Of Ealing's 17 state secondaries, two published a school-wide GCSE figure. The council published none. Here is what every school actually put in writing.
Ealing has 17 mainstream state secondary schools. Three days after GCSE results day, two of them have published a school-wide figure for how their pupils did.
Ealing Council has published none at all. It ran a borough analysis of A-level results on 13 August, headlined “A-Level results: How students performed in 2026”, which said the borough continued to outperform London and national averages. For GCSE it has so far published a photo gallery from Dormers Wells High School and a promise of more reaction “as it becomes available”. No borough figure has followed.
We checked the website of every state secondary in the borough, and all three independent senior schools, on 23 August. This is what is actually on the record.
The two state schools that published a figure
Ark Soane Academy in Acton sat its first ever GCSE cohort this summer. The school opened to its founding Year 7 in September 2021. Its press release gives two numbers:
- 54% of grades were at 7 to 9, the old A and A* range.
- 90% of pupils achieved grades 9 to 4 in both English and maths.
William Perkin CofE High School in Greenford published three:
- Almost half of all grades were in the 7 to 9 band.
- 80% of grades were at grade 5 or better.
- Almost 75% of students reached grade 5 or better in both English and maths, which the school says is its highest ever.
William Perkin also states that its students averaged more than a full grade above the national average in every GCSE subject taken, and that this places it in the top 1% of schools nationally. That is the school’s own claim and it is not something the published national statistics allow anyone to check, because Ofqual publishes no subject-level national averages and no school rankings.
The rest published words, not numbers
Every other state secondary in the borough either published nothing about GCSE results, or published something without a school-wide figure in it.
| School | Area | What is on its own website |
|---|---|---|
| Ark Soane Academy | Acton | Press release with two figures |
| William Perkin CofE High | Greenford | News item with three figures |
| Islip Manor High | Northolt | Results-day article naming individual pupils' grades, no school figure. Its GCSE results page is still headed 2025 |
| Dormers Wells High | Southall | Results page updated for 2026, but A-level and BTEC only |
| Villiers High | Southall | Results-day news item, no figures. Results page shows validated 2025 data |
| Elthorne Park High | Hanwell | Homepage carries 83% at 9 to 4 in English and maths, with no year attached |
| Greenford High | Southall | Exam results page still labelled Summer 2025 |
| Featherstone High | Southall | Results page still labelled GCSE Results 2025 |
| Twyford CofE High | Acton | No results item on its news page since 13 July; results page shows 2025 |
| The Ellen Wilkinson School for Girls | Acton | Announces "Excellent GCSE results Summer 2026"; its exam results page carries no figures and points to the DfE |
| Alec Reed Academy | Northolt | Results-day celebration post, no figures |
| Brentside High | Hanwell | No 2026 figures |
| Ark Acton Academy | Acton | No 2026 figures |
| Ada Lovelace CofE High | Ealing | No 2026 figures |
| Ealing Fields CofE High | Ealing | No 2026 figures |
| Drayton Manor High | Hanwell | No 2026 figures |
| The Cardinal Wiseman Catholic School | Greenford | No 2026 figures |
None of that means a school did badly. Publishing results-day percentages is voluntary, the validated figures do not arrive until the Department for Education releases them, and a school that says nothing in August is following the rules rather than hiding something. But it does mean that if you are a parent trying to judge a school this week, there is very little to judge it on.
Islip Manor High School is worth a note of its own. Its results-day article is one of the fullest in the borough, running through individual pupils’ grade profiles including a student who arrived from Lebanon in Year 10 speaking no English and came away with a grade 9 in Arabic and grade 7s in chemistry, physics and maths. What it does not contain is a percentage for the year group. The subject-level percentages on the school’s GCSE results page, including 89% at grades 4 to 9 in biology, sit under a heading marked 2025.
The three independents all published, and all on the same basis
| School | Grade 9 | Grades 9 to 8 | Grades 9 to 7 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Notting Hill & Ealing High (GDST) | 45% | 74% | 91% |
| St Benedict's | Not published | "Almost half" | 66% |
| St Augustine's Priory | Not published | 32% | 54% |
Notting Hill & Ealing High School also reports that 30% of its students achieved seven or more grade 9s and 32% gained straight 9s and 8s, from a cohort of 94. St Benedict’s lists nine pupils with a full set of grades at 9, 8 and 7. St Augustine’s Priory publishes its two percentages on its results page.
One thing to watch on the Notting Hill & Ealing High site: an older article headed “Year 11 Celebrate Best GCSE Results Since Covid” is still prominent, and it is the 2025 release, published on 21 August 2025. Its figures are higher than this year’s.
Why these numbers cannot be put in one table
The three independents report the share of grades awarded at each level. Ark Soane reports both a share of grades and a share of pupils. William Perkin reports a share of grades and a share of pupils. Those are different things, and a school with a strong cohort taking eleven subjects each will look different on the two measures.
