Gillotts School recorded the highest proportion of pupils achieving grade 5 or above in both English and maths among Oxfordshire’s state-funded mainstream secondary schools in the Department for Education’s 2024/25 results. Its figure was 76.0%, followed by Didcot Girls’ School on 72.1% and Langtree School on 70.7%.
Information checked: 16 October 2026. This article covers pupils completing key stage 4 in 2025, not the 2026 results. Figures have been checked against the revised DfE school performance tables. They describe attainment in approved qualifications, not an overall judgement of school quality.
The 2024/25 school-level results were revised in February 2026. The figures below replace the earlier snapshot used when this article was first published in October 2025. For subsequent releases, use the DfE’s key stage 4 statistics service.
Highest grade 5-plus shares among state-funded schools in 2025
These are the leading published results for this particular measure. Burford and Chipping Norton share the tenth-highest percentage.
- Gillotts School — 76.0%
- Didcot Girls’ School — 72.1%
- Langtree School — 70.7%
- The Swan School — 68.3%
- Bartholomew School — 66.7%
- The Cherwell School — 66.2%
- Matthew Arnold School — 65.2%
- Wallingford School — 62.9%
- The Marlborough Church of England School — 62.6%
- Burford School and Chipping Norton School — 59.6% each
Langtree was missing from the original top-performers list, despite appearing in the accompanying table. That omission has been corrected.
What a strong GCSE pass means
A grade 5 is described as a strong pass for school accountability. A grade 4 is a standard pass; it should not be presented as a failure or as insufficient for every course or job. Colleges, universities and employers set their own entry requirements. See the DfE’s explanation of GCSE grades.
This measure counts pupils achieving at least grade 5 in both English and maths. Attainment 8 measures performance across a wider set of approved qualifications. Neither figure, on its own, shows how much progress pupils made from their starting points.
The DfE could not calculate Progress 8 for 2024/25 because the relevant primary-school assessment baseline was unavailable following Covid disruption. Families should consider a school’s curriculum, support, admissions arrangements and pupil intake alongside examination results.
Independent schools and qualifications outside the tables
St Helen and St Katharine had a published grade 5-plus English and maths figure of 98.0%, while d’Overbroeck’s recorded 91.3%. These figures do not establish which is the county’s best school: admissions, pupils’ starting points and the qualifications counted differ between schools.
The DfE warns that its measures exclude some qualifications, including international GCSEs that are not approved for these tables. A school can therefore show 0% on a headline measure without that meaning its pupils failed all their exams. This caveat applies to the English and maths measure as well as EBacc figures.
In the school’s August 2025 results announcement, published by the Girls’ Schools Association, then headmistress Rebecca Dougall praised the pupils and their teachers, saying: “What a platform for Sixth Form success and happiness!”
Reading lower percentages fairly
The revised figures include Greyfriars Catholic School at 28.9%, Wykham Park at 25.4%, The Oxford Academy at 21.0%, Aureus School at 19.4% and Carterton Community College at 18.9%. These percentages describe this cohort’s attainment on one measure; they are not an assessment of teaching quality or a prediction of an individual child’s results.
Differences in intake, additional needs and qualifications taken matter. Special schools should not be judged against mainstream schools through a simple league-table comparison.
Full published 2025 results used in this article
Source: DfE Compare school and college performance, Oxfordshire, 2025, all pupils, checked on 16 October 2026. Schools with suppressed, unavailable or non-numeric English and maths results are omitted; missing values have not been converted to zero. Names and school types follow the source.
The state-funded mainstream table is ordered by the English and maths percentage. The other tables are alphabetical to avoid presenting different school settings as a single overall ranking.
