The School Record

The Purbeck School

Secondary school · Dorset

Worgret Road, Wareham, BH20 4PF

This school became an academy on 1 May 2022. Before that it was a community school, under its earlier school number, URN 113855.

About the school

Type of school
Academy
Academy trust
Wessex Multi Academy Trust
Became an academy
1 May 2022. Before that it was a community school, under its earlier school number, URN 113855.
Ages
11 to 18
Boys or girls
Boys and girls
Sixth form
Yes
Website
http://www.purbeck.wessex.ac
Telephone
01929 550077
School number (URN)
148737

Other schools run by Wessex Multi Academy Trust

Wessex Multi Academy Trust runs 7 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 Schools update their own entries, so these can be out of date.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 1,352 places and 1,026 children on roll.

326 places were unfilled, which is 24% of the school.

In 2018, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 the school had 1,029 children on roll on average, against 1,026 in 2024. Some of those years are from its record under an earlier school number.

Its places have grown from 1,247 in 2009 to 1,352 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 The Purbeck School

Y7 165, Y8 181, Y9 172, Y10 179, Y11 165, Y12 75, Y13 85165Y7181Y8172Y9179Y10165Y1175Y1285Y13
Source: Department for Education school census, January 2026.
Year groupChildren
Year 7 165
Year 8 181
Year 9 172
Year 10 179
Year 11 165
Year 12 75
Year 13 85

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 Dorset. 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 Dorset 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 Dorset, the council's own page explains how to apply there. Dorset school admissions.

To ask about visiting the school, or anything else about it, contact the school. Website: http://www.purbeck.wessex.ac. Telephone: 01929 550077.

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. Dorset'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, 156 families named The Purbeck School as their first preference, and the school made 160 offers.

That is 0.97 first preferences per place offered, higher than 56% of schools admitting at Year 7 in England that year.

More first preferences per place than 56% of comparable schools
Position among schools in England admitting at Year 7, 2026 intake.

Little change in first preferences per place. Across the 4 most recent years held, first preferences per place averaged 0.94 in 2023–2024 and 0.97 in 2025–2026.

First preferences for this school changed little, from 166 a year in 2022–2023 to 150 in 2025–2026. Across all 16 schools in Dorset admitting at Year 7, first preferences changed little over the same years, from 2,583 to 2,394.

Counts of families, not places.

Across Dorset as a whole, 97.9% of families applying for a secondary place for September 2026 were offered their first choice, and 99.0% 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 Dorset.

Compared with its own past

About the same number of families as its recent average put this school first.

In 2026, 156 families put this school first. In 2021 to 2025 the average was 162 a year.

In 2026, 241 families named this school somewhere on their list. In 2021 to 2025 the average was 255 a year.

In 2026, every family who put this school first was offered a place here (156 of 156). In 2021 to 2025 it was every family, every year.

In 2026, 2 of the 160 offers went to children living outside Dorset. In 2021 to 2025 the average was 1 a year.

Some of the earlier years are from this school's record under its old school number.

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 The Purbeck School first, against the offers it made, for every intake year held.

First preferences from 144 in 2014 to 156 in 2026; Offers made from 149 in 2014 to 160 in 20261401601802002202014201620182020202220242026Offers made160First preferences156
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.

Figures before 2023 are from this school's earlier record, under its old school number (URN 113855), before it became an academy. The government's school register links the two, and they are the same school.

Applications and offers at Year 7, 13 intake years
Intake 1st preferences1st choice All preferencesAny choice Offers madeOffers 1st prefs per placePer place
2026 156 241 160 0.97
2025 145 246 150 0.97
2024 162 248 172 0.94
2023 161 255 172 0.94
2022
old school number		 170 274 181 0.94
2021
old school number		 174 251 181 0.96
2020
old school number		 163 273 178 0.92
2019
old school number		 186 286 200 0.93
2018
old school number		 175 249 179 0.98
2017
old school number		 207 279 186 1.11
2016
old school number		 145 241 157 0.92
2015
old school number		 153 248 172 0.89
2014
old school number		 144 209 149 0.97

“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 160 offers: 156 to families who had named it first, 2 to families who named it second and 1 to a family who named it third.

1 offer went to a family who named it fourth or lower, or who was 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 ungraded inspection, 30 April 2025

Improved significantly

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 Dorset lodged 85 appeals about a secondary school place.

58 of them were heard by a panel and 22 succeeded, which is about 38 in every 100 heard.

The other 27 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 Dorset, 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, 38 of the 1,022 children here had an education, health and care plan. That is 4 in every 100. That is close to the middle for schools in England, where the middle figure is 4 in every 100.

A further 126 were on SEN support, which is help arranged by the school without a plan. That is 12 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, 219 of the 1,022 children here were known to be eligible for free school meals. That is 21 in every 100.

Fewer 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 6 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 57.3% in 2024 to 72.3% in 2023, a difference of 15 points.

The year group had 164 children, so one child is worth about 0.6 percentage points and that difference is about 25 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 41.90 - 57.3% 13.4%
2023/24 49.90 0.60
likely between 0.39 and 0.81		 72.3% 18.5%
2022/23 44.20 0.08
likely between -0.14 and 0.29		 62.1% 11.8%

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.

2022 13.8%, 2023 12.6%, 2024 11.4%13.8%202212.6%202311.4%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 64.0 56.7 2.5 4.8 11.4%
2023/24 64.1 56.0 4.8 3.3 12.6%
2022/23 62.4 53.8 1.0 7.6 13.8%

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 The Purbeck School.

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.