GCSE Biology Tutor Chelmsford: 2026 Grade Counts by School

Leading Tuition's GCSE Biology tutors in Chelmsford are expert one-to-one online teachers who prepare pupils for the separate GCSE (9-1) in Biology around their own school. DfE's provisional summer 2026 table records 790 separate Biology entries from 1,934 pupils at ten Chelmsford schools, and 328 of those entries come from two schools that enter 178 of 180 and 150 of 151 pupils.

Chelmsford here means schools with GIAS postal town Chelmsford and a CM1 or CM2 postcode. They sit inside Essex's table, which lists 90 schools with separate GCSE (9-1) Biology rows under DfE local authority 881, so every figure below belongs to those ten schools and none to the county. Two CM3 schools are shown apart. Rows come from the DfE key stage 4 performance release for 2025/26.

How many pupils at each Chelmsford school sit separate GCSE Biology?

Separate Biology is a subset of the year group. A pupil who is not entered for it sits Combined Science instead, which is a different qualification, and its results are not in the rows used on this page. For each school DfE publishes the number of Biology entries and, separately, the number of pupils at the end of Key Stage 4. The share in the last column is the first figure divided by the second. Nine of the ten Chelmsford schools have 30 or more separate Biology entries, and they are listed here from the highest share entered to the lowest.

GIAS, the government's register of schools, labels Chelmsford County High School for Girls and King Edward VI Grammar School, Chelmsford as selective. It labels Great Baddow High School, Moulsham High School, The Boswells School, The Sandon School, St John Payne Catholic School and Chelmer Valley High School as non-selective. That label is quoted as a fact about admissions, and nothing here ranks one school against another.

The table shows two different kinds of Biology cohort. At the two selective schools almost the whole year group sits the separate paper: 178 of 180 pupils (98.9%) and 150 of 151 (99.3%), which is 328 entries from 331 pupils. At the seven other schools the share runs from 16.1% to 50.6% across the seven, school by school in the table above, with Moulsham at 32.0%, The Beaulieu Park School at 28.0%, St John Payne at 25.5%, The Sandon School at 24.5% and The Boswells School at 22.2%. Pooled, those seven schools enter 439 of 1,501 pupils, which is 29.2%.

What this changes in a tutoring programme is the question being asked. For a child at one of the two selective schools, separate Biology is the default route and the work is about the top of the grade range. For a child at any of the other seven, sitting separate Biology means being in the minority of the year group by DfE's count, with the separate paper entered by 16.1% to 50.6% of pupils, and the tutor starts from the specification the school enters and the child's own marked papers rather than from a general revision list. Our expert GCSE Biology tutors plan the first weeks around that starting point.

Where do the grades fall at each Chelmsford school?

DfE publishes grade counts rather than percentages, and the counts below are grouped into five bands so that a family can see the shape of each school's cohort. Every row adds up to the school's total entries. Grade 7 or above is shown as a count with its share of that school's entries, and the working for each share is the count divided by the entries.

Across all nine schools there are 767 entries from 1,832 pupils. Of those entries 202 are at grade 9, 262 at grades 7 and 8, 237 at grades 5 and 6, 48 at grade 4 and 18 below grade 4, and 202 + 262 + 237 + 48 + 18 = 767. The two selective schools account for 95 + 54 = 149 of the 202 grade 9 entries. Taking the seven other schools alone, 439 entries split into 53 at grade 9 (12.1%), 121 at grades 7 and 8 (27.6%), 200 at grades 5 and 6 (45.6%), 47 at grade 4 (10.7%) and 18 below grade 4 (4.1%). So the single largest band outside the two selective schools is grades 5 and 6, and 65 entries, 14.8%, are at grade 4 or below.

Chelmsford County High School for Girls. Of 178 entries, 95 are at grade 9 (53.4%), 66 at grades 7 and 8 and 17 at grades 5 and 6, and none is below grade 5. Grade 7 or above is 161 entries, 90.4%. For a pupil here the question is rarely whether the paper can be passed. The tutoring time goes on the child's own marked mock papers, finding which Paper 1 or Paper 2 topics are still costing marks near the top of the range.

King Edward VI Grammar School, Chelmsford. Of 150 entries, 54 are at grade 9 (36.0%), 75 at grades 7 and 8, 20 at grades 5 and 6 and 1 at grade 4. Grade 7 or above is 129 entries, 86.0%. The balance is a little different from the girls' school, with 75 entries in the 7 to 8 band against 66, so a programme for a pupil here spends more of its time on turning a secure grade 7 or 8 into a 9.

