The School Record

Manchester Enterprise Academy Central

Secondary school · Manchester

Lytham Road, Manchester, M14 6PL

About the school

Type of school
Free school (a kind of academy)
Academy trust
Prospere Learning Trust
Ages
11 to 16
Boys or girls
Boys and girls
Sixth form
No
Website
https://www.meacentral.org.uk
Telephone
0161 499 2736
School number (URN)
144755

Other schools run by Prospere Learning Trust

Prospere Learning Trust runs 3 other schools with a page here.

From Get Information about Schools, retrieved 2 September 2026. Schools update their own entries, so these can be out of date.

How big the school is

In 2024 this school had 1,050 places and 1,057 children on roll.

It held 7 more children than its recorded capacity.

In 2018, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 the school had 892 children on roll on average, against 1,057 in 2024.

Places are the whole school added up, every year group together. That is not the number of places a school offers to new children in one year.

Source: Department for Education school capacity collection.

Children in each year group

As counted on one day in January 2026, the most recent school census. These are children, not places.

Children in each year group at Manchester Enterprise Academy Central

Y7 206, Y8 209, Y9 212, Y10 212, Y11 210206Y7209Y8212Y9212Y10210Y11
Source: Department for Education school census, January 2026.
Year groupChildren
Year 7 206
Year 8 209
Year 9 212
Year 10 212
Year 11 210

This is not a list of spare places. Places per year group are not published, and the count is from January. Children join and leave all year, so a year group that looked two under in January can be full by March.

If you are moving into the area and need a place during the school year, ask Manchester. Councils handle applications made during the school year, including for schools that set their own admission rules. They hold the up-to-date position, which this page does not.

Who decides who gets a place

This school sets its own admission rules, through its academy trust, rather than Manchester setting them.

Look on the school's own website for its admission arrangements. An admission authority has to agree its rules every year and publish them. The council still takes the application.

Taken from the kind of school this is, as recorded by the Department for Education. We do not hold this school's rules themselves: a summary of an admission rule is not the rule, and only the admission authority's own published arrangements are binding.

How to apply

Applications for a place starting in September 2027 closed on 31 October 2026, unless your council set a later date.

That is a Saturday, and some councils accept applications until the next working day. Your council's website gives its own closing date.

Councils send every offer for secondary school places on the same day, 1 March 2027 or the next working day.

An application made after the closing date is what the rules call a late application. It is still a normal application and the council still handles it, but it is dealt with after the ones that arrived on time, so it does not get an answer on the day above.

You apply through the council where you live, even for a school in another area. You do not apply to the school. Find your council's secondary school application on GOV.UK.

If you live in Manchester, the council's own page explains how to apply there. Manchester school admissions.

To ask about visiting the school, or anything else about it, contact the school. Website: https://www.meacentral.org.uk. Telephone: 0161 499 2736.

Links and dates can change. Your council's own website has the final word. The dates are set nationally by the School Admissions Code 2021. GOV.UK link checked 23 September 2026. Manchester's page checked 29 September 2026. Contact details from Get Information about Schools.

How many families applied

Preferences expressed and offers made at Year 7, as published by the Department for Education. These describe demand, not whether a particular child would be offered a place.

In the 2026 intake, 149 families named Manchester Enterprise Academy Central as their first preference, and the school made 199 offers.

That is 0.75 first preferences per place offered, higher than 20% of schools admitting at Year 7 in England that year.

More first preferences per place than 20% of comparable schools
Position among schools in England admitting at Year 7, 2026 intake.

Fewer first preferences per place. Across the 5 most recent years held, first preferences per place averaged 0.95 in 2022–2023 and 0.79 in 2025–2026.

First preferences for this school fell 19%, from 194 a year in 2022–2023 to 158 in 2025–2026. Across all 32 schools in Manchester admitting at Year 7, first preferences changed little over the same years, from 6,154 to 6,311.

Counts of families, not places.

Across Manchester as a whole, 77.1% of families applying for a secondary place for September 2026 were offered their first choice, and 93.1% were offered one of the three schools they named. That is a figure for the council, not for this school. How the 2026 round went in Manchester.

Compared with its own past

Fewer families than its recent average put this school first.

