Liverpool's 2024/25 A-level Physics entries, value added and entry requirements, provider by provider, drawn from DfE's own published data.
Book a Free ConsultationA-level Physics in Liverpool is taught at 24 of the city's 30 post-16 providers, which entered 267 students for the qualification in 2024/25. Department for Education value-added data shows only three of those providers clear its own bar for a real finding: University of Liverpool Mathematics School and The Studio School Liverpool measurably above expectation, St Julie's Catholic High School measurably below. The rest, including the city's largest provider, sit inside a confidence interval that still spans zero.
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Book a Free Consultation Message us on WhatsAppDfE publishes A-level Physics entries and grades for every institution separately from its all-subject figures, and that is the basis for the table below. Of the 30 Liverpool post-16 providers carrying any 2024/25 record, 24 entered at least one student for A-level Physics, between them returning 267 entries. Two independent DfE datasets agree on that citywide figure exactly: summing every institution's own entry count reaches 267, and DfE's separate subject-combinations dataset – built from pupil-level combination records rather than subject-by-subject totals – publishes the same 267 for Liverpool students entered for Physics, whatever else they also took.
| Institution | A-level Physics entries, 2024/25 | Share graded A*-B |
|---|---|---|
| The Blue Coat School | 53 | 69.8% |
| University of Liverpool Mathematics School | 37 | 81.1% |
| Liverpool College | 21 | 81.0% |
| King David High School | 18 | 55.6% |
| Calderstones School | 15 | 53.3% |
| St Edward's College | 15 | 40.0% |
| West Derby School | 14 | 57.1% |
| St Hilda's Church of England High School | 11 | 36.4% |
| The Belvedere Academy | 11 | 36.4% |
| Liverpool Life Sciences UTC | 10 | 40.0% |
| St Margaret's Church of England Academy | 9 | 55.6% |
| The City of Liverpool College | 8 | 25.0% |
| North Liverpool Academy | 7 | 28.6% |
| St Julie's Catholic High School | 7 | 0.0% |
| The Studio School Liverpool | 7 | 57.1% |
| Cardinal Heenan Catholic High School | 6 | 33.3% |
| St Francis Xavier's Catholic Academy | 4 | not published |
| Archbishop Blanch CofE High School | 3 | not published |
| Archbishop Beck Catholic College | 2 | not published |
| Broughton Hall Catholic High School | 2 | not published |
| Holly Lodge Girls' College | 2 | not published |
| St John Bosco Arts College | 2 | not published |
| The Academy of St Nicholas | 2 | not published |
| Bellerive FCJ Catholic College | 1 | not published |
Source: DfE, Schools and colleges – subject entries and grades, 2024/25, read 24 September 2026 through the Explore Education Statistics public API, filtered to Liverpool local authority, subject Physics, qualification GCE A level, exam cohort A level. Ranked by entries. "Not published" means DfE suppresses the individual grade breakdown for that institution while still publishing its entry total.
The Blue Coat School enters more Physics students than any other Liverpool provider: 53 in 2024/25, against 37 at the next-largest, University of Liverpool Mathematics School. Blue Coat's A*-B share was 69.8% (37 of 53); University of Liverpool Mathematics School's was higher still, at 81.1% (30 of its 37). Liverpool College, in third place with 21 entries, recorded almost the same A*-B share, 81.0% (17 of 21).
Six Liverpool institutions with a full published 16-to-18 record entered nobody for A-level Physics in 2024/25: Alsop High School, Childwall Sports & Science Academy, Dixons Broadgreen Academy, Gateacre School, LIPA Sixth Form College and Notre Dame Catholic Academy. Each publishes other A-level subjects for the same year, so the absence is a recorded nil, not missing data.
DfE suppresses the individual grade breakdown for the eight smallest Physics cohorts – Archbishop Beck Catholic College, Archbishop Blanch CofE High School, Bellerive FCJ Catholic College, Broughton Hall Catholic High School, Holly Lodge Girls' College, St Francis Xavier's Catholic Academy, St John Bosco Arts College and The Academy of St Nicholas, each with 1 to 4 entries – while still publishing their entry totals; the other 16 institutions have a full A*-E breakdown, and it is those 16 whose value added is examined further down this page.