Great Baddow High School. Of 127 entries, 4 are at grade 9, 24 at grades 7 and 8, 70 at grades 5 and 6, 25 at grade 4 and 4 below grade 4. That is 123 entries at grade 4 or above (96.9%) and 28 at grade 7 or above (22.0%). The 70 entries at grades 5 and 6 are 55.1% of the school's separate Biology entries, which makes the move from a secure 5 or 6 to a 7 the commonest tutoring target for a child who sits the paper there.

Moulsham High School. Of 82 entries, 14 are at grade 9, 19 at grades 7 and 8, 33 at grades 5 and 6, 6 at grade 4 and 10 below grade 4, made up of 1 at grade 1, 4 at grade 2 and 5 at grade 3. Grade 4 or above is 72 entries (87.8%) and grade 7 or above is 33 (40.2%). Moulsham has entries in all five bands, which is why a diagnostic of the individual pupil matters more here than any school average: a child who is at the grade 9 end and a child who is below grade 4 can sit the same paper in the same hall.

The Beaulieu Park School. Of 49 entries, 10 are at grade 9, 26 at grades 7 and 8, 12 at grades 5 and 6 and 1 at grade 4. Grade 7 or above is 36 entries, 73.5%, and every entry is at grade 4 or above. With 49 entries from a cohort of 175 pupils, the separate Biology group is 28.0% of the year, and the 26 entries at grades 7 and 8 are the band where lessons focus on extended written answers.

The Boswells School. Of 53 entries, 10 are at grade 9, 20 at grades 7 and 8, 15 at grades 5 and 6, 6 at grade 4 and 2 below grade 4. Grade 7 or above is 30 entries (56.6%) and grade 4 or above is 51 (96.2%). The spread is wide enough that a tutor needs the child's mock result before choosing between a stretch plan and a securing plan.

The Sandon School. Of 50 entries, 5 are at grade 9, 14 at grades 7 and 8, 27 at grades 5 and 6, 3 at grade 4 and 1 below grade 4. Grade 7 or above is 19 entries, 38.0%, and grade 4 or above is 49 (98.0%). More than half the entries, 27 of 50, sit at grades 5 and 6, so as at Great Baddow the work for many pupils is the step up to a 7.

St John Payne Catholic School, Chelmsford. Of 47 entries, 6 are at grade 9, 10 at grades 7 and 8, 26 at grades 5 and 6 and 5 at grade 4. Every entry is at grade 4 or above, and grade 7 or above is 16 entries (34.0%). The 26 entries at grades 5 and 6 are 55.3% of the school's separate Biology entries, so the programme for a typical pupil here concentrates on the marks that separate a 6 from a 7.

Chelmer Valley High School. Of 31 entries, 4 are at grade 9, 8 at grades 7 and 8, 17 at grades 5 and 6, 1 at grade 4 and 1 below grade 4. Grade 4 or above is 30 entries (96.8%) and grade 7 or above is 12 (38.7%). With 31 entries from 192 pupils, the separate Biology group is 16.1% of the year, so a child in it is one of a small group and the tutor works from that child's own marked papers.

Two cautions apply to every paragraph above. These are counts of entries and the grades recorded for them, and they say nothing about the quality of teaching at any school. They also describe a whole cohort, not a single child: a pupil at any school can still need support with practical-based questions.

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How was the Chelmsford set drawn, and which schools are shown apart?

The set follows two GIAS fields. A school is in the main tables when GIAS gives its town as Chelmsford, its district as Chelmsford and its postcode in the CM1 or CM2 districts, and when DfE's table has a separate GCSE (9-1) Biology row for it. GIAS records a village locality for some of them: Broomfield for Chelmer Valley High School, Sandon for The Sandon School and Writtle for Hylands School. They share the Chelmsford postal town and the CM1 or CM2 postcode, so they are in the set.

Ten schools meet that rule and their separate Biology entries total 790 from 1,934 pupils, which is 31 + 178 + 127 + 23 + 150 + 82 + 47 + 49 + 53 + 50 = 790 entries and 192 + 180 + 251 + 102 + 151 + 256 + 184 + 175 + 239 + 204 = 1,934 pupils. A minimum of 30 entries was used for the main tables, because a grade breakdown of fewer entries says little about a school. Nine schools clear it. Hylands School does not: DfE records 23 entries from 102 pupils (22.5%), made up of 4 at grade 9, 9 at grades 7 and 8, 9 at grades 5 and 6 and 1 at grade 4. Every one of those 23 entries is at grade 4 or above, and 13 are at grade 7 or above.