The national statistics are on the grades basis, which makes them the fairer comparison for the independents than for the state schools. From Ofqual’s own tables for summer 2026:
| Benchmark | Grade 7 and above | Grade 4 and above |
|---|---|---|
| England, all ages | 21.8% | 67.0% |
| England, 16-year-olds | 23.1% | 70.7% |
| London, all ages | 28.6% | 71.7% |
| London, 16-year-olds | 30.2% | 75.5% |
The bottom row is the one to use. The all-ages figures are dragged down by resits taken in colleges, which no school’s Year 11 cohort contains. Ofqual’s table by centre type makes the size of that effect obvious: further education establishments recorded 17.6% at grade 4 and above this summer, and sixth form colleges 32.2%, against 68.6% at local authority comprehensives and 68.2% at academies.
That table also gives the fair comparator for a fee-charging school. Independent schools nationally recorded 47.1% of grades at 7 and above and 88.4% at 4 and above. Set against that, Notting Hill & Ealing High’s 91% at 9 to 7 and St Benedict’s 66% both sit well clear, and St Augustine’s Priory’s 54% sits above it too. For non-selective state schools the comparator is free schools at 21.7% at grade 7 and above, which is what makes Ark Soane’s 54% and William Perkin’s “almost half” the striking numbers in this year’s crop.
The only Ealing-wide figures that exist are two years old
Because no borough figure is published on results day, the most recent Ealing-wide picture comes from the Department for Education’s validated Key Stage 4 data, which runs to the 2024/25 academic year. On that, across all state-funded pupils:
- Ealing’s Attainment 8 score is 52.0, against 50.5 for London and 46.0 for England.
- 72.8% of Ealing pupils reached grade 4 or better in both English and maths, against 70.6% in London and 64.8% in England.
- 56.7% reached grade 5 or better in both, against 52.9% and 45.4%.
Ealing is also steady. Its Attainment 8 has been 52.0 in each of the last three published years while England’s moved between 45.9 and 46.3. On English and maths at grade 4, Ealing has run at 73.7%, 74.0% and 72.8% over the same three years.
Among neighbouring boroughs on the 2024/25 figures, Ealing is ahead of Brent (70.1% at grade 4 in English and maths), Hounslow (69.9%), Harrow (69.8%) and Hillingdon (68.6%).
The equivalent figures for summer 2026 will not exist until the DfE publishes them, which is normally in the following January for provisional data.
What it means for you
If you are choosing a secondary school this autumn, do not read silence as a bad sign. Fifteen of the borough’s seventeen state secondaries published no school-wide GCSE figure this week, and that group includes schools with long records of strong results. The Department for Education’s school performance service carries validated figures on the same basis for every school, which is the only way to compare them properly.
If your child got a result they want checked, the deadline matters more than the figures. For GCSE, both the clerical re-check and the review of marking close on 24 September 2026. The request goes through the school’s exams officer with the student’s written consent, and there is no grade protection: a grade can go down as well as up. The priority service that ran on 20 August covers A-level, AS and Level 3 vocational qualifications only, not GCSE.
If your child is resitting English or maths, there is a November series, and entries go through the school or college rather than being made by families directly. Speak to the exams officer now rather than in October. We could not reach the awarding body’s November 2026 timetable when we checked on 23 August, so we are not publishing exam dates we have not seen.
Sources
- Ark Soane Academy, GCSE 2026 Press Release, for the 54% at grades 7 to 9 and 90% of pupils at 9 to 4 in English and maths.
- William Perkin CofE High School, GCSE Result Day 2026, for its three figures and its top 1% claim.
- Notting Hill & Ealing High School, GCSE Triumph for Year 11s, published 20 August 2026, for 45% at grade 9, 74% at 9 to 8, 91% at 9 to 7 and the cohort of 94.
- St Benedict’s School, GCSE results for the Class of 2026, for almost half at 9 and 8 and 66% at 9 to 7.
- St Augustine’s Priory, Results and Destinations, for 32% at 9 to 8 and 54% at 9 to 7.
- Ofqual, Qualification results in England: summer 2026, data tables 19a, 19b and 20, for the England, London and centre-type benchmarks.
- Department for Education, Key stage 4 performance, “Geography by school types” dataset, all state-funded pupils, for the Ealing, London, England and neighbouring borough figures to 2024/25.
- Get Information About Schools, for the list of open secondary schools in Ealing and their opening dates.
- JCQ post-results services for the 24 September deadlines and for the fact that the priority service does not cover GCSE.
- Around Ealing, Ealing Council’s own news site, for its A-level analysis and its GCSE results-day gallery.
Every school’s own website was checked on 23 August 2026. Schools publish results voluntarily and may add figures later; if yours has, tell us and we will update this page.
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