GCSE English Tutor Guildford: 2026 Grades, School by School

Leading Tuition's GCSE English tutors in Guildford are expert one-to-one online teachers who start from DfE's provisional summer 2026 results: 1,516 English Language entries at nine Guildford schools, 84.6% of them at grade 4 or above, and 1,631 English Literature entries at ten, 89.0% at grade 4 or above.

Guildford means the borough in Surrey, not DfE's local authority: DfE publishes Surrey's schools as one table, and this page reads out the Guildford ones. English Language and English Literature are separate GCSEs, so each has its own table below.

Which Guildford schools are in DfE's English tables for summer 2026?

DfE's key stage 4 subject table for summer 2026 lists 89 Surrey schools with a GCSE (9-1) full-course English Language row and 81 with an English Literature row. Surrey is the local authority; Guildford is one of its eleven districts. A school counts as Guildford's here when the Get Information about Schools register (GIAS, extract of 31 October 2026) records its local-authority district as Guildford. Ten schools in each table meet that test.

A postcode shortcut would have drawn the wrong boundary. Of the 89 schools in the Language table, 33 carry a GU postcode, but only 7 of those are in Guildford borough; the other 26 are elsewhere in Surrey. Three Guildford-district schools have other postcodes: Cranmore and Howard of Effingham School are on KT24 Leatherhead addresses, and St Teresa's School is on an RH5 Dorking address. A second source, postcodes.io, agreed with the register for 88 of the 89 schools (the other returned no result) and for all ten in Guildford.

The ten schools are not the same in both tables. Knowl Hill School, a special school, has an English Language row of 6 entries and is left out of the Language table below, which reads schools with 30 or more entries. Royal Grammar School Guildford has an English Literature row and no row in the English Language table, so it appears in the Literature table only. Each table is labelled with its subject and the two are never added together.

DfE labels this release provisional: approved result amendments that schools requested have not been applied, and the grades are those announced on 20 August 2026. Each row below shows the pupils at the end of Key Stage 4 beside the entries, because the two are different counts; a school's entries in this one qualification can be fewer than its pupils.

No Progress 8 exists for these pupils: DfE says it is not possible to calculate Progress 8 for 2024/25 and 2025/26. Nothing in this page measures how much a school added to a pupil's grade, and the grade 4 and grade 7 columns describe where entries finished.

How did each Guildford school do in GCSE English Language in summer 2026?

Across the nine schools with 30 or more English Language entries, DfE records 1,516 entries from a combined cohort of 1,535 pupils. 1,282 entries, 84.6%, were at grade 4 or above and 382, 25.2%, at grade 7 or above. 234 entries finished below grade 4, and 173 of those were at grade 3. Columns 9 to 1 count entries at each grade; U is ungraded and X is absent or pending.

The largest entry is at George Abbot School: 297 entries from a cohort of 299, with 88.2% at grade 4 or above and 28.3% at grade 7 or above. Howard of Effingham School entered 235 of 237 pupils, with 83.4% at grade 4 or above and 53 entries (22.6%) at grade 7 or above. At Ash Manor School, 230 entries from 231 pupils gave 80.4% at grade 4 or above and 14.3% at grade 7 or above; it also has 2 entries at U.

St Peter's Catholic School has 208 entries from 210 pupils, 93.8% at grade 4 or above and 30.3% at grade 7 or above. Guildford County School has 179 entries from 182 pupils: 88.8% at grade 4 or above, 27.4% at grade 7 or above, and 2 entries at X.

Kings College Guildford and Christ's College, Guildford have the lowest grade 4 shares in the table, 66.7% and 63.5%. Kings College Guildford has 117 entries from 120 pupils, 66.7% at grade 4 or above and 21.4% at grade 7 or above; its grade 3 count is 26. Christ's College, Guildford has 115 entries from 118 pupils, 63.5% at grade 4 or above and 10.4% at grade 7 or above, with 29 entries at grade 3. Ash Manor School, Howard of Effingham School and George Abbot School are the other three schools with a grade 3 count above 25.

Two independent schools complete the table. St Teresa's School has 79 entries from 81 pupils, with 78 at grade 4 or above (98.7%) and 39 at grade 7 or above (49.4%). Cranmore has 56 entries from 57 pupils, all 56 at grade 4 or above, and 24 (42.9%) at grade 7 or above. With cohorts of 81 and 57, one pupil moves a school's percentage by more than a point, so those two shares should be read beside the counts.

The Language table is a count of entries at each grade, not a ranking. A pupil's own exam board, mock results and target grade matter more to a tutor than a school's column, which is why a programme begins with the pupil's own papers.

