Last reviewed: September 2026 · Rankings and key information above update regularly, however, this review below is refreshed bi-annually and may not reflect recent changes. If you spot anything outdated or inaccurate, please let us know.
Two years ago this Salford comprehensive was relaunched under a new identity, and the question every family now asks is whether the turnaround is real. Buile Hill Academy opened on 1 September 2024 as a Fresh Start academy within Northern Education Trust, taking over the Eccles Old Road site from a predecessor school of the same name. It is a mixed, non-selective 11 to 16 school with no sixth form, a capacity of 900 and a roll of roughly that size. The Principal is Mr James Haslam, working alongside Executive Principal Andrew Newton.
The official picture is mixed. GCSE figures in the official tables currently reflect 2024, and they show a Progress 8 score of -1.1, far short of the zero that marks typical progress in England. The school's own reports of its 2025 and 2026 results describe a sharp recovery, and demand for places has followed: the school was oversubscribed for Year 7 in 2025. Ofsted has not yet inspected the school in its current form.
Outcomes come first here, and the school says so without embarrassment. The trust's vision, which the Principal's welcome adopts in full, commits staff to focusing constantly on standards because outcomes are paramount, with decisions driven by what is best for children. The strapline that runs across the website, Outcomes Focused, Child Centred, is the trust's rather than a school motto, but it captures the tone accurately. This is a school built around high expectations and tight routines.
Those routines are visible in the rules. Mobile phones and smartwatches must be switched off at the academy gate and stay out of sight until students leave; any device seen during the day is confiscated, placed in the safe and returned only to a parent or carer. The uniform policy is equally firm: no jewellery apart from a wristwatch, no false eyelashes or nail varnish, no ear piercings, no bold hair dye and no shaved patterns. A letter to parents in May 2026 set out further changes to uniform from September 2026. Families who value clarity will find it; families expecting flexibility will not.
Alongside the rules sits a deliberate praise culture shared across all Northern Education Trust academies. Teachers use applause moments, in which students are encouraged to applaud a noteworthy answer from a classmate, and staff send postcards home to recognise outstanding effort. Effort and achievement are reported to families through STEPs to Success reports at intervals during the year. Praise is also described as the bedrock of the Expectations for Learning Policy, the school's framework for encouraging positive choices.
The trust's five values give the ethos its vocabulary: Integrity (We do the right thing), Respect (We value every voice and person), Excellence (We are proud of our best work), Positivity and Innovation. Northern Education Trust also sets out a Northern Model for School Improvement, whose headings include No Exceptions and no excuses and a Relentless focus on standards. Parents can read that model as a statement of how the school intends to run: aspiration and compliance at the front, with enrichment and staff development listed alongside them.
The community served is one of real need. According to the government's register of schools, 45.3% of students are eligible for free school meals, a very high proportion by any measure. The school receives £1,035 per eligible student each year through the pupil premium, and it actively encourages families to check their eligibility, since each successful claim increases that funding.
Buile Hill Academy is ranked 1,711th of 3,895 in England for GCSE results (top 43.9%), ranked against all schools in England with published GCSE results, state and independent. That places it just inside the top half on this proprietary FindMySchool ranking, built from official data.
The underlying 2024 figures tell a harder story. That year, 159 students completed Key Stage 4, with an average Attainment 8 score of 31.7 and a Progress 8 score of -1.1. Progress 8 compares students with others across England who had similar starting points, and 0 represents the England average; a score of -1.1 means students on average achieved around one grade less per subject than similar students elsewhere. The average EBacc point score was 2.67. These students sat their exams in the summer of 2024, in the final months before the school reopened under its new identity on 1 September 2024. The school's results page shows a similar picture a year earlier, with Attainment 8 of 32.2 and Progress 8 of -1.40 in 2023, so the 2024 figures were part of a longer pattern rather than a single poor year.
Since then, the school reports a substantial improvement. In its announcement of the 2026 results, it says Attainment 8 rose from 43.04 in 2025 to 46.25 in 2026, with 49.7% of students achieving grade 5 or above in both English and maths and 70.2% achieving a standard pass in both subjects. These figures come from the school and had not yet appeared in official performance tables at the time of writing, so families should read them as the school's own account rather than as verified data. Even so, a second consecutive year of reported gains is a meaningful signal. The school also reported in 2025 that its results for disadvantaged students and for students with special educational needs had improved significantly, including a 14% increase in SEND students achieving grade 5 or above in English and maths.
Commenting on the 2025 results, the Principal, James Haslam, said "At Buile Hill we are raising aspirations every single day". The school also highlighted individual 2026 successes, including one student with four grade 9s and three grade 8s. For parents, the sensible approach is to watch whether the official 2025 and 2026 data confirm the scale of improvement the school describes.
England ranks and key metrics (where available)
GCSE
1711th
England rank
Ranking figures update automatically as our data refreshes and are the definitive source. Any rankings quoted in the review text were accurate when it was written and may since have changed.
