Silverstone UTC, Towcester

Ofsted's report card from its 29 September 2026 inspection grades Silverstone UTC on 7 areas: 7 expected standard. Report cards replaced single-word judgements in November 2025, on a five-point scale from exceptional to urgent improvement.

Achievement - Expected standard. "This is a highly inclusive school that generally starts educating pupils at age 14."

Attendance and behaviour - Expected standard. "Leaders have an acute understanding of the school's complex context."

Curriculum and teaching - Expected standard. "As a university technical college, leaders are passionate about ensuring that pupils and students, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities, achieve, succeed, and are ready for the world of work."

Inclusion - Expected standard. "Leaders show a real sense of determination to remove barriers to ensure the pupils and students, including pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities, disadvantaged pupils and those with other vulnerabilities, enjoy school and achieve."

Leadership and governance - Expected standard. "Leaders have managed a great deal of change in a relatively brief amount of time."

Personal development and wellbeing - Expected standard. "Pupils develop secure and detailed knowledge through the personal, social and health education (PSHE) curriculum."

Post-16 provision - Expected standard. "The sixth form provides a broad and purposeful post‑16 experience."

Safeguarding standards were met.

Ofsted's next steps for the school: "Leaders should ensure that they embed highly effective teaching and assessment across the school so that the needs of pupils and students in the sixth forms are identified swiftly and that all groups of pupils make positive and sustained progress across the curriculum and achieve consistently well"; "Leaders should continue their work to further improve pupils' attendance, and continue to ensure that pupils behave consistently well and continue to show self-discipline and dedication to their learning"; "Leaders should ensure that the personal development and wellbeing of pupils is further enhanced by a better understanding of fundamental British values in modern Britain"; "School leaders should ensure that they continue to identify the right priorities to continue the school's improvement, and make sure a strategic approach is taken to this work"; "Leaders should ensure that staff receive the leadership training and development required to be as effective as is needed within the leadership roles that they hold".

From the headteacher's welcome: "Welcome to Silverstone UTC, where innovation, ambition, and a commitment to excellence define our approach to education. To play, press and hold the enter key. To stop, release the enter key. "To deliver an ambitious curriculum, creating an educational experience that is rich in opportunity and creates productive, caring and inclusive members of society"."

Coming up: an open evening on Thursday 26 November 2026 and an open day on Saturday 26 June 2027. Check the school's website before you go, as dates can change.

In 2026, pupils at Silverstone UTC averaged an Attainment 8 score of 36.2, the average grade across their best eight GCSEs. The average state school scored 46.3 in West Northamptonshire and 47 across England.

35% passed English and maths at grade 5 or above, against 46% in West Northamptonshire and 47% in England.

That is up from 31.1 in 2025.

Its most recent Progress 8 score, for 2024, was -1.28: pupils made well below average progress compared with pupils nationally who started secondary school at the same level. Progress 8 was not published for 2026.

Disadvantaged pupils averaged an Attainment 8 of 31.4, against 37.3 for other pupils at the school - a gap of 5.9 points.

Pupils sat GCSEs in 18 subjects; after English and maths, the most popular were Physics, Chemistry and Engineering Studies.

Across West Northamptonshire, 76% of families were offered their first-choice secondary school for 2026 entry, and 96% were offered one of the schools they named.

In 2026, families in West Northamptonshire lodged 394 appeals against secondary school offers; 330 reached a hearing and 34 succeeded (10.3% of those heard).

Silverstone UTC is run by its own single-school academy trust.

Of the 104 pupils who finished Year 11 in 2023/24, 76% stayed in education or training for at least two terms, including 44% to a further education college, 9% to an apprenticeship and 5% into work.

Of the 97 students who left the sixth form in 2023/24, 26% went on to university or other higher education, 23% to apprenticeships and 35% into work. 7% went to one of the most selective third of universities.

12.7% of pupils are eligible for free school meals, well below the average state school (25%), and 4.5% speak English as an additional language, against 18.8% on average, according to the 2026 school census.

The largest ethnic groups are White British (77%) and Mixed (5%).

In 2026, 55 pupils (11.9%) received SEN support and 9 (1.9%) had an education, health and care plan, against 16.2% and 4.6% at the average state school. The most common need among them is social, emotional and mental health needs.

There is no railway, tram or Underground station within about three miles of Silverstone UTC.

3 bus stops are within a five-minute walk; the closest is Racing Circuit (adjacent), 160 metres away.

Measured by the 2025 English Indices of Deprivation, the neighbourhood Silverstone UTC stands in is among the 20% least deprived neighbourhoods in England. On income deprivation affecting children it is in the 7th decile, where the 1st is the most deprived. This describes where the school is, not where its pupils live.

In August 2026, police recorded 7 crimes within a mile of the school, most often violence and sexual offences, anti-social behaviour and criminal damage and arson. That is well below the typical figure around schools in West Northamptonshire (90).

In 2024/25, Silverstone UTC issued 118 suspensions, 24.6 for every 100 pupils (the average state school: 6.3), and no permanent exclusions.

The primary schools closest to Silverstone UTC are Silverstone Church of England Primary School (1.5 miles) and Whittlebury Church of England Primary School (1.6 miles). Admission does not depend on which primary a child attends unless the school's policy names feeder schools.