year (2023-2024). Furthermore, 75.2% of students secured a standard pass (grades 9-4), ensuring they have the fundamental qualifications typically required by employers and further education providers.
The English Baccalaureate (EBacc)
What it measures: The EBacc is a set of subjects at GCSE that keeps young people's options open for further study. It includes English literature and language, maths, the sciences, geography or history, and a language. EBacc APS (Average Point Score) calculates pupils' average point scores across these subject pillars.
At Highcliffe School, 45.7% of the cohort was entered for the full EBacc suite of qualifications. The resulting EBacc Average Point Score is 4.26. In the local context, this metric ranks the school 13 of 22. Across all BCP secondary schools, EBacc APS scores range widely from 2.75 up to 7.17, with the overall average sitting at 4.56.