St Albans School reports 59% of GCSE entries at grades 9-8, STAHS 46% at grade 9. Beaumont calls it a record year and publishes no figure. Remarks close 24 September.
GCSE results reached St Albans and Harpenden on Thursday 20 August. A day later, two schools have put a full set of 2026 figures on their own websites. Both charge fees.
Two more have published a claim without a number attached. Nine have published nothing at all.
That is the same pattern this site found on A-level day a week earlier, and it matters for one practical reason. If you are choosing a secondary school this autumn, the only figures you can check yourself are the ones a school chooses to publish.
What each school has published
St Albans High School for Girls, Townsend Avenue, publishes a three-year table. Of all grades awarded in 2026:
- 46% were grade 9, the top grade, against 40% in both 2025 and 2024
- 74% were grades 9 or 8, against 69% in 2025
- 90% were grades 9, 8 or 7, against 85% in 2025
The school also reports that 11 pupils gained straight grade 9s, that 40 gained seven or more grade 9s, and that 30% of the year group scored nothing below a grade 8. It states on the same page that it does not submit its outcomes for league tables and does not report them to news outlets, which makes its own results page the only place those numbers exist.
St Albans School, at the Abbey Gateway, publishes a table too. Its 2026 GCSE figures cover 139 candidates and 1,365 entries:
- 59% of entries at grades 9-8
- 81% at grades 9-7
- 99.8% at grades 9-4
- 100% of candidates gained a 9-4 in at least five subjects, including English and maths
The school adds that 27% of the cohort achieved at least nine grades at 9 or 8, and that 38 candidates, 21% of the year, achieved at least ten.
Beaumont School on Oakwood Drive, an academy judged Outstanding by Ofsted in May 2025, calls 2026 a record-breaking year. It says the year group achieved the best Attainment 8 score in the school’s history “in an unadjusted year of exams” and “the highest ever percentage of grades 9-7, amounting to nearly half of all results”. Headteacher Martin Atkinson said he was “particularly pleased to see such a high proportion of students achieve a strong pass (Grade 5 and above) in both English and Mathematics”.
No percentage is given for either claim. If nearly half of Beaumont’s results really were at grade 7 or above, that is more than double the figure for academies nationally, and it deserves a number.
Nicholas Breakspear Catholic School, Colney Heath Lane, publishes one figure: 90% of students gained a pass in English, and 90% in maths. Its results post says the results are above national and Hertfordshire averages “on all measures”, without giving those measures. Head of School Anne Atkinson said she was “incredibly proud of each and every Year 11 student”.
Katherine Warington School in Harpenden published a celebration piece naming individual pupils, with no percentages. It did the same on A-level day.
Sandringham School posted congratulations to the Year 11 cohort with no figures.
St Albans Girls’ School has not updated its examination results page, which still carries 2025 and says: “This year’s results will replace these shortly.”
Checked on Thursday and Friday and carrying no 2026 GCSE figures on their own sites: Verulam, Roundwood Park, The Marlborough Science Academy, Townsend CofE, St George’s Harpenden and Loreto College. Several of those schools did give numbers to local papers on the day. A figure that exists only inside somebody else’s article is not something a parent can check.
What the national picture actually looks like
Ofqual published the national outcomes at 9.30am on results day. Across England, 21.8% of all GCSE results were awarded at grade 7 or above and 67.0% at grade 4 or above. Both are almost identical to 2025.
In the East of England, which is the region St Albans sits in, it was 22.0% at grade 7 and above and 67.6% at grade 4 and above.
Those numbers include resits taken by older candidates. Strip them out and look only at results issued to 16 year olds, and England rises to 23.1% at grade 7 and above and 70.7% at grade 4 and above.
Why the comparison is not as simple as it looks
Ofqual also breaks results down by type of school, and that table is the one to hold in your head before you compare anything. In England in 2026, the percentage of results at grade 4 and above ran:
- grammar schools 97.4%
- independent schools 88.4%
- local authority comprehensives 68.6%
- academies 68.2%
- secondary modern schools 64.9%
- all state-funded schools 66.1%
- sixth form colleges 32.2%
- further education establishments 17.6%
The bottom two are not failing institutions. They are where GCSE English and maths resits are taken, mostly by students who did not reach a grade 4 at 16, so their figures measure a different job entirely.
The top two matter for St Albans in a different way. Both schools that published a full set of numbers this week are fee-charging, so their results belong next to the independent line at 88.4% and 47.1%, not next to the district’s comprehensives.
Two further limits are worth knowing:
- There is no local authority breakdown in Ofqual’s published data tables. There is an interactive map, but it assigns results to areas using the postcode of the exam centre, not where the student lives. A district with a large selective or independent school ranks high on other people’s children. Any “St Albans came Nth in England” figure comes from that map and should be read with that in mind.
- School percentages and Ofqual percentages are not always the same measure. A school reporting the share of its grades at 9-7 is directly comparable with Ofqual’s grade 7 and above. A school reporting Attainment 8, Progress 8 or “strong pass” figures is not, and those have no national equivalent in the published tables.
What it means for you
If a grade looks wrong, the deadline is 24 September 2026. Two services run through the school, and both close on that date:
- a clerical re-check, which confirms the marks were added up and recorded correctly, returned within 10 calendar days
- a review of marking, which puts the paper in front of a senior examiner, returned within 20 calendar days
Three things families get wrong every year. The request goes through the school’s exams officer, not direct to the exam board. The student has to give written consent. And there is no grade protection, so a reviewed grade can go down as well as up.
The priority service that closed on 20 August covered A levels, AS levels and Level 3 vocational qualifications only. It does not apply to GCSEs, so nobody has missed anything.
If English or maths need retaking, the exams are in early November. On Pearson Edexcel’s final November 2026 timetable, all in the morning:
- English Language Paper 1, Tuesday 3 November
- Maths Paper 1, Wednesday 4 November
- English Language Paper 2, Thursday 5 November
- Maths Paper 2, Friday 6 November
- Maths Paper 3, Monday 9 November
Entries go through the school or college, so speak to the exams officer rather than the board. Students continuing in post-16 education without a grade 4 in English or maths are required to keep working towards one.
Copies of scripts have been available since results day and can be requested through the school. The deadline for copies to support teaching and learning is also 24 September.
Sources
- St Albans High School for Girls, results and leavers’ destinations for the 2026, 2025 and 2024 grade 9, 9-8 and 9-7 percentages and the school’s statement on league tables.
- St Albans School, exam results for the 2026 GCSE candidature, entries, pass rate and grade distribution.
- Beaumont School, 2026 exam achievements for the Attainment 8 and grades 9-7 claims and the headteacher’s quotation.
- Nicholas Breakspear Catholic School, GCSE results 2026 for the English and maths pass figure.
- Katherine Warington School and Sandringham School results-day posts.
- St Albans Girls’ School examination results, still showing 2025 when checked on 21 August 2026.
- Ofqual, Qualification results in England: summer 2026, data tables 19a (region, all ages), 19b (16 year olds) and 20 (centre type).
- JCQ post-results services for the 24 September deadline, the turnaround times and the scope of the priority service.
- Pearson Edexcel GCSE November 2026 examination timetable, final (PDF) for the resit dates.
More on this district’s schools and what they do to the housing market on St Albans house prices, and on what is being built where on St Albans planning news. A-level day is covered in St Albans A-level results 2026.
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