Inspection Summary Report - Cambridge House Grammar School

Cambridge House Grammar School

DE Ref No 341-0297

Inspection Summary Report - February 2026

The long-standing vision statement, ‘Together we create futures’, is well understood across the school community and reflects the importance of collaboration at all levels.
The school provides a calm and respectful environment where there are high expectations for positive behaviour and pupils are polite, ready to learn and considerate to others. The pupils live out well the school’s core values of integrity, resilience, empathy and respect.
The evaluative and strategic school development planning prioritises appropriate areas for school improvement. The quality of action-planning is inconsistent across departments: the best practice should be shared and implemented across the school.
There is variation in the quality of the planning, teaching and assessment which is impacting on the consistency of the pupils’ learning experiences across the curriculum, particularly at key stage (KS) 4. The pupils will benefit from more effective marking for improvement by the teachers and planned adaptive teaching strategies to meet the needs and abilities of all.
The school’s recently established model for learning and teaching is well designed and informed appropriately by educational research and consultation. Work remains to embed the model consistently into practice across the school.
The school supports the pupils in overcoming barriers to their learning by identifying their needs at an early stage through effective liaison with the feeder primary schools. Across the curriculum, the pupil’s written and oral literacy skills are underdeveloped, and they require more specific support to improve their literacy skills.
The curriculum at KS 3 and KS 4 is broad and balanced and supports progression into a range of academic and vocational subjects at post-16. Continued review of curriculum provision at KS 4 will provide opportunities to strengthen further the pupils’ progression to appropriate post-16 pathways.
Careers education, information, advice and guidance (CEIAG) is a particular strength of the school’s provision and is aligned well to the school’s vision. It is characterised by high-quality guidance, strong enterprise education and effective CEIAG support for pupils.
The pupils’ many successes and wider achievements are celebrated meaningfully within school and shared regularly with the wider community.
In 2025, most (87%) of the year 12 pupils attained seven or more GCSE qualifications, including English and mathematics, at grades A* to C; this is below the school’s target. GCSE performance at grades A* to B in a majority of subjects is below the corresponding grammar school averages.
At A level, the school is focusing appropriately on improving the proportion of pupils attaining three or more A level (or equivalent) qualifications at grades A* to C which is 61%; this is well below the school’s target. A review of the post-16 subject entry criteria is planned to help guide and support pupils to make appropriate progression pathways and to improve the outcomes they attain in public examinations.
There is a well-established and structured approach to assessing the pupils’ learning, underpinned by a range of quantitative and qualitative information to monitor the progress of the pupils across the year groups. This information informs departmental target-setting. However, some departmental targets are currently set too low, need to reflect higher expectations and be informed by a wider range of first-hand evidence of pupils’ learning.
A key action for the school going forward is to address the undue variation in pupil attainment across subjects at both GCSE and A level.
The development of a community of learning enhances pupils’ learning experiences. Partnerships with local businesses, charities, sporting and cultural organisations enrich the curriculum and deepen the pupils’ sense of belonging to the wider community.
At the time of the inspection, the evidence provided by the school demonstrates that the arrangements for child and adult protection align to the current statutory guidance. ETI will monitor the progress in addressing the following area for action: to update the child and adult protection policy.

Next steps

Cambridge House Grammar School’s vision of the school and local community working together is shared and well understood by pupils, parents and staff. The pupils benefit from the school’s educational, sporting, cultural, business and charitable connections across the wider community. The inspection has highlighted two areas for action which will enable Cambridge House Grammar School to achieve its vision more fully, which are to:

improve the quality and consistency of the planning, teaching and assessment for successful learning; and
improve the pupils’ literacy skills and the overall outcomes they attain in public examinations at KS 4 and post-16.

ETI will monitor the progress of Cambridge House Grammar School in addressing the areas for action. There will be a progress inspection. Sustained external support will be provided to Cambridge House Grammar School to help it address the areas for action in a timely way.