Our AQA A-level Physics exam board page sets out the specification paper by paper; what matters locally is which Liverpool sixth forms actually enter it. Three do, on their own published pages. Calderstones School names "AQA 7408" directly on its Physics subject page. University of Liverpool Mathematics School states that "the exam board and qualification our students are working towards is AQA Physics A-Level Specification (7408)." St Edward's College's own Physics page describes a three-paper structure weighted 34%, 34% and 32% – the same split AQA's own specification sets for 7408, though the college's page does not name the board outright. AQA's own site confirms the code: "Physics (7408)" sits under AS and A-levels in AQA's subject navigation. We did not find a Liverpool Physics page naming OCR, Edexcel or Eduqas; that reflects what the providers we checked publish, not a claim that no Liverpool sixth form uses another board.
Whether a school requires A-level Maths alongside Physics is where the three providers split. Calderstones is explicit: "You do not need to study A-level Maths but a good grade at GCSE will help." St Edward's College does not state an A-level Maths co-requisite on its Physics page, but its entry requirements set a GCSE Mathematics bar a grade higher for Physics than for its other sciences – grade 7, against grade 6 for Chemistry and Biology, a comparison our Liverpool A-level Chemistry page covers in full. University of Liverpool Mathematics School goes further than either: Mathematics and Further Mathematics sit alongside Physics as two of the four A-levels every student at the school starts on, a curriculum structure our Liverpool A-level Maths page sets out.
The GCSE bar itself is closer between the two providers who publish one. Calderstones asks for "Grade 6 in GCSE Physics or 6/6 in GCSE Trilogy or Synergy Science", with no separate Mathematics grade stated. St Edward's College asks for the same grade 6 in GCSE Physics (or 6/6 in Combined Science Trilogy) plus the grade 7 in GCSE Mathematics already noted.
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DfE's Maths and science subject combinations dataset – a different dataset from the entries table above, built from pupil-level combination records rather than subject-by-subject totals – answers this from the Physics side. According to that dataset, 241 of Liverpool's 267 A-level Physics students in 2024/25 (90.3%) also took Maths; 98 of the same 267 (36.7%) also took Further Maths; and only 8 of the 267 (3.0%) took Physics with no other maths or science A-level at all. Our Liverpool A-level Chemistry page reports the same dataset from Chemistry's side, where only 80 of that subject's 439 students combined it with Physics – a different, smaller slice of the same underlying data.
DfE publishes a value-added score for A-level Physics at each institution separately from its all-subject progress figure, alongside a confidence interval. A result is only a finding once that interval sits entirely on one side of zero; an interval that still crosses zero is noise, whatever the number in the middle reads. Of the 16 Liverpool institutions with a published Physics value-added score in 2024/25, only three clear that bar.
University of Liverpool Mathematics School enters 37 A-level Physics students a year, the second-largest Physics cohort in the city. DfE's value-added measure only matches students with prior attainment data, and on the 36 it could match here, the school's Physics score is +0.45, with a confidence interval of 0.07 to 0.84 that sits entirely above zero – the one Liverpool Physics result significant on a cohort of real size. Its Physics A*-B share, 81.1% (30 of 37), and the fact that 37 of its 50-student A-level cohort (74%) take Physics, are both consistent with that finding rather than separate from it.
Two smaller cohorts also clear the bar. The Studio School Liverpool's Physics value-added score is +0.97, on 7 VA-matched students, with an interval of 0.09 to 1.84 sitting entirely above zero. St Julie's Catholic High School's score is -1.63, also on 7 VA-matched students, with an interval of -2.50 to -0.75 sitting entirely below zero. Seven students is a real result for that specific cohort, not a claim about either school's Physics teaching generally, and neither figure is a ranking claim about the city.
Scale does not by itself produce significance. The Blue Coat School enters more Physics students than anywhere else in Liverpool – 53 in 2024/25 – and its value-added score is -0.17, but the interval runs from -0.49 to 0.15 and crosses zero, so even at that size DfE's own data does not call it a finding. The other 13 Liverpool institutions with a published score sit in the same position: an interval that spans zero, whatever the sign of the midpoint.