Two schools have a Chelmsford postal town in GIAS but a CM3 postcode. They are shown here rather than left out, in a table of their own, because a parent searching for Chelmsford schools will meet both names.

New Hall School has 70 entries from 132 pupils (53.0%), with 46 entries at grade 7 or above, 65.7%. GIAS lists it as an other independent school. William de Ferrers School has 42 entries from 234 pupils (17.9%), with 34 entries at grade 4 or above (81.0%) and 13 at grade 7 or above (31.0%). Eight of its 42 entries are below grade 4 (19.0%). GIAS labels it non-selective.

What do the two AQA Biology papers ask, and how are lessons planned against them?

The figures above say who sits the paper and how the grades fall. A tutoring plan also needs the paper itself. AQA GCSE Biology 8461 is assessed by two written exams. Paper 1 covers topics 1 to 4: cell biology, organisation, infection and response, and bioenergetics. Paper 2 covers topics 5 to 7: homeostasis and response, inheritance, variation and evolution, and ecology. Each paper lasts 1 hour 45 minutes, carries 100 marks and is 50% of the GCSE, at Foundation or Higher Tier. The questions are multiple choice, structured, closed short answer and open response. AQA's own GCSE Biology 8461 assessment page sets all of this out.

The arithmetic is plain. Each paper allows 105 minutes for 100 marks, which is 1.05 minutes a mark, and the two papers together are 210 minutes for 200 marks. A pupil who writes slowly on open-response questions is spending minutes that the multiple choice and short answer questions were meant to use, and which a tutor sees by watching the child work through a past paper.

AQA also states that questions in the written exams draw on the required practical activities and count for at least 15% of the overall marks, and that a minimum of eight experiments is required for single science qualifications. A one-to-one lesson can talk through each required experiment in turn: the method, the variables, the result, the conclusion and the evaluation, using the vocabulary the question will use.

A school's exam board is not part of DfE's table, and we hold no sourced record of the board used by any Chelmsford school, so no board is assumed for any of them here. Ask the school's science department which specification your child is entered for. If it is AQA 8461, the paper structure above applies. If it is another board, the programme follows that board's specification and past papers instead, and the grade counts on this page are unchanged either way.

In practice a term of lessons can be split by paper. Topics 1 to 4 are revised and tested against Paper 1 style questions, topics 5 to 7 against Paper 2, and then mixed papers bring the two together under timed conditions. The band a child is likely to be in changes where the time goes. A pupil near grade 9 spends it on the longest open-response answers, a pupil at grades 5 and 6 on the topics that lose marks on every paper, and a pupil at grade 4 or below on the core recall that every question depends on.

How should a family read these figures?

The key stage 4 performance release was published on 15 October 2026 and last updated on 28 October 2026. DfE says the data in this release is provisional, and that approved result amendments schools requested have not been applied when the aggregations were calculated. Read every figure above as the counts recorded so far. A later amendment to a result would shift the counts in a band.

DfE also states that it is not possible to calculate Progress 8 for the academic years 2024/25 and 2025/26, because there is no key stage 2 prior attainment data available to use. So there is no Progress 8 for these Chelmsford cohorts, and DfE does not calculate Progress 8 for these cohorts. DfE's table also has no Foundation and Higher Tier split, so none is shown.

Three practical points follow. First, a share entered is not a measure of anything but who sat the paper, and a low share does not mean a weak school, because the table says nothing about the qualification that other pupils sat. Second, the entries at grade 9 or grade 4 are small counts at most schools, and one pupil is one entry. Third, the best guide to a single child is their own mock paper, and an early lesson with a tutor is the quickest way to turn that mock into a plan.

For schools themselves, the register at Get Information about Schools gives each school's address and postcode, so a family can check which side of the CM1, CM2 and CM3 boundary a school falls.

What does one-to-one online GCSE Biology tuition involve for a Chelmsford pupil?

Lessons are one to one, online and with an expert GCSE Biology tutor. The programme is built around the pupil's school, the exam board the school enters and the latest mock paper, which is what the counts on this page suggest is the right starting point for a child in any of the bands. 91% of our students achieve their desired grades. The general approach to the subject is set out on our GCSE Biology tuition page, and a revision-method guide is in our blog on how to revise GCSE Biology.

Many Chelmsford families look for Biology help alongside other GCSEs. We also teach GCSE maths tutors in Chelmsford and GCSE English tutors in Chelmsford, and the wider tuition in Chelmsford page lists every subject we cover for the town.

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