Attainment and Attendance in Lewes

What the national model behind How to Pull the Right Lever says about the district’s secondary schools, within East Sussex and alongside Brighton and Hove. Draft for discussion.

Author
Affiliation

Adam Dennett

Bartlett Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, University College London

Published

November 2, 2026

WarningDraft for discussion

One of the district documents for Sussex. It sits beneath the East Sussex document, and the district summary compares all of the districts. Every figure comes from published Department for Education data and the national models of How to Pull the Right Lever. Nothing uses pupil-level records. The commentary is written to a common pattern from the figures; read it as a starting point for discussion.

Summary

Lewes’s results are below the middle of England’s districts, on an intake less disadvantaged than England’s. Its 6 state secondary schools are in Lewes, Newhaven, Peacehaven and Seaford.

  • Overall results: 45.4 in Attainment 8 in 2024/25, 155th of 264 districts in England.
  • Disadvantage: 21.5% of pupils are disadvantaged, against 28.3% nationally.
  • Disadvantaged pupils average 32.2, below the national 37.8 (234th of 264).
  • The gap between disadvantaged pupils and the rest is 16.7 points, the 21st widest of 264.

The other findings:

  • For all pupils, Lewes is 0.1 points below England. The largest pieces in the national model are prior attainment (-1.6) and absence (-1.3). The district’s schools add 2.5 points beyond what the model expects.
  • For disadvantaged pupils it is 4.0 points below England. The largest pieces are absence (-1.5) and being in the South East (-1.3), and the schools add 0.6 points beyond what the model expects.
  • A district effect on the published model disappears once each school’s own record is counted. On the published model Lewes differs from the rest of East Sussex for all pupils (+4.4%) and non-disadvantaged pupils (+4.6%), but that difference belongs to particular schools, not to the place.
  • 5 of the 6 schools are above expectation over 2021/22 to 2024/25. The strongest is King’s Academy Ringmer (+5.3); the weakest Chailey School (-1.1).
  • Absence was 10.1% in autumn and spring 2025/26 (9.7% a year earlier), against 8.0% for England and 8.9% for East Sussex. Over 2021/22 to 2024/25 its schools ran 0.2 points above what their intakes predict, and Seahaven Academy and Priory School more than a point above.
  • Reduced timetables run at 1.0 times the national rate, and suspensions at 0.9 times (18.7 episodes per 100 pupils, against 21.2). That counts episodes, not pupils: 6.7 pupils per 100 were suspended at least once, about 2.8 times each, against 7.3 per 100 and 2.9 times in England.
  • Disadvantaged groups are small, 18 to 50 pupils a year per school. Every school-level figure for them moves from year to year and should be read over several years.

1 About this analysis

Lewes is a district of East Sussex, not a local authority, and that shapes what can be said:

  • The national models place schools in local authorities. The “local authority effect” in this document is East Sussex’s, shared with every school in the county.
  • What is particular to Lewes shows up in its schools’ own residuals, and in the district test of Section 6.
  • Absence and exclusions are summed over the district’s 6 schools, followed through any change of URN.

The methods are described in full in the East Sussex document.

2 The district’s schools

Lewes’s state-funded secondary schools, coloured by overall absence in 2024/25. Choose another measure from the menu above the map; circle size is the school’s roll. Hover for figures and who runs each school.

Every state-funded secondary school in the district, 2024/25, with the size of its disadvantaged Year 11 group. Ofsted (model) is the rating the model uses, from the last graded inspection before September 2024. Ofsted, latest is the most recent judgement in Ofsted’s data as at 30 September 2026, which is a report card’s achievement and curriculum grades, the quality of education grade for an inspection between September 2024 and November 2025 that gave no overall grade, or otherwise the last graded inspection.
School Town Type Pupils FSM % Disadvantaged in Year 11 Absence % KS2 Att 8 Att 8 disadv. Ofsted (model) Ofsted, latest
Chailey School Lewes Maintained 855 10.7 18 6.8 5.6 49.2 36.2 Good (Feb 2012) Report card (Feb 2026): achievement Expected standard, curriculum and teaching Expected standard
King's Academy Ringmer Lewes Academy 642 24.2 24 10.0 2.7 47.5 32.1 Good (May 2019) Standards maintained (Nov 2024, ungraded visit)
Priory School Lewes Maintained 1163 20.9 47 12.1 5.3 46.3 25.5 Good (Feb 2015) Remains Good (Nov 2023, ungraded visit)
Seahaven Academy Newhaven Academy 745 30.2 42 12.6 1.7 40.2 32.4 Good (Nov 2021) Report card (Nov 2025): achievement Expected standard, curriculum and teaching Expected standard
Peacehaven Community School Peacehaven Academy 903 28.7 50 11.2 -0.1 39.7 28.8 Good (Oct 2023) Good (Oct 2023)
Seaford Head School Seaford Academy 1448 14.2 33 8.6 3.9 49.4 38.4 Outstanding (Sep 2017) Remains Outstanding (Nov 2023, ungraded visit)

