Which of the three A-level Englishes each Liverpool sixth form teaches, on which board, with set texts, GCSE entry grades and DfE value-added scores.
Book a Free ConsultationA-level English in Liverpool is not one qualification but three: English Language, English Literature, and the combined Language and Literature award, and which a sixth form teaches is rarely published outside DfE's own data. Of 31 published English value-added rows for Liverpool's 2024/25 cohort, four are confirmed clear of statistical noise: The Blue Coat School's English Literature (+0.70), Holly Lodge Girls' College's combined award (+0.66), Calderstones School's English Language (+0.62), and The City of Liverpool College's English Literature (−0.47).
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Book a Free ConsultationMessage us on WhatsAppEnglish Language and English Literature are two separate A-levels at most Liverpool sixth forms, graded and taught apart. A minority instead run English Language and Literature as one combined award. The table below is built from DfE's 'Subjects entered at 16 to 18' data for the 2024/25 academic year and records GCE A-level exam entries at the institution named. Three schools also entered small numbers at AS level that are not shown in the table: King David High School (1 English Language AS), Archbishop Beck Catholic College (23 English Literature AS) and The City of Liverpool College (2 English Language AS, 4 English Literature AS).
| Liverpool sixth form / college | English Language | English Literature | English Language & Literature |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Blue Coat School | — | 11 | 5 |
| The Belvedere Academy | 25 | 26 | — |
| Calderstones School | 24 | 13 | — |
| Liverpool College | 9 | 13 | 1 |
| St Edward's College | — | 30 | — |
| King David High School | 12 | 7 | — |
| St Hilda's Church of England High School | 24 | 19 | — |
| The Studio School Liverpool | — | 6 | — |
| North Liverpool Academy | 8 | 4 | — |
| St Francis Xavier's Catholic Academy | — | 5 | — |
| West Derby School | — | — | 6 |
| Notre Dame Catholic Academy | — | 10 | — |
| Archbishop Beck Catholic College | — | 21 | — |
| St Julie's Catholic High School | — | 10 | 5 |
| St Margaret's Church of England Academy | — | 3 | — |
| Archbishop Blanch CofE High School* | 3 | 14 | — |
| Broughton Hall Catholic High School | 12 | 18 | — |
| Bellerive FCJ Catholic College | 6 | 10 | — |
| Dixons Broadgreen Academy | — | — | 11 |
| Liverpool Life Sciences UTC | — | 2 | — |
| Cardinal Heenan Catholic High School | 6 | 10 | — |
| Alsop High School | — | 13 | — |
| The City of Liverpool College | 10 | 16 | — |
| The Academy of St Nicholas | — | — | 6 |
| St John Bosco Arts College | — | 8 | — |
| Holly Lodge Girls' College | — | — | 10 |
| Gateacre School** | 3 | 4 | — |
Two Liverpool institutions checked against the same data enter none of the three English A-levels at all: University of Liverpool Mathematics School, a maths and science specialist free school with a 50-entry A-level cohort and no English A-level among it, and LIPA (Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts) Sixth Form College, which specialises in performing and creative arts qualifications.
*Archbishop Blanch CofE High School's URN 104705 closed on 30 November 2025 when the school converted to academy status as URN 152034; its 2024/25 results, including the figures above, are published under the closed predecessor URN, and the new URN's own subjects-entered page currently carries no table.
**Gateacre School's URN 104700 closed on 30 November 2024 on the same kind of conversion, to open, sponsor-led URN 150956 under the Northern Schools Trust; its 2024/25 English entries are likewise published only under the closed predecessor URN.
In total, 29 Liverpool sixth forms and colleges were checked against DfE's 2024/25 subjects-entered data for this page; 27 returned at least one English A-level entry.
The Blue Coat School is the Liverpool sixth form whose full A-level English specifications are published on its own site. It teaches AQA A Level English Literature B (specification 7717) and AQA A Level English Language and Literature (specification 7707); the same DfE data that separates these two shows no separate English Language entries at Blue Coat, so the combined award is effectively that school's only route into language study at A-level alongside Literature.
For Years 12 and 13 the school's own published wider reading list names Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, Toni Morrison's Beloved, F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, alongside poetry from Carol Ann Duffy, Seamus Heaney and Simon Armitage. This is a published context and wider-reading list rather than a verbatim exam-board set-text list, and the school states its curriculum maps are under review, so it is worth confirming the live list directly with the school rather than treating it as fixed for two years.
Every other Liverpool sixth form in the table above sets its own board and specification, and that detail is not published as consistently across school websites. AQA alone runs two separate A-level Literature specifications, A and B, as well as the combined Language and Literature award; Edexcel, OCR, WJEC Eduqas and CIE each publish their own specifications with different paper structures and non-exam assessment requirements. Rather than repeat that generic board detail here, see Leading Tuition's A-level English Literature and A-level English Language guides for how each board is structured nationally, or the AQA A-level English Literature page for board-specific detail. This page is about which Liverpool provider teaches which, not how any one board's papers work in general.
