Beacon School Banstead Meets Ofsted Standard in 5 Areas

The Beacon School in Banstead has been graded at the expected standard in five of its six areas by Ofsted, and has met the safeguarding standards. The report was published on 9 September, from an inspection on 16 June.

Four years ago the same school was judged inadequate overall, with behaviour and attitudes also inadequate. That was June 2022. When inspectors returned in May 2023 it was requires improvement in three of five areas, including the quality of education and behaviour.

Inspectors wrote that “leaders have been tenacious in their work since the last inspection” and that “this has led to rapid improvement”.

One area, attendance and behaviour, needs attention. The reason is specific and is not about behaviour.

The grades in full

Ofsted no longer gives a single overall word. Each area is graded separately on a five-point scale: Exceptional, Strong standard, Expected standard, Needs attention, Urgent improvement. Safeguarding sits outside the scale and is either met or not met.

Behaviour is the part that improved

The needs-attention grade covers attendance and behaviour together, and inspectors were clear that the two halves are in different places.

On behaviour, the report says it “has improved significantly since the previous inspection”, that staff hold “consistently high expectations” and that pupils “respond quickly to any reminders about expectations”. The result, in the inspectors’ words, is “a sense of calm and order”. Pupils told inspectors this aspect of the school had improved significantly since the last inspection.

On attendance, the picture is narrower and harder. Attendance is “broadly average overall”, but “the attendance of disadvantaged pupils remains low”. Inspectors accept that rates have improved and that monitoring systems are now well established, but say the work “has not made a sufficient difference for disadvantaged pupils”.

The school’s own absence figures, printed in the report, show the direction of travel:

• overall absence 10.2% in 2023/24, down to 8.9% in 2024/25, against a national 8.4%
• persistent absence 27.3% in 2023/24, down to 22.8% in 2024/25, against a national 23.4%

Persistent absence is now slightly better than the national figure. Overall absence is slightly worse.

The gap that the report keeps returning to

The Beacon’s results are close to average across the board. In 2024/25, 51.2% of pupils got grade 5 or above in English and maths, against a national 45.4%. Attainment 8 was 45.1 against 46.1.

For disadvantaged pupils the numbers are different. In the same year, 20.0% reached grade 5 in English and maths. The national figure for pupils who are not disadvantaged is 53.1%. That is a gap of 33.1 percentage points.

Progress 8 for disadvantaged pupils was -1.00 in 2023/24, against -0.57 nationally.

Inspectors did not treat this as a problem of effort. They found the school “shows ambition through its use of additional funding for disadvantaged pupils”, has “a deep understanding of the barriers that pupils known to social care may face”, and works with a range of agencies. Inclusion was graded at the expected standard. The first of Ofsted’s three next steps is nonetheless blunt: leaders “must increase the intensity of support aimed at improving the attendance of disadvantaged pupils”.

The other two next steps are for teachers to give pupils more chances to deepen their understanding, and to identify the small number of pupils who need extra help with handwriting and spelling.

What else the report records

• The school had 1,022 pupils at the time of the inspection, against a capacity of 1,350, and takes ages 11 to 16
• 16.44% are eligible for free school meals, below the national 28.9%
• 20.35% are on SEN support, well above the national 13.4%
• The post-16 provision has closed since the previous inspection
• The school uses six alternative provisions, two of them unregistered
• 93% of 2023 leavers stayed in education or employment for at least two terms, against 92% nationally

On the wider offer, inspectors singled out the school’s clubs, its sports, its “spelling bees” and a trip to NASA that pupils spoke of excitedly. They noted that leaders “do all they can to break down financial barriers” to trips. They also picked out the school’s “high-quality ‘Bridge’ provision” for pupils with the most complex barriers, which one parent described to inspectors as a “safe place for pupils”.

The Beacon is an academy in the GLF Schools trust, which also runs Banstead Infant School and Nursery.

What it means for you

If you are choosing a secondary school for September 2027, this report changes what the record says about The Beacon. The last full inspection you could have read was from May 2023, and it described a school still in recovery. This one describes one that has reached the standard in five areas, with a named weakness that is about the attendance of a particular group rather than about classroom discipline.

Read the report itself before drawing conclusions from a grade. Under the new system there is no summary word to compare schools by, and the detail is where the differences sit. Ofsted publishes it free on the school’s page at reports.ofsted.gov.uk.

Our grid of the borough’s 2026 Ofsted grades covers the eight Reigate and Banstead schools and colleges graded before this one, and explains how to read the scale. The Beacon’s report was published after that grid was compiled.

Sources

• The Beacon School inspection report, 16 June 2026, published 9 September 2026 (PDF), Ofsted, for every grade, quotation, next step and figure above
• The Beacon School provider page, Ofsted, for the publication date, the pupil numbers and the inspection history
• The Beacon School inspection report, 16 and 17 May 2023 (PDF), Ofsted, for the 2023 judgements
• The Beacon School inspection report, 22 and 23 June 2022 (PDF), Ofsted, for the inadequate overall effectiveness and inadequate behaviour and attitudes grades

More from Reigate News: Ofsted grades across the borough, GCSE results 2026 and house prices.