In 2026, 149 families put this school first. In 2021 to 2025 the average was 185 a year.

In 2026, 438 families named this school somewhere on their list. In 2021 to 2025 the average was 452 a year.

In 2026, every family who put this school first was offered a place here (149 of 149). In 2021 to 2025 it was 95 in every 100.

In 2026, 7 of the 199 offers went to children living outside Manchester. In 2021 to 2025 the average was 2 a year.

Each figure is compared only with the same figure at this school. "About the same" means within 10 in every 100 of the average.

First preferences and offers at Year 7

Families naming Manchester Enterprise Academy Central first, against the offers it made, for every intake year held.

First preferences from 187 in 2018 to 149 in 2026; Offers made from 206 in 2018 to 199 in 202614016018020022020182020202220242026Offers made199First preferences149
Source: Department for Education, school-level applications and offers. Preferences count families. Offers count places given out on offer day. The vertical axis does not start at zero.
Applications and offers at Year 7, 9 intake years
Intake 1st preferences1st choice All preferencesAny choice Offers madeOffers 1st prefs per placePer place
2026 149 438 199 0.75
2025 166 474 201 0.83
2024 168 445 204 0.82
2023 206 508 202 1.02
2022 182 396 205 0.89
2021 202 438 206 0.98
2020 218 505 200 1.09
2019 203 465 207 0.98
2018 187 432 206 0.91

“Offers made” is the number of offers on offer day, not the number of places the school has.

Source: Department for Education: school-level applications and offers, checked 14 September 2026. All sources.

Where families put this school on their list

In 2026 this school made 199 offers: 149 to families who had named it first, 27 to families who named it second and 9 to families who named it third.

14 offers went to families who named it fourth or lower, or who were admitted another way.

A school is not allowed to treat a family differently because of where it sat on their list. The School Admissions Code says an admission authority must not give extra priority to children whose parents rank preferred schools in a particular order.

The order is used at the end, by the council, and not by the school. Where more than one school could take a child, the council offers the one the family put highest.

Leaving the other boxes empty does not change how this school considers an application. If none of the schools a family names can offer a place, the council has to offer one at a school that has room, and that school may be further away.

Source: Department for Education school level applications and offers, and the School Admissions Code 2021, paragraphs 1.9 and 2.11.

Ofsted

Ofsted changed its inspection framework: the current one publishes several graded areas and no single overall grade, while the previous one published an overall effectiveness grade. Each inspection below states which framework produced it.

Ofsted graded inspection (previous framework), 9 February 2022

Overall effectiveness
Good
Quality of education
Good
Behaviour and attitudes
Outstanding
Personal development
Outstanding
Leadership and management
Outstanding

Ofsted's report for this school

Source: Ofsted: state-funded school inspections management information, checked 14 September 2026. All sources.

If you are refused a place

In 2026, families in Manchester lodged 713 appeals about a secondary school place.

476 of them were heard by a panel and 94 succeeded, which is about 20 in every 100 heard.

The other 237 did not reach a panel. Most appeals that do not are withdrawn because a place comes up first.

This is a record of decisions already made. A panel hears one case at a time and decides it on what that family sets out, so these figures do not indicate what would happen in any particular appeal.

These count appeals about every school in Manchester, not this school. Nobody publishes appeal figures school by school.

Source: Department for Education, admission appeals in England, reporting year 2026.

Waiting lists

Being refused a place does not end the application. Every admission authority has to keep a waiting list until at least 31 December of the school year the child would have started, and some keep them for longer.

A waiting list is not a queue. The rules say a child cannot be given priority for having joined it earlier, or for having applied earlier. The list is put back in order against the school's own admission rules every time a child is added, so a place can move further away as well as nearer.

Councils differ on whether a refused child goes onto the list automatically. The council that sent the refusal is the only place that can say which it does.

From the School Admissions Code 2021, paragraph 2.15.

Children with special educational needs

In January 2026, 62 of the 1,049 children here had an education, health and care plan. That is 6 in every 100. Across schools in England the middle figure is 4 in every 100.

A further 253 were on SEN support, which is help arranged by the school without a plan. That is 24 in every 100, against a middle figure of 15 in every 100 across England.