Whichever of the three English A-levels your child's sixth form runs, our Liverpool tutors work from their actual specification, exam board and set texts from the first session, not a generic course.
Book a Free ConsultationMessage us on WhatsAppDfE's 'Schools and colleges - qualification and subject value added' data set publishes, for each school and each A-level subject, how far a cohort's grades differ from what students with the same prior attainment achieved nationally. Zero means exactly in line with expectation. Every score is published with a 95% confidence interval and the number of exam entries it is based on, and the interval matters as much as the number itself: when it spans zero, the true value could be anywhere from a below-average result to an above-average one, and the single figure on its own is not evidence of anything.
A complete query of every Liverpool local authority institution in DfE's data set finds 31 published English value-added rows for 2024/25. The table below shows the ten institutions and sixteen subject-level results with either a score confirmed clear of zero or a result otherwise worth naming. Four are confirmed clear of zero at both ends of their interval: The Blue Coat School's English Literature at +0.70 (interval +0.14 to +1.25, 11 entries), Holly Lodge Girls' College's English Language and Literature at +0.66 (interval +0.13 to +1.20, 10 entries), Calderstones School's English Language at +0.62 (interval +0.27 to +0.96, 23 entries), and The City of Liverpool College's English Literature at −0.47 (interval −0.93 to −0.01, 16 entries). Three of these four rest on 16 exam entries or fewer; only Calderstones' English Language result draws on a larger cohort. Two further scores sit exactly on the boundary, with a lower confidence interval of 0.00, and are not counted among the four: Archbishop Beck Catholic College's English Literature at +0.40 (interval 0.00 to +0.80, 21 entries) and St Hilda's Church of England High School's English Language at +0.34 (interval 0.00 to +0.68, 24 entries). Every other published score below has an interval that clearly crosses zero.
| Sixth form | Subject | Value added | 95% confidence interval | Entries | Clear of zero? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Blue Coat School | English Literature | +0.70 | +0.14 to +1.25 | 11 | Yes |
| Holly Lodge Girls' College | English Language & Literature | +0.66 | +0.13 to +1.20 | 10 | Yes |
| Calderstones School | English Language | +0.62 | +0.27 to +0.96 | 23 | Yes |
| St Hilda's Church of England High School | English Literature | +0.41 | −0.01 to +0.83 | 19 | No — spans zero |
| Archbishop Beck Catholic College | English Literature | +0.40 | 0.00 to +0.80 | 21 | No — touches zero at lower bound |
| St Hilda's Church of England High School | English Language | +0.34 | 0.00 to +0.68 | 24 | No — touches zero at lower bound |
| Liverpool College | English Language | +0.31 | −0.28 to +0.90 | 8 | No — spans zero |
| The Belvedere Academy | English Literature | +0.17 | −0.19 to +0.53 | 26 | No — spans zero |
| King David High School | English Language | +0.15 | −0.33 to +0.63 | 12 | No — spans zero |
| Calderstones School | English Literature | +0.13 | −0.38 to +0.64 | 13 | No — spans zero |
| St Edward's College | English Literature | +0.09 | −0.25 to +0.42 | 30 | No — spans zero |
| The City of Liverpool College | English Language | −0.41 | −1.00 to +0.18 | 8 | No — spans zero |
| Liverpool College | English Literature | −0.19 | −0.69 to +0.32 | 13 | No — spans zero |
| The Belvedere Academy | English Language | −0.25 | −0.58 to +0.09 | 25 | No — spans zero |
| The City of Liverpool College | English Literature | −0.47 | −0.93 to −0.01 | 16 | Yes |
| King David High School | English Literature | −0.66 | −1.35 to +0.03 | 7 | No — spans zero |
King David High School's English Language score is +0.15 (interval −0.33 to +0.63, 12 entries) against an English Literature score of −0.66 (interval −1.35 to +0.03, 7 entries). The raw estimates differ by 0.81 of a grade, but both intervals span zero and the Literature figure rests on only 7 entries, so neither result is statistically distinguishable from average, and the gap between them is not a finding. The Belvedere Academy shows a similar pattern in reverse: English Language −0.25 (interval −0.58 to +0.09, 25 entries) against English Literature +0.17 (interval −0.19 to +0.53, 26 entries). Again, neither figure clears zero, so this is not a reliable difference either — it is presented here with its full interval and entry count so a reader can judge that for themselves rather than take a single number on trust. The City of Liverpool College's English Literature score is the only one of the four confirmed clear of zero to fall below it: at −0.47 (interval −0.93 to −0.01, 16 entries), its 2024/25 English Literature cohort achieved less, on average, than students with the same prior attainment did nationally, and the interval confirms that is not simply noise. The same college's English Language score, by contrast, is −0.41 but spans zero (interval −1.00 to +0.18, 8 entries), so only its Literature result is a reliable finding.