The curriculum runs on a 3:2 model. Years 7, 8 and 9 follow three years of programmes of study that the school says go beyond the National Curriculum, and students choose their options at the end of Year 9 for a two-year course in Years 10 and 11. That extra year of Key Stage 3 gives every student a broad base before specialising, and the flexible Key Stage 4 structure allows the school to build what it calls personalised guided pathways. The school states that it fully supports every student's entitlement to study the English Baccalaureate.
Homework is organised around Need to Know books, which students carry every day alongside their planner. A 2024 letter to Key Stage 3 families explained how students should use these books and what homework is expected outside school. Online tools listed for students include Sparx Maths, NET Geography, NET History and English Podcasts.
Running alongside academic subjects is the LIFE curriculum, a planned programme that brings together Religious Education, personal, health, social and economic education, spiritual, moral, social and cultural education, Relationships and Sex Education, and careers guidance. It is organised around five themes: Living in the Wider World, Health & Wellbeing, Global citizenship, World Views and Careers education. The school says it draws on DfE statutory guidance and the Gatsby benchmarks in planning this strand, so personal development is timetabled rather than left to chance.
With no sixth form, every student moves on at 16, so the quality of careers guidance matters more here than at an 11 to 18 school. The school reports that 83% of its 2024 leavers stayed in education or entered employment.
The careers programme is detailed and structured. Every student has individual careers interviews in Year 9 and Year 11, and independent advice is also available through a weekly Careers Corner. The core offer includes at least one employer encounter each year, including STEM employers, and at least one experience of a workplace by the age of 16. The programme is designed around the eight Gatsby Benchmarks, and the school is working with Careerwave towards the Quality in Careers Standard.
Families are brought into the process too. Independent careers advisers attend parents' evenings and the Year 9 Guided Pathways Evening, and the trust publishes the NET Post-16 Parents Guide. By Years 10 and 11, the programme aims for students to understand the application routes for college, work and apprenticeships. Ms Sarah Thomas leads careers at the academy, and the trust's own careers leadership sits with Mr Philip Carr, Senior Director of Curriculum. For a family weighing up the next step after GCSEs, that combination of early interviews and repeated employer contact is a practical strength.
Entry is at Year 7, and the process runs through Salford Council, which administers the school's admission policy. For September 2027 entry, the published admission number is 180. Applications open on 1 September 2026 and the closing date is 31 October 2026. National Offer Day is 1 March 2027, the deadline to request an appeal is 31 March 2027, and appeal hearings take place in May, June and July 2027. In-year transfers are also coordinated by the local authority.
Demand has risen alongside the school's reported results. For September 2025 entry, the school received 238 applications for 174 offers, roughly 1.37 applications per place, and was oversubscribed. The ratio of first-preference applications to first-preference offers was 1, suggesting that most families who put the school first were offered a place that year. Competition for places is real, though first-choice families were generally accommodated in that round.
The academy's own admissions page does not set out its oversubscription criteria, so families should read Salford's published admission arrangements for the relevant year to understand how places are prioritised if applications exceed 180.
An Open Evening is being held on Thursday 24 September 2026 from 4:30pm to 7:00pm, open to Year 5 and Year 6 children and their families. For younger children, the school works with partner primary schools to offer visits and activities throughout Key Stage 2, so that the move to Year 7 feels familiar.
Previous Year (2024/25 Entry)
Applications
238
Total received
Places Offered
174
Subscription Rate
1.4x
Applications per place
Pastoral support is organised around a fully trained Safeguarding and Inclusion team. A dedicated Safeguarding and Wellbeing Officer works alongside the Designated Safeguarding Lead and external agencies so that support can be arranged quickly. The pastoral programme combines the LIFE curriculum, assemblies and VMG tutor groups, giving wellbeing a regular place in the week.
Special educational needs are supported by the SEND Co-ordinator, Miss Rebecca Woods. The school describes an approach based on positive intervention, removing barriers to learning and working with other agencies. It also has a resourced SEN unit for social, emotional and mental health needs, with capacity for 10 students and 10 currently on roll. Families of children with SEMH needs should ask directly how places in the unit are allocated, since it is small and currently full.
Online safety receives particular attention. Northern Education Trust uses Smoothwall to monitor what students access online, and it has worked with Smoothwall to provide a free Online Safety Hub for parents, covering screen time, gaming platforms and other risks.
Student voice is built into the structure. Each trust academy has a Junior Leadership team running an academy council, with Junior Leaders and Class Secretaries representing each class. The council meets fortnightly to discuss current issues, and the Junior Leadership team votes on any action needed. This gives students a direct, regular route to raise concerns.
Enrichment is presented as a core part of the model rather than an optional extra. Enrichment appears as one of the pillars of the Northern Model for School Improvement, and the school describes an enrichment and after-school club programme designed to develop team and leadership skills, support learning and improve education and career prospects. The website does not list the current clubs by name, so families should ask for the timetable at the Open Evening.
Music has specific support for disadvantaged students. Those eligible for the pupil premium can access subsidised music lessons and apply for help with the cost of trips and visits. With 45.3% of students eligible for free school meals, that help is likely to matter to many families.