State-funded mainstream schools
| School | Type | Pupils at KS4 | Attainment 8 | Grade 5+ in English and maths |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gillotts School | Academy | 171 | 61.3 | 76.0% |
| Didcot Girls’ School | Academy | 262 | 58.8 | 72.1% |
| Langtree School | Academy | 116 | 58 | 70.7% |
| The Swan School | Academy | 120 | 55.4 | 68.3% |
| Bartholomew School | Academy | 213 | 57 | 66.7% |
| The Cherwell School | Academy | 269 | 58.3 | 66.2% |
| Matthew Arnold School | Academy | 207 | 56.5 | 65.2% |
| Wallingford School | Academy | 221 | 53.9 | 62.9% |
| The Marlborough Church of England School | Academy | 179 | 55.4 | 62.6% |
| Burford School | Academy | 245 | 52.4 | 59.6% |
| Chipping Norton School | Academy | 166 | 49.3 | 59.6% |
| Wheatley Park School | Academy | 174 | 51.5 | 56.9% |
| Whitelands Academy | Academy | 114 | 46.4 | 53.5% |
| Fitzharrys School | Academy | 114 | 46 | 52.6% |
| North Oxfordshire Academy | Academy | 174 | 46.8 | 51.7% |
| Icknield Community College | Academy | 130 | 51.2 | 51.5% |
| St Birinus School | Academy | 171 | 48.2 | 50.9% |
| Oxford Spires Academy | Academy | 215 | 46.3 | 49.8% |
| The Bicester School | Academy | 204 | 47.9 | 49.0% |
| Cheney School | Academy | 282 | 46 | 48.6% |
| Wood Green School | Academy | 215 | 46.2 | 47.9% |
| Lord Williams’s School | Academy | 345 | 46.2 | 47.8% |
| Maiden Erlegh Chiltern Edge | Academy | 67 | 44.3 | 44.8% |
| King Alfred’s | Academy | 233 | 45.4 | 43.8% |
| The Warriner School | Academy | 266 | 44.3 | 42.5% |
| Blessed George Napier Catholic School and Sixth Form | Academy | 139 | 48.5 | 42.4% |
| John Mason School | Academy | 179 | 44.5 | 41.9% |
| Gosford Hill School | Academy | 123 | 45.3 | 41.5% |
| Faringdon Community College | Academy | 229 | 43.7 | 39.7% |
| The Cooper School | Academy | 220 | 41.7 | 39.5% |
| Futures Institute Banbury | Academy | 47 | 41.1 | 38.3% |
| The Henry Box School | Academy | 168 | 42.2 | 35.7% |
| Heyford Park School | Academy | 59 | 39.7 | 35.6% |
| Larkmead School | Academy | 144 | 39.4 | 34.7% |
| Greyfriars Catholic School | Academy | 90 | 34 | 28.9% |
| UTC Oxfordshire | Academy | 73 | 32.5 | 26.0% |
| Wykham Park | Academy | 114 | 34.8 | 25.4% |
| The Oxford Academy | Academy | 200 | 33.6 | 21.0% |
| Aureus School | Academy | 98 | 33.7 | 19.4% |
| Carterton Community College | Maintained school | 111 | 33.8 | 18.9% |
| Europa School UK | Academy | 58 | 0.9 | 1.7% |
Independent schools
Read these figures with the qualification-coverage caveat above. They do not include every qualification taken at a school.
| School | Type | Pupils at KS4 | Attainment 8 | Grade 5+ in English and maths |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Abingdon School | Independent school | 196 | 16.4 | 0.0% |
| Bloxham School | Independent school | 91 | 40.6 | 0.0% |
| Bruern Abbey School | Independent school | 30 | 26.3 | 0.0% |
| Cokethorpe School | Independent school | 73 | 32 | 0.0% |
| Cranford School | Independent school | 136 | 18.7 | 0.0% |
| d’Overbroeck’s | Independent school | 46 | 64.8 | 91.3% |
| Headington School Oxford | Independent school | 314 | 32.6 | 37.9% |
| Kingham Hill School | Independent school | 51 | 34.7 | 0.0% |
| Magdalen College School | Independent school | 113 | 45 | 0.0% |
| Our Lady’s Abingdon | Independent school | 59 | 34.7 | 0.0% |
| Oxford High School GDST | Independent school | 92 | 19.4 | 0.0% |
| Oxford International College | Independent school | 133 | 1.7 | 0.0% |
| Oxford Montessori Schools | Independent school | 11 | 25.8 | 0.0% |
| Oxford Sixth Form College | Independent school | 52 | 1.9 | 0.0% |
| Radley College | Independent school | 154 | 36 | 0.0% |
| Shiplake College | Independent school | 84 | 31.5 | 0.0% |
| Sibford School | Independent school | 63 | 40.6 | 38.1% |
| St Edward’s School | Independent school | 152 | 10.8 | 0.0% |
| St Helen and St Katharine | Independent school | 98 | 71.8 | 98.0% |
| The King’s School | Independent school | 22 | 54.8 | 68.2% |
| The Oratory School | Independent school | 71 | 29.2 | 0.0% |
| Tudor Hall School | Independent school | 44 | 26.6 | 0.0% |
| Wychwood School | Independent school | 24 | 46.4 | 0.0% |
Special schools
Provision and pupil needs vary substantially. These are the published figures, not a ranking against mainstream schools.
| School | Type | Pupils at KS4 | Attainment 8 | Grade 5+ in English and maths |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chilworth House Upper School | Special school | 13 | 2.1 | 0.0% |
| LVS Oxford | Special school | 11 | 14.5 | 18.2% |
| Orion Academy | Special school | 13 | 4.3 | 0.0% |
| Park School | Special school | 11 | 3.3 | 0.0% |
| Swalcliffe Park School CIO | Special school | 11 | 13.7 | 9.1% |
| The Unicorn School | Special school | 14 | 10.5 | 0.0% |
| Woodeaton Manor School | Special school | 18 | 6.6 | 0.0% |
Correction and update, 16 October 2026: added Langtree and the joint tenth-place result to the leading state-funded list; replaced earlier figures with revised 2025 data; clarified qualification coverage and the limits of comparisons. The previous regional summary incorrectly placed St Birinus in Cherwell and Matthew Arnold within Oxford city; that summary has been removed.
