Aylesford School Warwick Review 2026: All-through academy with improving culture and strong primary outcomes

Aylesford School Warwick is unusual locally in being a true all-through option, taking children from Reception through to Year 13 on one site. That continuity matters for families who want one set of routines, one set of values, and fewer transition shocks at the natural break points of Year 6 and Year 11. The school describes its core values as Ambition, Resilience and Kindness, and these are echoed consistently across curriculum, pastoral systems, and formal reporting.

Leadership has also been in motion. Peter Gilbride joined as interim headteacher in January 2025 and was appointed headteacher in March 2025, a change that sits alongside wider staffing and leadership shifts reported in the most recent inspection. For parents, the practical takeaway is that the school is in an active improvement phase, with a clear direction, but with some areas still catching up, particularly around secondary behaviour and classroom consistency.

This is a school that has to balance two very different worlds. In early years and the primary phase, the tone is described as positive and settled, with sensible behaviour and pupils supporting each other in learning and social time. In secondary, the picture is more variable, with some learning disruption when a minority do not meet expectations, and some inconsistency in staff responses to poor behaviour. That split is important when you are choosing an all-through setting, because your child’s day-to-day experience can look quite different depending on their phase.

Aylesford’s language around culture is relatively specific, rather than vague. The curriculum statement emphasises sequencing, knowledge, vocabulary, and regular assessment checks to support recall, and it explicitly says the curriculum is not solely determined by external examinations. In primary, the intent is framed around partnership with parents and carers, language-rich learning, and structured synthetic phonics. For families with younger children, the detail that tends to matter is that phonics teaching is anchored in Read, Write, Inc., followed by guided reading once pupils can read fluently.

Pastoral structures are more defined than many parents expect from a large all-through school. The school sets out a pastoral programme with themes that run through tutor time, assemblies, and year-group time, including anti-bullying, mental health and peer relationships, and online safety. Resourcing is also named: two senior leaders, six heads of year, attendance officers, a school counsellor, and a pastoral support officer are listed as part of the pastoral team. This specificity is useful, because it signals that “who do I speak to?” should not be a mystery when an issue arises.

Because Aylesford is all-through, the fairest way to look at results is by phase, rather than trying to compress everything into a single headline.

Primary (Key Stage 2)

Primary outcomes are the strongest published performance signal. In 2024, 73.33% of pupils met the expected standard in reading, writing and maths combined, above the England average of 62%. At higher standard, 18.67% achieved greater depth, compared with an England average of 8%. Reading and maths scaled scores were 105 and 104 respectively, with GPS (grammar, punctuation and spelling) also at 105.

Rankings place this performance in the middle band nationally: Aylesford’s primary results rank 8,197th in England and 13th in Warwick for primary outcomes (FindMySchool ranking based on official data), reflecting solid performance in line with the middle 35% of schools in England (25th to 60th percentile).

GCSE (Key Stage 4)

At secondary, published indicators are more mixed. Attainment 8 is 40.5 and Progress 8 is -0.36, suggesting that, on average, pupils make less progress than pupils nationally with similar starting points. The EBacc average point score is 3.46, below the England figure of 4.08.

Rankings align with that picture: ranked 3,078th in England and 5th in Warwick for GCSE outcomes (FindMySchool ranking based on official data), which places performance below England average overall.

A-level (Sixth Form)

Sixth form outcomes are broadly closer to England norms than the GCSE picture. In 2024, 7.81% of entries achieved A*, 6.25% achieved A, and 43.75% achieved A* to B. The England average for A* to B is 47.2%, so Aylesford sits slightly below that benchmark on this measure.

On the FindMySchool A-level ranking, Aylesford is 1,438th in England and 3rd in Warwick for A-level outcomes, which indicates performance in line with the middle 35% of schools in England (25th to 60th percentile).

For parents comparing local options, this is where FindMySchool’s Local Hub and Comparison Tool are most useful, because the mix of a stronger primary signal, weaker GCSE signal, and more typical sixth form outcomes can be hard to interpret without side-by-side context.

The most persuasive evidence of teaching and learning at Aylesford is the way the school explains its curriculum design and the way external review describes current strengths and gaps.

In primary, the approach is deliberately structured. The school sets out a model that starts with systematic phonics through Read, Write, Inc., then moves into guided reading that focuses on pace, fluency, comprehension and inference once pupils can read age-appropriate texts. This is a practical, research-aligned pathway that usually benefits children who need clarity and repetition to become confident readers, while still making room for wider reading once decoding is secure.

The secondary curriculum is broad in subject coverage, including creative and vocationally adjacent options alongside the core, and the school publishes subject areas across KS3 and KS4 such as art, design and technology, computing, food and nutrition, media studies, photography, and psychology, alongside humanities, languages and sciences. Post-16 subject listings include criminology, health and social care, sociology and economics among others. For many families, this breadth matters because it offers more than one route to success, especially for students whose strengths are not purely academic.

The latest inspection describes significant staffing changes and an ambitious curriculum redesign across phases. It also highlights the key teaching challenge: some teachers, especially in secondary, do not check learning consistently enough to identify misconceptions and gaps, meaning teaching is not always adapted to meet need in the moment. That is a specific problem, and it tends to show up for students as uneven lesson-to-lesson experience.

Aylesford’s post-16 and post-18 picture is best understood through two lenses: the destinations mix, and the level of stretch for the most academically ambitious.

For the 2023/24 leavers cohort (size 70), 40% progressed to university. Apprenticeships account for 9%, employment 31%, and further education 3%. This is a genuinely mixed destinations profile, and for many families that is a positive, because it indicates the school is not pushing every student down a single route, and that careers guidance needs to work for multiple pathways.