And in GCSE English Literature?

English Literature is a separate GCSE with a separate DfE table, and it holds ten Guildford schools. DfE records 1,631 entries from a combined cohort of 1,683 pupils. 1,452 entries, 89.0%, were at grade 4 or above and 516, 31.6%, at grade 7 or above. 179 entries finished below grade 4, of which 104 were at grade 3. The Literature cohort total is larger than the Language one by the 148 pupils at Royal Grammar School Guildford, which is in this table only.

Royal Grammar School Guildford has 147 entries, every one at grade 4 or above, and 113 of them (76.9%) at grade 7 or above, including 34 at grade 9. GIAS records its admissions policy as selective. Cranmore's 56 entries include 55 at grade 4 or above (98.2%); St Teresa's School has 77 entries, 92.2% at grade 4 or above.

Among the schools with the largest entries, George Abbot School has 288 entries from 299 pupils: 93.4% at grade 4 or above and 13 at grade 9. Howard of Effingham School has 235 from 237, 83.8% at grade 4 or above, with 5 entries at U and 5 at X. Ash Manor School has 224 from 231, 85.7% at grade 4 or above. St Peter's Catholic School has 205 from 210, 94.6% at grade 4 or above and 42.0% at grade 7 or above, the largest grade 7 share in the table after Royal Grammar School Guildford.

Guildford County School has 175 entries from 182 pupils, 92.6% at grade 4 or above, with 14 at grade 9. Kings College Guildford has 113 entries from 120 pupils, 77.9% at grade 4 or above, and Christ's College, Guildford has 111 from 118, 69.4% at grade 4 or above, with 16 at grade 3 and 2 at U.

Where does a school's Literature result sit apart from its Language result?

The two GCSEs share a school but not a result. The table sets each school's Literature share beside its Language share, at grade 4 and at grade 7, with the difference in percentage points between the two printed figures. Royal Grammar School Guildford and Knowl Hill School are left out because each has a row in one table only.

At grade 4 or above, the Literature share is higher at 7 of the 9 schools and lower at 2. The widest gap is at Kings College Guildford: 66.7% in Language and 77.9% in Literature, 11.2 points apart. At St Teresa's School the Language share, 98.7%, is above the Literature share, 92.2%, by 6.5 points. At Howard of Effingham School and St Peter's Catholic School the two grade 4 shares are within a point of each other, 0.4 and 0.8 points.

At grade 7 or above the picture changes. Literature is higher at 5 schools and lower at 4. St Peter's Catholic School has 30.3% in Language and 42.0% in Literature, 11.7 points apart; St Teresa's School has 49.4% and 33.8%, 15.6 points the other way, and Cranmore 42.9% and 28.6%, 14.3 points. Because the cohorts at St Teresa's School and Cranmore are 81 and 57 pupils, those gaps rest on counts of 39 against 26 and 24 against 16.

None of this says which paper a particular pupil finds harder. It does say that a Guildford pupil's English Language result is not a forecast of the Literature one, in either direction, and a programme should not assume the two move together. Our tutors diagnose Language reading, Language writing and Literature essay work separately, and the table is the reason.

What Parents Say

DP

Deborah Prior

★★★★★

Confidence and progress

My son was low in confidence after COVID and the gaps in learning were building up. Using this service helped plug those gaps, rebuild confidence, and improve his ability to learn properly again.

NI

Nicola

★★★★★

Amazing tutors!

We arranged maths and English tuition ahead of GCSEs and both tutors were brilliant. My daughter's grades improved, and by results day she achieved two grades higher than in her mock exams.

S

Saifan Khan

★★★★★

Great Teaching and Focused Learning

I attended an English bootcamp with Leading Tuition and the experience was excellent. The teacher gave focused attention to the small group while keeping the lessons interactive and engaging.

See more reviews on Trustpilot

What changed at each school between summer 2025 and summer 2026?

The same DfE dataset carries the 2024/25 results for the same schools, under the same qualification and subject, with the identifiers read from that version's own metadata. DfE's 2024/25 release is based on revised data, meaning approved result amendments have been applied. The 2025/26 figures are provisional and have not had amendments applied, so the two columns have different status. The table compares one measure only, the share of entries at grade 4 or above, with cohort sizes beside each year.

In English Language, Guildford County School's grade 4 or above share runs from 76.7% of 180 entries in 2024/25 to 88.8% of 179 in 2025/26, a change of 12.1 points; its Literature share runs from 81.2% to 92.6%, 11.4 points. Those are the two largest changes in the table. At George Abbot School the Language share moves from 84.8% to 88.2% and the Literature share from 90.7% to 93.4%, on a cohort of 299 pupils in both years.

