Harwich and Dovercourt High School
URN 145061 · Secondary · Academy sponsor led · Essex
Hall Lane, Harwich, CO12 3TG
Ofsted category of concern: Requires significant improvement
At its inspection on 6 January 2026 (Ofsted report card (current framework)), this school was placed in the category requires significant improvement.
Ofsted judged that one or more key areas of the school's performance needed significant improvement, while leaders had the capacity to improve. This category replaced “serious weaknesses”.
This is about that one inspection. Schools do come out of these categories. This page does not tell you where the school stands today. Check that with Ofsted.
How many families applied
Preferences expressed and offers made at Year 7, as published by the Department for Education. These describe demand. They do not indicate whether any particular child would be offered a place.
In the 2025 intake, 201 families named Harwich and Dovercourt High School as their first preference, and the school made 221 offers.
That is 0.91 first preferences per place offered, which places it above 39% of schools admitting at Year 7 in England that year.
position among schools in England admitting at Year 7, 2025 intake
Little change. Across the 5 most recent years held, first preferences per place averaged 0.92 in 2021–2022 and 0.94 in 2024–2025.
| Intake | 1st preferences | All preferences | Offers made | 1st prefs per place |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 201 | 229 | 221 | 0.91 |
| 2024 | 226 | 252 | 234 | 0.97 |
| 2023 | 197 | 224 | 211 | 0.93 |
| 2022 | 187 | 210 | 203 | 0.92 |
| 2021 | 156 | 186 | 169 | 0.92 |
| 2020 | 172 | 201 | 188 | 0.91 |
| 2019 | 164 | 193 | 195 | 0.84 |
| 2018 | 173 | 209 | 192 | 0.90 |
“Offers made” counts the offers the school made. It is not the number of places the school had, so please do not read it as one.
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 report card (current framework), 6 January 2026
Category of concern: Requires significant improvement
Safeguarding: Met
Inclusion: Needs attention
Curriculum and teaching: Needs attention
Achievement: Urgent improvement
Attendance and behaviour: Needs attention
Personal development and wellbeing: Needs attention
Leadership and governance: Needs attention
The current framework does not award an overall grade.
Ofsted's report for this school
Ofsted graded inspection (previous framework), 29 September 2021
Overall effectiveness: Good
Quality of education: Good
Behaviour and attitudes: Good
Personal development: Good
Leadership and management: Good
Early years: 9
Sixth form / post-16: Good
Ofsted's report for this school
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.
| Year | Attainment 8 | Progress 8 | Grade 4+ English & maths | EBacc grade 4+ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024/25 | 37.60 | - | 44.2% | 13.5% |
| 2023/24 | 39.30 | -0.67 likely between -0.87 and -0.47 |
55.6% | 15.1% |
| 2022/23 | 36.20 | -0.68 likely between -0.88 and -0.49 |
42.3% | 5.2% |
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.
| Census year | Teachers (FTE) | Still there a year later | Moved to another state school | Left state schools | Left in total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024/25 | 66.6 | 60.1 | 4.0 | 2.5 | 9.8% |
| 2023/24 | 67.6 | 61.0 | 6.0 | 0.6 | 9.8% |
| 2022/23 | 69.6 | 56.7 | 4.0 | 8.9 | 18.5% |
| 2021/22 | 68.6 | 63.6 | 1.0 | 4.0 | 7.3% |
| 2020/21 | 67.4 | 59.4 | 2.8 | 5.2 | 11.9% |
| 2019/20 | 62.1 | 56.9 | 4.3 | 1.0 | 8.5% |
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
The 6 nearest secondary schools we hold figures for, by straight-line distance from Harwich and Dovercourt High School.
- Felixstowe School: 6.8 km (4.2 miles) north-east, Felixstowe
- Lift Tendring: 9.7 km (6.0 miles) south, Frinton-on-Sea
- Holbrook Academy: 9.8 km (6.1 miles) north-west, Ipswich
- Ipswich Academy: 12.3 km (7.7 miles) north-west, Ipswich
- Manningtree High School: 14.4 km (8.9 miles) west, Manningtree
- Copleston High School: 14.7 km (9.1 miles) north, Ipswich
Nearby and related
- Other schools near Harwich and Dovercourt High School
- All schools in Essex
- Schools in the CO12 postcode district
- What data we hold
- This page as JSON: the same figures, for software that would rather not read a web page
Where these figures come from
- Department for Education: Get Information about Schools. School identity, type, phase and address
Retrieved 2 September 2026 - Ofsted: state-funded school inspections management information. Inspection outcomes, published monthly
Retrieved 4 September 2026 - Department for Education: school-level applications and offers. Preferences and offers, 2018 to 2025 intakes
Retrieved 4 September 2026 - Department for Education: key stage 4 performance. Attainment 8, Progress 8 and EBacc, by school
Retrieved 4 September 2026 - Department for Education: school workforce in England. Teacher turnover, by school, from the School Workforce Census
Retrieved 4 September 2026
This page was made on 9 September 2026. "Retrieved" means the day we downloaded the data. It is not the day the data was written, so the figures can be about an earlier year. How we compare schools.