Charlton School Review 2026: Oversubscribed Telford secondary with a clear character agenda

Charlton School sits in Apley, on the edge of Wellington, serving a broad local intake from age 11 to 16. The school is part of the Learning Community Trust and, since September 2025, has been led by Principal Mrs S Barton, appointed following a trust-led recruitment process and taking up post on 01 September 2025.

A key strength is clarity of intent. The school’s published vision is “Building knowledge, Developing character, Inspiring futures”, and that phrase shows up not only in messaging but also in the way the school frames routines, leadership opportunities and enrichment.

The challenge is performance momentum. On FindMySchool’s GCSE outcomes ranking, Charlton sits in the lower-performing band in England, even while remaining comparatively competitive within its immediate local area. For families, that creates a practical question: does the school’s culture and support help your child make the most of their five years here, particularly if they need strong structure and close monitoring to stay on track?

Charlton positions itself as a school where relationships and expectations sit together. The inspection evidence describes warm, respectful staff relationships and a generally calm feel in social time. Pupils are expected to know the routines, follow them, and speak up when something is not right.

Leadership is a notable current feature. Mrs S Barton’s appointment and start date are clearly published by the trust, with the intention of being visible to incoming Year 7 families. The transition from the previous principal matters, because the school’s most recent full inspection sits under earlier leadership, while day-to-day implementation and priorities will now reflect a new principal’s approach.

Student voice is formalised rather than informal. The school sets out elected roles across a Student Senior Leadership structure and a tutor-group based council, with opportunities tied to the house system. Houses are Birch, Willow, Sycamore and Hawthorn, and the school explicitly links these to the trees around the newer building.

Charlton’s GCSE outcomes, as captured in the FindMySchool dataset, are mixed and sit below the England middle band overall.

Ranked 2,924th in England and 5th in Telford for GCSE outcomes (FindMySchool ranking based on official data)

On the England distribution, this places performance below England average, within the lower 40% of schools in England.

On the headline measures provided:

• Attainment 8: 38.5

• Progress 8: -0.41

• EBacc APS: 3.47

• Pupils achieving grade 5 or above in EBacc subjects: 12.6%

For parents, the practical interpretation is straightforward. Progress 8 is designed to show how pupils perform relative to pupils with similar starting points. A negative score indicates that, on average, pupils are not making as much progress as comparable pupils nationally across their best eight subjects. That does not mean every pupil underachieves, but it does raise the importance of fit, consistency of teaching, and the quality of academic monitoring for pupils who need a strong push.

A useful way to use this information is through FindMySchool’s Local Hub comparison tools, particularly if you are weighing Charlton against other Telford secondaries and want to see which schools tend to accelerate progress most effectively for similar cohorts.

The school presents its curriculum as broad and knowledge-rich, and the inspection evidence supports the idea of an ambitious, sequenced curriculum shared by all pupils, including those with special educational needs and disabilities.

In practice, the gap between intent and outcomes often comes down to execution in classrooms. The improvement priority identified in the inspection was consistency of assessment use within lessons, specifically checking what pupils know and addressing gaps before misconceptions settle. For families, that tends to show up as variability between subjects, or between classes within the same subject, where one teacher’s routines make learning feel tightly structured while another’s may allow pupils to drift.

Reading support is positioned as a whole-school responsibility, including tutor-time reading and deliberate vocabulary attention. That matters for a comprehensive 11 to 16 school, where literacy is often the hinge between coping and thriving at Key Stage 3 and becoming exam-ready at Key Stage 4.

Charlton is an 11 to 16 school, so most pupils move on at the end of Year 11. The website structure shows active attention to post-16 transition and careers support, including staff roles explicitly linked to supporting students with next steps after Year 11.

Because destination statistics are not published in the provided dataset for this school, families should focus on the quality of the transition process rather than headline percentages. Good questions to ask include: how early options guidance starts, how the school supports applications to local sixth forms and colleges, and how it supports vocational routes and apprenticeships alongside academic routes.