Whether your child's sixth form is the one Liverpool result that clears DfE's own bar or one still working from a GCSE Physics or GCSE Maths grade, our expert A-level Physics tutors help students across Liverpool build a plan around their own school's specification and their own marked papers.
Book a Free Consultation Message us on WhatsAppOur expert A-level Physics tutors help students across Liverpool with the full two-year course, from mechanics and electricity through to nuclear physics and the practical endorsement, working from the specification and paper structure their own sixth form actually enters – AQA 7408 for the three providers whose own pages we could confirm it on, and whatever their sixth form has actually set for those we could not. The first session is diagnostic: a student at a sixth form with a strong published Physics record, such as University of Liverpool Mathematics School's 81.1% A*-B share, usually needs exam technique and the harder multi-step calculations; a student at a smaller department, or one still working towards a GCSE Physics or GCSE Mathematics grade a sixth form asks for, usually needs the underlying content rebuilt first.
Where a student is taking Physics alongside Maths, as 241 of Liverpool's 267 Physics students were in 2024/25, our A-level Maths tutors in Liverpool page covers the equivalent record for that subject, our GCSE Physics tutors in Liverpool page covers the step before this one for a student still working towards entry, and you can see everything we run across Liverpool. Every institutional figure on this page can be checked directly on DfE's Compare School and College Performance service.
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267 entries across 24 of the city's 30 post-16 providers. That figure is confirmed two ways in DfE's own data: it is the sum of every institution's own Physics entry count, and it is also the total DfE's separate Maths and science subject combinations dataset publishes for Liverpool students entered for Physics, whatever else they took alongside it.
The Blue Coat School, with 53 entries in 2024/25, against 37 at the next-largest, University of Liverpool Mathematics School. Blue Coat's A*-B share was 69.8% (37 of 53), and 29.9% of its 177 A-level students took Physics.
Rarely. Of 16 Liverpool institutions with a published Physics value-added score for 2024/25, only three have a confidence interval that does not cross zero: University of Liverpool Mathematics School (+0.45, on 36 VA-matched students), The Studio School Liverpool (+0.97, on 7) and St Julie's Catholic High School (-1.63, on 7). Even The Blue Coat School, the largest provider at 53 entries, has an interval that crosses zero (-0.17, -0.49 to 0.15).
The three Liverpool providers whose own pages state it - Calderstones School, St Edward's College and University of Liverpool Mathematics School - all teach AQA's A-level Physics specification, code 7408, confirmed directly on AQA's own site. We did not find a Liverpool provider naming OCR, Edexcel or Eduqas for Physics.
It varies. Calderstones School states outright that a student does not need to study A-level Maths for Physics, though a good GCSE grade helps. St Edward's College sets a GCSE Mathematics bar a grade higher for Physics than for Chemistry or Biology (grade 7 against grade 6) without stating an A-level Maths requirement on its Physics page. University of Liverpool Mathematics School goes further still: Mathematics and Further Mathematics are two of the four A-levels every student at the school starts on alongside Physics.
241 of Liverpool's 267 A-level Physics students in 2024/25 (90.3%) also took Maths, and 98 of the 267 (36.7%) also took Further Maths, according to DfE's Maths and science subject combinations dataset. Only 8 of the 267 (3.0%) took Physics with no other maths or science A-level.
Grade 6 at the two providers that publish a Physics-specific bar. Calderstones School asks for a grade 6 in GCSE Physics, or 6/6 in GCSE Trilogy or Synergy Science. St Edward's College asks for the same grade 6 in GCSE Physics or Combined Science, plus a grade 7 in GCSE Mathematics specifically for Physics - a point higher than its Chemistry or Biology requirement.
One Liverpool sixth form enters 53 Physics students a year and clears none of DfE's significance bar; another enters 37 and is the one result in the city backed by both scale and a confidence interval that clears zero. A tutor who has read the published record for a student's own sixth form starts from a better position than one working from a city average. 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 tutoring across Liverpool or our wider A-level Physics service.
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