2 of the 6 schools are maintained by East Sussex County Council. The academies are run as follows:

  • King’s Academy Ringmer, in King’s Group Academies;
  • Peacehaven Community School, in Swale Academies Trust;
  • Seaford Head School, in Seaford Learning Trust;
  • Seahaven Academy, in United Learning Trust (sponsored);
Figure 1: Who ran each school in 2024/25, and how far its results sat above or below the national model’s expectation over 2021/22 to 2024/25.

3 How Lewes compares

Lewes against East Sussex, Brighton and Hove and England, 2024/25. Means of school-level figures.
Measure Lewes East Sussex Brighton and Hove England
Attainment 8, all pupils 45.4 43.8 45.5 46.8
Attainment 8, disadvantaged 32.2 33.0 33.9 37.7
Attainment 8, non-disadvantaged 49.0 47.5 49.6 49.9
Disadvantage gap (points) 16.7 14.5 15.7 12.2
Disadvantaged (FSM6) % 21.5 25.5 28.8 28.4
Overall absence % 10.2 9.7 11.3 8.6
Persistent absence % 26.5 26.4 30.6 23.9
Mean KS2 (centred) 3.18 3.79 4.71 4.47
EAL % 3.9 6.3 13.0 18.4
Figure 2: Attainment 8 for disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged pupils in East Sussex’s districts, 2024/25, school means. The gap between the two is printed on each district’s line; Lewes is in bold.

Across the years the model covers, the gap was 16.7 points in 2021/22 and 16.7 in 2024/25. Lewes’s non-disadvantaged pupils were above England’s average in 2 of 4 years, and its disadvantaged pupils in 0.

4 What explains attainment in Lewes

Figure 3: Why average Attainment 8 differs from England’s, by factor, all school-years 2021/22 to 2024/25, for Lewes, East Sussex and Brighton and Hove. Approximate Attainment 8 points; the pieces sum to the total in each panel.
The decomposition for Lewes, in Attainment 8 points. ‘Place’ is East Sussex’s effect plus the South East’s; ‘unexplained’ is what the district’s own schools add beyond everything the model accounts for.
Factor All pupils Disadvantaged Non-disadvantaged
Prior attainment (KS2) -1.63 -1.08 -1.53
Absence -1.35 -1.51 -1.10
English as an additional language -0.42 -1.15 -0.61
Teacher workforce -0.20 +0.00 -0.19
Place (region and local authority) -0.00 -1.03 +0.28
Other model terms +0.19 -0.25 +0.16
Ofsted rating +0.36 +0.33 +0.33
Disadvantage (% FSM) +0.41 -0.15 +0.22
Unexplained (school residual) +2.53 +0.65 +2.52

For all pupils, Lewes is 0.1 points below England. The pieces of at least a quarter of a point:

  • prior attainment (-1.63);
  • absence (-1.35);
  • being in the South East (-0.46);
  • East Sussex’s county-wide effect (+0.46);
  • English as an additional language (-0.42);
  • the level of disadvantage (+0.41);
  • Ofsted ratings (+0.36);
  • and the district’s schools themselves (+2.53), beyond what the model expects.

For disadvantaged pupils, Lewes is 4.0 points below England. The pieces of at least a quarter of a point:

  • absence (-1.51);
  • being in the South East (-1.32);
  • English as an additional language (-1.15);
  • prior attainment (-1.08);
  • Ofsted ratings (+0.33);
  • admissions (-0.30);
  • East Sussex’s county-wide effect (+0.29);
  • and the district’s schools themselves (+0.65), beyond what the model expects.

5 The disadvantaged gap, school by school

Figure 4: Each school’s value added for its disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged pupils, mean over the years available (2021/22 to provisional 2025/26). Above zero means better than the national model expects for similar pupils.

1 of the 6 schools is above expectation for non-disadvantaged pupils and more than a point below it for disadvantaged ones: Priory School. Seahaven Academy and King’s Academy Ringmer are above expectation for both groups. The table below gives each school’s own persistent effect, from the model with a school term, which is the steadier measure.