A school named in a child's education, health and care plan has to admit that child. That duty holds even when the school is full, and it sits outside the rules that decide who gets a place when there are more children than places. Which school is named is decided with the council while the plan is being written, not through the normal application.

Source: Department for Education, special educational needs in England, January 2026 census.

Who goes to this school

In January 2026, 551 of the 1,049 children here were known to be eligible for free school meals. That is 52 in every 100.

More children are eligible here than at half of secondary schools in England, where the middle figure is 27 in every 100.

English was not the first language for 67 in every 100 children here. Across secondary schools the middle figure is 12 in every 100.

This describes the children who go to this school. It is not a measure of the school. Most children go to a school near home, so it is mostly a fact about the streets around it.

This matters when reading results. Across the 3,610 schools we hold 2024 key stage 4 results for, the fifth with the fewest eligible children averaged 81% getting grade 4 or above in English and maths. The fifth with the most averaged 35%.

Those are averages of many schools all over the country. This school's own results are further down this page exactly as published.

Source: Department for Education school census, January 2026. Free school meal eligibility is counted for every pupil on roll.

Exam results

Published by the Department for Education for the whole year group. Figures for smaller cohorts are withheld by DfE to protect pupil privacy and appear here as a dash, not a zero.

Key stage 4: what these numbers are made of

Getting grade 4 or above in English and maths.

Across the 3 years published, this measure ran from 66.3% in 2023 to 73.3% in 2022, a difference of 7 points.

The year group had 216 children, so one child is worth about 0.5 percentage points and that difference is about 14 children.

Half of schools in England move by 6 points or more across the same three years.

Key stage 4 (GCSE)
YearAttainment 8Progress 8 Grade 4+ English & mathsEBacc grade 4+
2024/25 46.10 - 69.9% 25.0%
2023/24 47.30 0.27
likely between 0.07 and 0.47		 66.3% 31.7%
2022/23 47.00 0.17
likely between -0.03 and 0.36		 73.3% 33.3%

Progress 8 compares pupils here with pupils nationally who had similar results at the end of primary school; 0 is average. It is an estimate, and DfE publishes a range it is likely to fall within. Where that range spans zero, the school cannot be said to be above or below average.

Teachers staying and leaving

These come from the School Workforce Census, which follows each teacher into the next year. The numbers count full-time jobs, so a teacher who works half the week counts as half. They are not a count of people.

The share of teachers who left, each year

Counted as full-time jobs rather than people, and counting a move to another state school as leaving this one.

2019 7.4%, 2020 12.4%, 2021 31.9%, 2022 32.8%, 2023 17.4%, 2024 19.9%7.4%201912.4%202031.9%202132.8%202217.4%202319.9%2024
Source: Department for Education, School Workforce Census. The year shown is the census year; leaving is measured by where the teacher was a year later. A small school's figure moves a long way on one or two people.
Census yearTeachers (FTE) Still there a year later Moved to another state school Left state schools Left in total
2024/25 73.4 58.8 7.8 6.8 19.9%
2023/24 76.8 63.4 6.0 7.4 17.4%
2022/23 72.0 48.4 15.0 8.6 32.8%
2021/22 75.2 51.2 14.0 10.0 31.9%
2020/21 61.4 53.8 3.8 3.8 12.4%
2019/20 48.4 44.8 1.0 2.6 7.4%

This is turnover among teachers. It says nothing about the headteacher or the senior leadership team: DfE publishes leadership retention separately and we do not hold it by school.

Catchment area

Nobody publishes a catchment area map for this school that we can read. That does not mean an address is outside its area. It means we hold no map, so we cannot tell you either way.

Where it is, and schools nearby

The 6 nearest secondary schools we hold figures for, by straight-line distance from Manchester Enterprise Academy Central.

Nearby and related

Where these figures come from

Using this information

This is information only, not advice. It may have mistakes in it, or be out of date. Check with the school and the council before you decide anything. We collect these figures from official publications and check them, but mistakes can get through. If you find one, tell us.

Figures current as of 14 September 2026.

This page was updated on 5 November 2026. "Retrieved" is the date of our copy of each source, not the year its figures describe. How we compare schools.