Balcarras School Ofsted Rating and Inspection History

The latest Ofsted rating, grades by area and full inspection history for Balcarras School, Cheltenham.

• ← Back to Cheltenham Schools
• Latest inspection 2025-03-04
• URN 136474

About Balcarras School

Balcarras School is a secondary school at East End Road, Charlton Kings, Cheltenham, GL53 8QF. Ofsted has published 7 inspection reports and letters for it since 2000, and its latest graded inspection, on 2025-03-04, graded each area of its work separately, shown below.

This page brings the school's full Ofsted record together: the latest report card or graded inspection, area by area, and every inspection since records began, with a link to each report. It includes the reports for the school it replaced when it became an academy or merged, since Ofsted lists those under a different reference number. To compare it with other schools in town, see the full list of schools in Cheltenham or the secondary school catchment map.

Balcarras School at a Glance

Latest Graded Inspection

Ofsted's graded inspection on 2025-03-04 came between September 2024 and November 2025, when inspections graded each area on the four-point scale (outstanding, good, requires improvement and inadequate) but gave no single overall grade.

Ofsted Inspection History (7 Reports)

Every report Ofsted has published for Balcarras School and the school it replaced, newest first. Short and ungraded inspections check that a school is still at its previous grade rather than grading it afresh, and letters and monitoring visits carry no grade at all.

Data from Ofsted and its monthly management information, published under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Last updated 5 October 2026.

Frequently Asked Questions

What Is Balcarras School's Ofsted Rating?

• Balcarras School's latest graded inspection, on 2025-03-04, graded each area separately with no single overall rating. Quality of education was graded outstanding.
• Its last single overall rating was Outstanding, from 2014-05-20.
• The full report for each inspection is linked in the table above and on Ofsted's page for the school.

How Often Does Ofsted Inspect Balcarras School?

• Ofsted normally inspects a state school about every four years, and sooner if it has concerns or the school was graded needs attention or urgent improvement in any area.
• Its last inspection was on 2025-03-04.

Why Do Some Older Inspections Have No Grade?

• Inspections before September 2005 didn't give a single overall grade, so they have no outcome here; the PDF report sets out what inspectors found.
• Letters, monitoring visits and interim assessments don't give a grade either.

Why Are Some Reports Under a Different Reference Number?

• When a school becomes an academy, or two schools merge, it gets a new unique reference number (URN), and Ofsted files the reports from before the change under the old one. They're included here so you can see the whole history in one place.

Where Does This Data Come From?

• The list of reports comes from Ofsted's Find an Inspection Report service, and the area grades come from Ofsted's monthly management information on school inspections. Both are checked once a month.
• Links between a school and the school it replaced come from the Department for Education's Get Information about Schools register.