Stroud High School's Year 11 took 22% of grades at 9 and 74% at 9-7 this summer. Nationally 22% of all GCSE entries reached grade 7 or above. The full figures.
Nearly a quarter of every GCSE grade awarded at Stroud High School this summer was a grade 9, the highest mark available.
The school published its figures on results day, Thursday 20 August. Of all grades awarded to its Year 11:
- 22 per cent were grade 9
- 51 per cent were grades 9 or 8
- 74 per cent were grades 9 to 7
It also gave the spread across students rather than grades. 62.3 per cent of the year group achieved seven or more grades at 9 to 7, 51.3 per cent achieved eight or more, and 33.8 per cent achieved nine or more. The figures are on the school’s own results day announcement.
How that sits against the country
The national picture is published by the Joint Council for Qualifications on the morning of results day. Its 2026 press notice records that across England, Northern Ireland and Wales:
- 22 per cent of GCSE results were awarded grade 7/A or above, against 21.9 per cent in 2025
- 67.3 per cent were awarded grade 4/C or above, against 67.4 per cent in 2025
- 1,130,316 students sat GCSEs, up 1.5 per cent on 2025
Put the two side by side and the comparison is stark. The share of Stroud High grades that were the top grade 9 alone, 22 per cent, matches the national share of grades that reached grade 7 or anything above it.
Stroud High is a selective grammar school, so a comparison with the all-schools national average is a comparison of two different things. It is context, not a league table.
Slightly below a record year
The school’s own Celebrating Success page carries its confirmed 2025 statistics, and 2026 is below them on all three headline measures.
| Measure | 2025 | 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Grades at 9 | 30% | 22% |
| Grades at 9-8 | 59% | 51% |
| Grades at 9-7 | 80% | 74% |
That is a fall, and it is worth saying plainly rather than leaving it out. It is also worth saying what it is measured against. The school called 2025 “historic” and “record-breaking”, and described that year’s results as the highest in each measure since the reformed GCSEs were introduced. The year group that set that record was 160 strong. A single cohort of that size moving a few points off a record is ordinary year-to-year variation rather than a trend, and nationally the top-grade share barely moved at all.
One footnote on the numbers: the 2025 results-day announcement said 78 per cent of grades were at 9 to 7, while the school’s statistics page now says 80 per cent. Both are the school’s own, and the second is the confirmed figure. Either way the direction between the two years is the same.
The school has consistently had one of the highest Progress 8 scores in Gloucestershire, at +0.85 in 2024, +0.77 in 2023 and +0.68 in 2022. There is no Progress 8 score for the 2025 or 2026 cohorts, because those students did not sit Year 6 SATs.
What the staff said
Mark McShane, headteacher, said results day was “always one of the highlights of the school year” and that the sports hall had been “full of smiles, hugs, happy tears and plenty of relieved students and parents”.
“We must never underestimate that these results reflect years of hard work,” he said. “It is no mean feat to perform so highly across the full range of GCSE subjects. The headline figures are excellent, but what matters most are the stories behind them. Every student has their own journey, and today we celebrate those who have exceeded expectations, reached personal goals and overcome challenges along the way.”
Kim Pullon, year leader, said she had worked with the year group throughout their time at the school. “The results are fantastic, but what I’ll remember most are the smiles, the relief and the excitement in the sports hall this morning.”
No other school in the district has published figures
We checked three other secondary schools in the district on 26 August. None had put 2026 GCSE percentages in public.
Katharine Lady Berkeley’s School in Wotton-under-Edge, about 13 miles south of Stroud, published a results day piece on 20 August with a statement from headteacher Hannah Khan but no percentages. She said results day was “only one chapter in a far bigger story”, and that students celebrating exceptional outcomes and students simply pleased to have secured the grades they needed were “both equally important”.
Marling School, the boys’ grammar on Cainscross Road, and Wycliffe College in Stonehouse both still carried older results when we looked. Wycliffe’s GCSE results page was showing 2025 figures and a table running back to 2020. Marling’s most recent GCSE results day story attaches a press release dated 2023.
If any of them publish 2026 figures, we will add them here.
What it means for you
If you are choosing a secondary school, the figures a school publishes on results day are not the ones the government will eventually publish. Verified performance data for this cohort, including Attainment 8 and the English and maths measures, appears on the Department for Education’s Find and compare schools service, and it is the only source that puts every school on the same footing.
If your child missed a grade they needed, the school route matters more than the national one. A review of marking has to be requested through the school that entered you, not by you directly, and the deadlines are set by the exam boards rather than the school. Stroud High publishes its arrangements on its exams page.
Have your say
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