The school’s wider enrichment also contributes to readiness for the next stage. Participation in productions and structured programmes such as Duke of Edinburgh can strengthen confidence, attendance and routine, which often matters as much as raw grades when pupils move into a less supervised post-16 environment.

Admissions are coordinated through Telford and Wrekin’s secondary admissions process for Year 7 entry. For September 2026 entry, the local authority closing date was 31 October 2025, with offers released on 02 March 2026.

Charlton operates published oversubscription criteria, including priority for looked-after and previously looked-after children, children living in the defined attendance area, and then distance-based tie-breaks when categories are oversubscribed. Sibling priority and staff-child criteria also feature within the determined arrangements.

Demand is real. The FindMySchool dataset flags the school as oversubscribed with 511 applications for 228 offers (2.24 applications per place) in the most recently supplied demand snapshot. That is not, on its own, a guarantee of how competitive the next cycle will be, but it signals that families should plan on the assumption that first preference does not always translate into an offer.

For precise planning, families should use FindMySchool’s Map Search to check their likely proximity position against the school’s published criteria, and then cross-check with the local authority’s annual admissions guide for the relevant entry year.

Charlton describes pastoral structures through year teams and named roles, and the school’s published materials point families to dedicated emotional health and wellbeing support routes.

The school also frames personal development through a citizenship lens, linking student leadership, participation and debate to being responsible and respectful. This tends to suit pupils who enjoy having formal routes to contribute, such as councils, house leadership and ambassador-style roles, rather than relying on informal influence.

Safeguarding and online safety education are positioned as integral parts of pupil life, which aligns with what families expect from a large 11 to 16 secondary.

Charlton’s enrichment picture is more specific than many schools at this size, especially in expressive arts.

A clear example is the expressive arts programme. The school publishes a timetable of activities that includes Rock School, Charlton Choir, KS3 Dance Club and a Dance Company structure, alongside school show rehearsals and design teams tied to productions. The implication for pupils is that arts participation can become routine rather than occasional, which often helps pupils who need a structured after-school anchor.

Performing arts is not a token add-on. The school references a long run of musical productions, and the inspection evidence also points to productions as a valued part of school life. For many pupils, that sort of shared project can be a turning point for confidence and attendance, particularly in Key Stage 3.

Sport and practical clubs are present as well. The published enrichment timetables include activities such as badminton and basketball, alongside intervention and catch-up slots that are explicitly framed as part of the after-school offer. That blend matters, because it gives pupils two routes to stay after school, enrichment for enjoyment, and structured support for progress.

The published school day runs Monday to Friday 8:40am to 3:10pm (32.5 hours per week). Transition guidance indicates the canteen offers breakfast service from 8:00am, and the library space is available until 4:30pm on weekdays for students staying beyond the end of the school day as part of organised provision.

For travel, school communications reference coordinated transport arrangements through the local authority, and the school has previously shared updates about bus service changes affecting pupil journeys. Families who rely on buses should check the most current operator timetable for the relevant route and term dates.

• Results trajectory matters. The Progress 8 score of -0.41 indicates pupils, on average, make less progress than similar pupils nationally. Families should look closely at subject consistency and academic tracking, especially for pupils who need strong structure.

• Oversubscription is a real constraint. Admissions are competitive in the local data and oversubscription criteria, including attendance area priority and distance tie-breaks, can make outcomes hard to predict.

• Leadership has recently changed. Mrs S Barton began as principal on 01 September 2025, so families should expect current priorities and routines to reflect a new leadership phase, and ask how changes are being embedded.

• No sixth form. Pupils must plan a post-16 move. For some, that is a benefit, a clean reset into a sixth form college or training route; for others it can feel disruptive.

Charlton School is a large, local 11 to 16 comprehensive with a clear emphasis on character, leadership opportunities and structured enrichment, particularly in the arts. The school is oversubscribed and operates defined attendance area criteria, so admission planning needs to be realistic and evidence-led. It suits families who want a purposeful school with visible routines, formal student leadership pathways and strong extracurricular anchors, and who are willing to stay engaged on academic monitoring to ensure progress is maximised across subjects.