Table 1: Each school’s own persistent effect on the national model with a school term (%), for each group of pupils and for absence beyond what its intake predicts. Positive absence is worse.
School All pupils Disadvantaged Non-disadvantaged Absence (stage 1)
Chailey School -0.6 -8.9 -1.4 -16.1
Priory School +8.5 -4.5 +8.8 +15.8
Seaford Head School +0.7 +2.8 -1.5 -7.5
Seahaven Academy +5.2 +8.6 +2.6 +32.5
King's Academy Ringmer +10.8 +14.9 +7.1 -7.4
Peacehaven Community School +0.6 -3.1 +0.8 -3.3
Table 2: Attainment 8 of each school’s disadvantaged pupils, year by year (2025/26 provisional), with the size of the group in 2024/25. Small groups make single years unreliable.
School 2021/22 2022/23 2023/24 2024/25 2025/26 Disadvantaged pupils, 2024/25
Chailey School 34.4 33.4 25.2 36.2 32.2 18
King's Academy Ringmer 36.8 42.6 41.7 32.1 34.8 24
Peacehaven Community School 32.9 25.6 28.2 28.8 32.4 50
Priory School 36.1 33.1 33.0 25.5 31.3 47
Seaford Head School 42.8 32.6 40.8 38.4 38.0 33
Seahaven Academy 35.3 33.3 32.6 32.4 32.0 42

6 Is there a Lewes effect?

The district test of the East Sussex document adds a district level to the national model, with and without each school’s own record.

Table 3: The Lewes district effect, over and above East Sussex’s, with 95% intervals.
Specification Outcome Effect (%) 95% interval Significant
Published specification All pupils +4.4 +1.0 to +7.9 Yes
Published specification Disadvantaged +1.6 -2.4 to +5.7 No
Published specification Non-disadvantaged +4.6 +1.6 to +7.7 Yes
Published specification Absence (stage 1) +0.6 -6.3 to +8.0 No
With a school term All pupils +1.6 -1.6 to +5.0 No
With a school term Disadvantaged +0.5 -2.6 to +3.7 No
With a school term Non-disadvantaged +2.5 -0.8 to +6.1 No
With a school term Absence (stage 1) +0.2 -5.4 to +6.2 No

On the published model, Lewes differs from the rest of East Sussex for all pupils (+4.4%) and non-disadvantaged pupils (+4.6%). With each school’s own record in the model, none of that remains: the difference belongs to particular schools, not to the district as a place.

Figure 5: Each school’s own persistent effect, from the model with a school term: Attainment 8 for all pupils, and absence beyond what its intake predicts.

7 Absence

Figure 6: Overall absence, autumn and spring terms, 2016/17 to 2025/26. Sessions-weighted; 2019/20 not collected.
  • 10.1% absence in autumn and spring 2025/26, against 8.0% for England and 8.9% for East Sussex. A year earlier it was 9.7%.
  • Persistent absence is 25.9%, against 21.6% for England.
  • Against its intake, the district’s schools run 0.24 points above what their pupils’ profiles predict, on average over 2021/22 to 2024/25.
Table 4: Each school’s absence against what its intake predicts, mean 2021/22 to 2024/25, and its reasons in the latest year (percentage of sessions).
School Absence % Predicted by intake % Above prediction Illness Unauthorised Reduced timetable Suspended
Seahaven Academy 13.9 10.5 +3.4 4.6 5.0 0.68 0.69
Priory School 10.9 9.1 +1.7 6.8 3.2 0.17 0.30
Seaford Head School 8.4 8.9 -0.5 4.8 3.0 0.24 0.01
Peacehaven Community School 10.5 11.4 -0.8 4.6 3.1 0.24 0.17
King's Academy Ringmer 9.7 10.8 -1.1 5.8 1.7 0.25 0.55
Chailey School 7.4 8.6 -1.2 3.8 2.0 0.39 0.10
  • Seahaven Academy and Priory School each run more than a point above their predicted absence.
  • Chailey School and King’s Academy Ringmer run more than a point below their predictions.

Reduced timetables account for 0.30% of sessions, against 0.29% in England, 1.0 times the national rate. Seahaven Academy’s rate is the highest in the district.

Table 5: Predicted Attainment 8 gain if each school’s absence fell to the national school average (2024/25). Indicative only.
School District Absence % FSM % Gain, all pupils Gain, disadvantaged Gain from FSM to area average
Priory School Lewes 12.1 20.9 +3.4 +2.7 +0.0
Seahaven Academy Lewes 12.6 30.2 +3.4 +4.0 +0.7
Peacehaven Community School Lewes 11.2 28.7 +2.3 +2.4 +0.6
King's Academy Ringmer Lewes 10.0 24.2 +1.5 +1.5 +0.3
Seaford Head School Lewes 8.6 14.2 +0.1 +0.1 +0.0

5 of the 6 schools are above the national average absence in 2024/25. Bringing them to it would add up to 3.4 points for all pupils, as an indication of scale.