A published value-added score tells you how a school's cohort performed on average — not how your own child will do. Our Liverpool A-level English tutors build a programme around a student's own strengths and gaps, whatever their sixth form's published record.
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Liverpool sixth forms do not publish a uniform GCSE entry grade for A-level English, and most state only a whole sixth-form minimum rather than a subject-specific one. The Blue Coat School's 2024 sixth form admissions booklet sets grade 6 in GCSE Mathematics and grade 6 in GCSE English (Language or Literature) as the baseline for a four-A-level programme, alongside 52 points across a student's best 8 GCSEs. That is the clearest published figure found in this research. Treat it as one sixth form's stated minimum rather than a citywide standard, and check directly with any other Liverpool school before assuming the same threshold applies there.
A tutor who already knows whether a student is taking English Language, English Literature or the combined award, on which board, starts from a stronger position than one working from a generic A-level English syllabus. Our Liverpool A-level English tutoring is built around a student's own sixth form: their exam board and specification, the set texts their course actually uses, and the assessment objectives that board weights differently from the others. Where a school's value-added record for English is below average, or simply not distinguishable from average on the published data, that is a conversation for a programme to address directly rather than a reason to assume a student is on the wrong track. 91% of Leading Tuition's students achieve their desired grades, and we are rated 4.8 out of 5 on Trustpilot from 59 reviews. Explore our wider A-level tutoring across Liverpool or see how we work with GCSE English students in the city before their sixth form options are set.
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Book a Free ConsultationMessage us on WhatsAppSix of the 27 Liverpool sixth forms and colleges with a published English A-level entry for 2024/25 ran the combined English Language and Literature award as their only English A-level: West Derby School (6 entries), Dixons Broadgreen Academy (11), The Academy of St Nicholas (6) and Holly Lodge Girls' College (10), plus Liverpool College (1, alongside separate Language and Literature courses) and St Julie's Catholic High School (5, alongside Literature). Source: DfE Compare School and College Performance, 'Subjects entered at 16 to 18', 2024/25.
Four, out of 31 published English value-added rows across Liverpool's sixth forms and colleges for 2024/25: The Blue Coat School's English Literature at +0.70 (11 entries), Holly Lodge Girls' College's English Language and Literature at +0.66 (10 entries), Calderstones School's English Language at +0.62 (23 entries), and The City of Liverpool College's English Literature at −0.47 (16 entries). Three of the four rest on 16 entries or fewer. Every other score has an interval spanning zero, except two that touch it exactly at the lower bound — Archbishop Beck Catholic College's English Literature (+0.40) and St Hilda's English Language (+0.34) — not counted among the four.
The Blue Coat School's published Years 12-13 wider reading list for A-level English names Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, Toni Morrison's Beloved, F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, and poetry by Carol Ann Duffy, Seamus Heaney and Simon Armitage. The school teaches AQA A Level English Literature B (specification 7717) and AQA A Level English Language and Literature (specification 7707). Reading lists are published per year group and can change year to year; confirm the current list directly with the school.
Requirements vary by sixth form and most schools publish only a whole-programme minimum rather than a subject-specific one. The Blue Coat School's 2024 admissions booklet sets grade 6 in GCSE Mathematics and grade 6 in GCSE English (Language or Literature) as the baseline for a four-A-level programme, alongside 52 points across a student's best 8 GCSEs. Treat this as one sixth form's published minimum rather than a citywide standard, and check directly with any other school before assuming the same threshold applies.
Not directly. DfE's school-level performance tables publish an all-subject average grade and progress score per institution, not a subject-specific grade for English. What is published subject by subject is the exam-entry count in each of the three English A-levels, from the 'Subjects entered at 16 to 18' data, and separately a subject value-added score with a confidence interval, from the 'qualification and subject value added' data set — both used throughout this page in place of an unpublished subject grade.
Both are specialist providers. University of Liverpool Mathematics School is a maths and science free school whose 2024/25 subjects-entered table carries no English A-level of any kind despite 50 total A-level exam entries recorded for the institution. LIPA (Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts) Sixth Form College specialises in performing and creative arts qualifications and likewise returns zero rows for English Language, English Literature or the combined award in the same DfE table for 2024/25.
Gateacre School's URN 104700 closed on 30 November 2024 when the school converted to a sponsor-led academy; it continues, open, as URN 150956 under the Northern Schools Trust at the same Hedgefield Road site. DfE's 2024/25 results, including English Language (3 entries) and English Literature (4 entries), are published under the closed predecessor URN 104700; URN 150956's own subjects-entered page currently returns no table. Archbishop Blanch CofE High School shows the identical pattern for the same reason.
We work from your sixth form's actual board, specification and set texts — not a generic A-level English course.
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