Several rows move the other way. Howard of Effingham School's Language share runs from 87.4% to 83.4% and its Literature share from 86.1% to 83.8%; St Peter's Catholic School's Literature share runs from 97.6% to 94.6%; Christ's College, Guildford's from 72.6% to 69.4%. Cranmore is at 100% of 47 entries in Language in 2024/25 and of 56 in 2025/26.

Cohort size changed too. Kings College Guildford's cohort runs from 91 pupils in 2024/25 to 120 in 2025/26, Ash Manor School's from 212 to 231, Cranmore's from 47 to 57 and Christ's College, Guildford's from 129 to 118. A year-on-year change is two counts from two different groups of pupils, so it describes those groups. It is not a progress measure and not a measure of teaching.

What happens to a grade 3 in English at 16?

DfE's maths and English condition of funding says that 16- to 19-year-olds on study programmes without GCSE maths and English grade 4 or above get support to improve their English and maths skills and make progress towards level 2. DfE's guidance, last updated on 24 July 2026, adds that students with a GCSE grade 3 must study towards a GCSE, while students with a GCSE grade 2 or below may study towards either a GCSE or Functional Skills level 2. The guidance names English and maths; a sixth form or college confirms which English GCSE it counts.

In summer 2026 the nine schools in the Language table have 173 English Language entries at grade 3 and 234 below grade 4 in all (grades 1 to 3, U and X). By school, the grade 3 counts are: George Abbot School 27, Howard of Effingham School 30, Ash Manor School 34, Christ's College, Guildford 29, Kings College Guildford 26, Guildford County School 16, St Peter's Catholic School 10, St Teresa's School 1 and Cranmore 0. In English Literature the ten schools have 104 entries at grade 3 and 179 below grade 4.

A grade 3 is one grade short of the first hurdle column in the tables, and a grade 6 is one grade short of the second. Our tutors begin from the pupil's own latest paper, whichever side of a hurdle it falls.

How do Leading Tuition's tutors work with Guildford's GCSE English pupils?

Sessions are one-to-one online with a shared whiteboard. A programme begins with a short diagnostic against the pupil's own school and exam board, then works through that pupil's past papers and marks them against the real mark scheme. Progress is reviewed against the pupil's own target grade at agreed intervals.

AQA's published structure shows what the lessons are built around, and a pupil's school confirms which board it has entered. AQA's English Language specification (8700) has two papers, each a written exam of 1 hour 45 minutes, 80 marks and 50% of the GCSE. Paper 1 pairs one literature fiction text with descriptive or narrative writing; Paper 2 pairs one non-fiction and one literary non-fiction text with writing to present a viewpoint. In each paper the reading carries 40 marks and the writing 40, with 24 marks for content and 16 for technical accuracy in the writing question. Spoken language is a separate endorsement with 0% weighting.

The reading questions differ between the papers. Paper 1 asks one 4-mark question, two 8-mark questions and one 20-mark question on a single text; Paper 2 asks one 4-mark, one 8-mark, one 12-mark and one 16-mark question across two linked texts, and AQA states that all texts in the examination are unseen. A Language lesson therefore works on timed reading answers, on a descriptive or narrative piece and on a viewpoint piece, each marked against the real mark scheme.

AQA's English Literature specification (8702) is weighted differently. Paper 1, Shakespeare and the 19th-century novel, is a 1 hour 45 minute exam of 64 marks and 40% of the GCSE. Paper 2, modern texts and poetry, is a 2 hour 15 minute exam of 96 marks and 60%, and includes unseen poetry. AQA states that all Literature assessments are closed book. A Literature lesson builds essays on the pupil's set texts and practises the unseen poem question, which is why it is planned separately from Language, although AQA says the two specifications are co-teachable.

Our tutors work the same way at any Guildford school, including those not in the tables above, because the lessons are online and start from the pupil's own papers. The GCSE English Language tuition page and the GCSE English Literature tuition page cover the two subjects in more detail, and our GCSE maths tutors in Guildford and A-level English tutors in Guildford pages sit alongside this one. The Guildford tuition hub lists the rest. 91% of Leading Tuition students achieve their desired grades.

DfE's source for every figure here is its key stage 4 performance release for 2025/26, from which the school-level English tables were read: DfE, Key stage 4 performance 2025/26 (provisional). Dataset version 2.0 was published on 15 October 2026 and version 1.0.2, for 2024/25, on 23 April 2026. The boundary uses the GIAS extract of 31 October 2026, and a grade DfE omits for a school whose other rows add to its total is shown as 0.

Frequently Asked Questions