Suspensions were 18.7 episodes per 100 pupils in 2024/25, against 21.2 for England and 28.0 for East Sussex. A rate per 100 pupils counts suspension episodes rather than pupils, and one pupil can be suspended several times in a year, so it is not a percentage of children: 6.7 pupils per 100 were suspended at least once, about 2.8 times each, against 7.3 per 100 and 2.9 times in England.

Table 6: Suspension episodes per 100 pupils, pupils suspended at least once per 100, and permanent exclusions, by school, latest year. One pupil can be suspended more than once, so the first rate runs well above the second.
School Pupils Episodes per 100 Pupils suspended per 100 Permanent exclusions
Seahaven Academy 745 47.9 13.6 4
King's Academy Ringmer 642 32.7 9.8 4
Priory School 1163 22.5 8.1 0
Peacehaven Community School 903 13.8 6.6 1
Chailey School 855 12.2 5.8 0
Seaford Head School 1448 1.5 1.3 0

8 Contextual league tables

Value added, all pupils: observed Attainment 8 minus the national model’s expectation. 2025/26 is provisional.
School 2021/22 2022/23 2023/24 2024/25 2025/26 Mean Years
King's Academy Ringmer +5.8 +4.5 +4.5 +5.8 +7.9 +5.7 5
Priory School +5.8 +4.6 +7.4 +1.6 +2.5 +4.4 5
Seahaven Academy +5.2 +2.6 +1.8 +2.2 +4.4 +3.2 5
Seaford Head School -0.6 +0.0 +1.9 +0.5 +0.6 +0.5 5
Peacehaven Community School -1.5 -1.4 +2.3 +2.6 -0.3 +0.4 5
Chailey School -2.9 -2.3 +3.1 -3.2 -1.7 -1.4 5
Value added, disadvantaged pupils. Small groups; read across years.
School 2021/22 2022/23 2023/24 2024/25 2025/26 Mean Years
King's Academy Ringmer +4.5 +10.6 +10.2 +0.6 +2.9 +5.8 5
Seahaven Academy +2.7 +4.7 +4.0 +3.2 +1.9 +3.3 5
Seaford Head School +1.2 -3.4 +4.8 +2.3 +1.6 +1.3 5
Peacehaven Community School -1.2 -5.0 -1.0 +0.6 +2.6 -0.8 5
Priory School -1.2 -0.9 +0.1 -6.6 -1.7 -2.1 5
Chailey School -6.5 -2.2 -10.7 -1.6 -5.6 -5.3 5
Value added, non-disadvantaged pupils.
School 2021/22 2022/23 2023/24 2024/25 2025/26 Mean Years
Priory School +7.1 +5.7 +8.3 +3.4 +2.5 +5.4 5
King's Academy Ringmer +6.0 +2.7 +2.6 +7.3 +8.2 +5.4 5
Seahaven Academy +6.3 +1.8 +0.6 +1.5 +5.5 +3.1 5
Peacehaven Community School -1.6 +0.4 +3.5 +3.3 -1.6 +0.8 5
Seaford Head School -1.0 +0.0 +0.8 -0.6 +0.1 -0.1 5
Chailey School -2.5 -2.7 +4.4 -3.6 -1.4 -1.2 5

9 Questions for discussion

  1. Disadvantaged pupils. They average 32.2 in Lewes against 37.8 in England, and the district’s schools add 0.6 points for them beyond what the model expects. What do King’s Academy Ringmer and Seahaven Academy, above expectation for these pupils, do that the district’s other schools could share?
  2. Attendance is a lever here. Absence costs the district 1.3 points against England for all pupils, and Seahaven Academy and Priory School run more than a point above what their intakes predict.
  3. Schools, not the place. The district’s apparent effect belongs to particular schools; the question is what is happening in them.
  4. Practice. Reduced timetables and suspensions are close to or below the national rate.
  5. The county. East Sussex’s own effect for disadvantaged pupils is +0.9% (60th of 151), not distinguishable from zero. The county questions in the East Sussex document apply here as well.

Notes on method

Methods and sources are those of the East Sussex document. District membership comes from each school’s postcode (ONS postcode directory, via postcodes.io). Absence and exclusions for the district are summed over its schools, including any predecessor or successor URNs. This document is generated from templates/district_report.qmd by R/20_district_reports.R, from data built by R/17_area_analysis.R, R/18_district_effects.R and R/19_trust_effects.R. Its format is described in AREA_REPORTS.md.