Exam Results & Academic Performance
Understanding a secondary school's academic performance requires looking beyond simple pass rates. The Department for Education uses several key metrics to measure how well schools support their students. On this page, we explain exactly what these numbers mean in plain English and show how Glenmoor Academy compares both locally within the Bournemouth, Christchurch, and Poole (BCP) area and nationally across England.
Progress 8 (2023-2024)
What it measures: Progress 8 is widely considered the most important measure of a school's success. It tracks how much progress students make from the end of primary school (Key Stage 2) to the end of secondary school (Key Stage 4), compared to pupils across England who had similar starting points. A score of 0.0 means students made the average expected progress.
For the 2023-2024 academic year, Glenmoor Academy achieved a Progress 8 score of 1.14 (with a confidence interval between 0.92 and 1.35). This is a highly positive score, indicating that students here achieve significantly higher grades than their peers nationally. In the local context, this score places the school 1 of 21 out of 21 BCP secondary schools (including grammars). It is well above the average for all BCP schools (0.18) and the BCP non-selective school average (0.11).
A note on 2024-2025 data: Progress 8 was not published for 2024-2025 (no KS2 baseline for that cohort). Value shown is the most recent available year (2023-2024). For this reason, the 2023-2024 figure remains the most current valid metric for progress.
Attainment 8 (2024-2025)
What it measures: Unlike Progress 8, Attainment 8 simply measures the raw grades students achieve across their eight best subjects (which must include English and Maths). It is not adjusted for a student's starting ability.
In 2024-2025, the average Attainment 8 score at Glenmoor Academy was 60.7. This places the academy 5 of 22 out of 22 BCP schools. The school performs heavily above both the BCP all-schools average of 50.77 and the non-selective average of 46.44. For national context, the England mean for mainstream state-funded schools is 46.3 (based on 2023-24 figures). The school's performance has remained stable year-on-year, having scored 60.4 in 2023-2024.
It is also important to look at how disadvantaged pupils perform. At Glenmoor Academy, the Attainment 8 score for disadvantaged students was 50.5, highlighting the gap between disadvantaged pupils and their peers within the same cohort (overall score of 60.7).
The Basics (English and Maths)
What it measures: This metric simply shows the percentage of the cohort that achieved passing grades in both English and Maths GCSEs. A grade 4 is considered a "standard pass" (equivalent to an old C), while a grade 5 is a "strong pass".
At Glenmoor Academy, an impressive 90.8% of the 891-strong cohort achieved a grade 4 or above in both English and Maths. When looking at the higher benchmark of a strong pass (grade 5 or above), the figure was 78.6%. This represents a slight change from the previous year (2023-2024), where the grade 5+ pass rate was 81.9%.
EBacc (English Baccalaureate)
What it measures: The EBacc is not a separate qualification, but a set of core academic subjects: English, Maths, Sciences, a language, and history or geography. The government encourages schools to enter pupils for these subjects. The EBacc Average Point Score (APS) calculates the average grades achieved across these specific subjects.
Here, 57.8% of students were entered for the full suite of EBacc subjects. The resulting EBacc Average Point Score was 5.57. Within the BCP authority, this ranks the school 5 of 22 out of 22 secondary schools, placing it above the non-selective BCP average of 4.16.