Smithills School
Secondary · Bolton · BL1 6JS
Report-card inspection (current system, from November 2025)
The headline grade shown is the Achievement area of the school's report card.
Inspected 31 March 2026 · report published 7 June 2026
Read the Ofsted report ↗At a glance
1,203 pupils · 96% of 1,250 capacity
- School type
- Academy converter
- Age range
- 11–16
- Gender
- Mixed
- Admissions
- Non-selective
- Free school meals
- 41.8% of pupils
- English as additional language
- 58.8% of pupils
- SEN support
- 12.3% of pupils
- EHC plan
- 2% of pupils
- URN
- 140500
Admissions demand: Year 7 entry, September 2026
0.56 first-choice applications per place226 places offered · 127 first-choice applications · usually has places
First-choice applications per place, by entry year
Applications and offers on national offer day, DfE. A ratio above 1.00 means more families named this school first choice than there were places.
GCSE results (2024/2025)
234 pupils at the end of key stage 4 in 2024/2025
Progress 8 is suspended nationally for 2024/25 and 2025/26. These cohorts sat no key stage 2 tests (COVID), so there is no baseline to measure progress from.
Source: DfE performance tables 2024/2025. “Suppressed” means the DfE withholds figures for very small cohorts.
Attendance (2025/26 autumn term)
Autumn-term absence, DfE pupil absence data. Lower is better.
Staffing
Full-time-equivalent, 2025/26.
Teacher retention (2024/25)
78% of teachers stayed at the school the following year · 7% moved to another state school · 15% left the state-funded sector
School Workforce Census, DfE. The ratio counts full-time-equivalent qualified teachers; retention follows teachers in post one November to the next. Open Government Licence v3.0.
Spending per pupil
Total expenditure ÷ pupils, academy finance return (DfE Schools Financial Benchmarking, latest year). Higher spending is not a measure of quality. It often reflects greater pupil need or a smaller school. Open Government Licence v3.0.
Where pupils go after GCSEs
Destinations measured the year after leaving, latest DfE destination measures release.
Inspection history since 2015
- 31 March 2026: Needs attention
- 23 October 2024: Taking effective action to tackle the areas requiring improvement
- 19 September 2023: Requires improvement
- 26 June 2018: Good
- 6 March 2018: Taking effective action towards the removal of special measures
- 7 November 2017: Taking effective action towards the removal of special measures
- 23 May 2017: Taking effective action towards the removal of special measures
- 15 November 2016: Inadequate
Ofsted management information. Ungraded and monitoring visits do not award a new grade. How the two inspection systems work.