Portsmouth school term dates, holidays and closures

Portsmouth school closures today, Friday 16 October

No Portsmouth school closures announced for today.

Checked with Portsmouth City Council at 19:59. Closures for weather, heat or other emergencies are listed here from 6am on school days, including late openings and early closures.

What to expect in bad weather

Schools decide individually whether to open. The council collects their decisions on its closures page from about 6am; schools also text or email parents directly and post on their own websites. A late opening means the school opens at the stated time rather than the usual one. In heat, schools stay open but may adjust uniform and outdoor activity, and a closure is rare.

GCSE results, Portsmouth secondary schools

Results for the latest year appear here once the Department for Education publishes its performance tables (provisional in October, final in February).

Attainment 8 is the average grade across eight GCSE subjects (English and maths count double). Progress 8 compares pupils' results with others who had similar results at the end of primary school: zero is average, positive is better than expected. Grade 5+ is the share of pupils achieving a strong pass in both English and maths.

School admissions in Portsmouth

Applications for a place at a Portsmouth school are made to Portsmouth City Council, which coordinates admissions for all state schools in the city including academies. You apply online through the council's admissions service, listing up to three schools in order of preference. Living in Portsmouth, you apply to Portsmouth even if a preferred school is in Hampshire.

Deadlines

Secondary applications (for children in Year 6) close on 31 October; primary, infant and junior applications close on 15 January. Offers are made on 1 March for secondary and 16 April for primary. Applications received after the deadline are dealt with after all on-time applications.

How places are allocated

Each school has a published admission number. If more children apply than there are places, the school's oversubscription criteria decide the order. For community schools in Portsmouth these are, in order: children in care or previously in care; children with a sibling at the school; children living in the school's catchment area; then distance from home to school, measured in a straight line. Faith schools and academies publish their own criteria, which may give priority to church attendance or to feeder schools.

Catchment areas

Most Portsmouth primary schools have a defined catchment area, and living in it gives priority but not a guarantee. The council's catchment checker on its admissions pages shows which catchment an address falls in. Secondary catchments in Portsmouth are broader and several schools use distance alone.

Moving during the year

In-year applications, for a child moving into the city or changing school, are also made through the council, and a place is offered where one exists. The council's Fair Access Protocol places children who cannot easily be placed.

Appeals

If your child is refused a place at a school you applied for, you can appeal to an independent panel. Appeals for secondary places lodged by the date in the offer letter (normally late March) are heard by mid-June; primary appeals lodged by mid-May are heard by mid-July. Infant class size appeals succeed only in limited circumstances because classes for four- to seven-year-olds are capped at 30.

Every school in Portsmouth

61 schools: 45 primary, 10 secondary, 1 all-through, 5 special and alternative provision. Outcomes are as Ofsted publishes them: a single grade for inspections before September 2024, a report card headline for those since.

How to read the Ofsted column

Ofsted has changed how it reports on schools twice in three years, so the column shows whichever of three formats applies to a school's most recent inspection. Hover over an outcome for the full breakdown.

• Single grade (inspections before September 2024): Outstanding Good Requires improvement Inadequate. These stand until the school is next inspected.
• Key judgements (September 2024 to autumn 2025): no overall grade; Ofsted graded four areas (quality of education, behaviour and attitudes, personal development, leadership). Where all four are the same, that grade is shown; otherwise Mixed with the range, worst first.
• Last graded inspection: schools judged Good keep that grade through the shorter ungraded visits Ofsted makes in between; the note shows the grade came from the last full inspection.
• Report card (from November 2025): up to eight areas are each rated Exceptional Strong standard Expected standard Needs attention Urgent improvement. The column sums up the card, for example "Strong standard in 6, expected standard in 2 of 8 areas", with the full area-by-area list on hover; a school placed in Special measures is shown as such.

Sources: Department for Education, Get Information About Schools; Ofsted. Directory updated 16 October 2026.

Free school meals

All children in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 at state schools get a free school lunch. From Year 3 onwards a child qualifies if the household receives Universal Credit (with earnings under the government's threshold), Income Support, income-based Jobseeker's Allowance or Employment and Support Allowance, Child Tax Credit without Working Tax Credit, or asylum support. Apply through Portsmouth City Council's free school meals service; the school is told directly and the meals start within a few days. From September 2026 eligibility extends to every household on Universal Credit.

School uniform

Schools must keep uniform costs down and allow most items to be bought from any shop; branded items should be limited to a few. Portsmouth City Council does not run a general uniform grant, but many schools help families in hardship through their own funds or a pupil premium allocation, and several run uniform swaps. Ask the school office first. Local suppliers for branded items are listed on each school's website.

School transport

Free transport is provided by the council for children who attend their nearest suitable school and live more than two miles away (under eight years old) or three miles away (eight and over), with lower limits for low-income families and no distance limit where a child cannot walk safely or has an education, health and care plan. Applications go to the council's school transport team. Most Portsmouth pupils travel on ordinary First Bus and Stagecoach services with a young person's ticket.

Children with special educational needs

Support starts in the child's own school through its special educational needs coordinator. Where a child needs more than a mainstream school can provide, the council can carry out an education, health and care needs assessment, which may lead to a plan naming a specialist placement. Portsmouth's special schools and its resourced provision in mainstream schools appear in the directory above under Special.