Oxbridge outcomes are understandably small in volume, but meaningful as a signal of high-end academic aspiration being supported when it fits the student. Across the measured period, five applications were made to Oxford and Cambridge combined, one offer was secured, and one student ultimately accepted a place at Cambridge.

The school’s careers programme explicitly references working towards the Gatsby Benchmarks and describes structured guidance to support decision-making, workplace experience, and encounters with employers and training providers. For students who are unsure whether university is right for them, that emphasis can reduce drift in Year 11 and Year 12, and make post-16 choices more intentional.

Aylesford has three main entry points: Reception, Year 7, and Year 12. The school states that Reception and Year 7 applications are administered by Warwickshire admissions, while Year 12 is handled directly by the school.

Demand, in practice

Even without distance data, the application numbers give a clear steer on competitiveness.

• Reception: 65 applications for 23 offers, which is 2.83 applications per place, oversubscribed.

• Year 7: 267 applications for 147 offers, which is 1.82 applications per place, also oversubscribed.

The implication is straightforward. For Reception, demand pressure is sharper. For Year 7, competition still exists, but is less intense than the early years intake. If you are considering an all-through pathway starting in Reception, it is sensible to treat securing a place as the main hurdle.

Key dates for 2026 entry

Warwickshire publishes clear coordinated admissions dates. For Reception entry in September 2026, applications open on 1 November 2025 and the deadline is 4.00pm on 15 January 2026, with offers issued on 16 April 2026. For Year 7 entry in September 2026, applications open on 1 September 2025 and close at 4.00pm on 31 October 2025, with offers issued on 2 March 2026.

For sixth form entry, Aylesford’s website provides an application route and documents, but it does not publish a full set of dated deadlines for 2026 entry in the same way the local authority does for Reception and Year 7. In that scenario, parents should treat published policy and the school’s sixth form admissions information as the source of truth, and confirm the timeline directly.

FindMySchool’s Map Search can help families understand how likely they are to be offered a place under typical distance-based rules in Warwickshire, but it is particularly important to cross-check the local authority’s oversubscription criteria for the year you are applying, because small changes can materially affect outcomes.

Aylesford’s pastoral model is unusually well described. The school sets out a six-theme pastoral programme across the year and positions Ambition, Resilience and Kindness as the cultural anchor for behaviour and relationships. It also identifies a defined team structure, including heads of year, attendance staff, and a school counsellor. For parents, that clarity can matter as much as the size of the team, because it signals how quickly concerns are likely to find the right person.

Safeguarding is an area where parents want certainty. The most recent inspection states that safeguarding arrangements are effective.

The main wellbeing tension sits in the difference between phases. Primary behaviour is described as sensible and supportive. Secondary behaviour, while improving, is not consistently meeting the school’s expectations, and inconsistent staff follow-through is identified as part of the problem. For families with children entering Year 7, this is an area worth probing on open events and transition meetings: what does the behaviour system look like day-to-day, and how quickly are issues resolved when they arise?

Aylesford communicates extracurricular as a broad participation offer rather than a niche, elite pathway. The school reports over 35 lunchtime clubs across the secondary phase, and it gives concrete examples: STEM Robot Wars, homework support, board and card games, and a quieter “chilled space” option for students who need a calmer lunchtime. That mix is often what keeps attendance and engagement steady for students who do not naturally attach themselves to sport.

External review also points to a varied programme, with pupils able to take part in clubs including dance, music and debate, and with sixth form students mentoring younger pupils. A practical implication is that older students are not only consumers of enrichment, they are used as part of the school’s leadership and culture-building model, which can strengthen responsibility and belonging for sixth formers.

On the facilities side, the school explicitly lists an astro pitch (full or half), football and cricket pitches, a sports hall, and netball and tennis courts as part of its lettings offer, which is usually a reliable indicator of what is available for student use during the week.

Published school hours are 8.40am to 3.15pm for pupils.

Wraparound care is a common decision point for all-through schools with a primary phase. The school website does not set out a clear breakfast club or after-school club offer in the same way it publishes term dates and curriculum, so families who require wraparound care should confirm availability, hours, and costs directly.

Transport planning is helped by Warwickshire’s dedicated school bus timetable finder for Aylesford, which lists several school routes serving the site. For families who will commute by rail, Warwick and Warwick Parkway are the stations most commonly used for Warwick travel, but practical walkability and bus connections should be checked against your own start and finish times, and the specific year group timetable.

• Secondary behaviour consistency. Behaviour and attitudes were graded as requiring improvement in April 2025, with classroom disruption for some students and inconsistent staff responses identified as the underlying problem. Families should ask what has changed since that inspection, and how consistency is monitored across subjects.

• GCSE progress indicator is negative. A Progress 8 score of -0.36 suggests that, on average, students do not progress as strongly as similar pupils nationally. If your child is academically ambitious, ask how the school targets catch-up and stretch, especially in KS3 and KS4.

• Sixth form pathway needs confirming. The sixth form is clearly part of the all-through model and was graded good in April 2025, but dated admissions deadlines for 2026 entry are not published in the same way as Reception and Year 7 deadlines. If Year 12 entry matters to your plan, confirm the timeline early.

Aylesford School Warwick is a practical all-through choice for families who value continuity and a clearly described culture, with primary results that compare well against England averages and a broad subject and enrichment offer across secondary and post-16. The school is also in a period of improvement under relatively new leadership, and the key remaining question is whether secondary behaviour and lesson-to-lesson consistency are now improving fast enough to shift the GCSE picture.

Who it suits: families in Warwickshire who want an all-through academy with a structured primary curriculum and a broad secondary and post-16 offer, and who are prepared to engage actively with behaviour expectations and transition support, particularly at Year 7.