Leadership opportunities extend beyond the council. Students can take on roles such as head boy or head girl, lead on the school council or serve as ambassadors for the academy. Alongside the Junior Leaders and Class Secretaries, these roles give confident students a platform and give quieter ones a structure for trying responsibility.
The school also looks outward through its former students. It runs an alumni network and invites past students to act as career and education role models, offer work experience or mentor current students. For a school in the middle of a turnaround, visible local role models are a practical asset.
Sport and drama are less well documented online. The school website has no dedicated sport or drama pages, so families with a child keen on a particular sport, instrument or performance activity should ask at the Open Evening what runs each week and how students join.
The school day is currently under review. The school is consulting on changes to the structure of the day to meet the government expectation of 32 hours and 30 minutes of teaching time per week, and the trust has written to families about proposals to change the school day from September 2027. Current lesson times and term dates sit on the school's academy-day and term-dates pages.
Food is available at breakfast, break and lunch, with hot and cold options on a three-week rotating menu. A lunchtime meal deal currently costs £2.50 for a main meal or sandwich plus water, fruit or a cookie. Payments are cashless through ParentPay, and students receiving free school meals have funds added automatically, so no one else can tell. The school has a no-nut policy. As a state school, it charges no tuition fees. The school does not publish transport information on its website, so families should check routes with Salford Council.
No inspection of the current school yet. Ofsted has not inspected Buile Hill Academy since it opened on 1 September 2024. Before this school opened, the predecessor school (URN 143059) was judged Requires Improvement by Ofsted in June 2022. Families will need to rely on results, visits and conversations with the school until an independent inspection verdict is published.
Official results lag the school's own account. The officially published figures reflect 2024 and show a Progress 8 score of -1.1, far short of the zero that marks typical progress in England. The school reports strong improvement in 2025 and 2026, but official confirmation is still to come. Compare the school's claims with the performance tables once the latest data appears.
A strict set of rules. Phones are switched off at the gate and confiscated if seen, and the uniform policy bans all jewellery except a wristwatch, ear piercings, bold hair colours and shaved patterns. Children who struggle with firm boundaries, and parents who dislike them, should weigh this carefully.
Changes to the day and thin detail on enrichment. The school day is under consultation and may change from September 2027, and club, sport and arts provision is not described in detail online. Ask about both before applying.
Buile Hill Academy is a school in the middle of a deliberate turnaround. Since relaunching in September 2024 under Northern Education Trust, it has adopted a clear, standards-first model with firm rules, a structured praise culture, a 3:2 curriculum, a detailed careers programme and a small SEMH unit. The school reports two years of rising GCSE results, and demand for Year 7 places has grown enough to make it oversubscribed.
The main caveat is verification. The most recent official figures still reflect the pre-relaunch cohort, and the school has not yet been inspected. It is best suited to local families in Salford who want a tightly run comprehensive with high expectations, strong routines and practical careers guidance, and who are comfortable backing a school whose recent progress is still awaiting independent confirmation.
It is a school in the middle of a turnaround. It opened as a Fresh Start academy in September 2024 and has not yet been inspected by Ofsted. The latest published GCSE figures, from 2024, include a Progress 8 score of -1.1, while the school reports much stronger results in 2025 and 2026. It ranks 1,711th of 3,895 in England for GCSE results.
Yes. For September 2025 entry, the school received 238 applications for 174 offers and was oversubscribed. The admission number for September 2027 entry is 180, and applications are made through Salford Council by 31 October 2026.
In 2024, 159 students took GCSEs, achieving an average Attainment 8 score of 31.7 and a Progress 8 score of -1.1. The school reports that Attainment 8 rose to 46.25 in 2026, with 49.7% of students achieving grade 5 or above in English and maths. Those later figures are the school's own and still need official confirmation.
The school combines firm rules with regular praise. Phones must be switched off at the gate, and the Expectations for Learning Policy uses praise and rewards to encourage good choices. A Safeguarding and Inclusion team and a dedicated Safeguarding and Wellbeing Officer support students, while the trust monitors online activity through Smoothwall. The full behaviour policies are available from the school.
Salford Council administers admissions. The school's own admissions page does not list oversubscription criteria or provide a catchment map, so families should check Salford's published admission arrangements for the year they are applying.
Get in touch with the school directly
Is this your school?
Claim this profile to update contact info, add photos, and more.
Disclaimer
Information on this page is compiled, analysed, and processed from publicly available sources including the Department for Education (DfE), Ofsted, the Independent Schools Inspectorate (ISI), the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, Freedom of Information (FOI) requests, and official school websites.
Our rankings, metrics, and assessments are derived from this data using our own methodologies and represent our independent analysis rather than official standings.
While we strive for accuracy, we cannot guarantee that all information is current, complete, or error-free. Data may change without notice, and schools and/or local authorities should be contacted directly to verify any details before making decisions.
FindMySchool does not endorse any particular school, and rankings reflect specific metrics rather than overall quality.
To the fullest extent permitted by law, we accept no liability for any loss or damage arising from reliance on information provided. If you believe any information is inaccurate, please contact us.
