Ark Blake Academy
Secondary · Croydon · CR0 6NA
Graded inspection under the pre-November 2025 system
This is an overall-effectiveness grade from the previous inspection framework. The school has not yet had a report-card inspection.
Inspected 22 February 2023
Read the Ofsted report ↗At a glance
759 pupils · 63% of 1,200 capacity
- School type
- Free schools
- Age range
- 11–18
- Gender
- Mixed
- Admissions
- Non-selective
- Free school meals
- 50.4% of pupils
- English as additional language
- 33.9% of pupils
- SEN support
- 13.6% of pupils
- EHC plan
- 1.4% of pupils
- Sixth form
- Yes
- Website
- www.arkblake.org
- URN
- 147832
Admissions demand: Year 7 entry, September 2026
0.73 first-choice applications per place158 places offered · 115 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.
Admissions cutoff distance: Year 7
Last child offered a place under the distance criterion (2025 entry) lived within 4.03 miles
measured in a straight line.
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Cutoff distances as published by the local authority (source). Siblings and other priority groups are offered places first; cutoffs move year to year.
GCSE results (2024/2025)
154 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)
80% of teachers stayed at the school the following year · 13% moved to another state school · 7% 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.
Inspection history since 2015
- 22 February 2023: Good
Ofsted management information. Ungraded and monitoring visits do not award a new grade. How the two inspection systems work.