Find a school

Research a school

You may want to research schools in your area or find out specific information about a school. There are resources to help you:

  • On GOV.uk you can find and compare all schools in England including performance information like exam and test results and Ofsted reports
  • Parent View shows what other parents said about a school. 

Types of schools we maintain

Lancashire County Council maintains many types of schools across the county. The autonomy of the school depends on the type of school. The different types of schools we maintain include:

From time to time we review the educational provision of the schools we maintain. You can find out if a school you are interested in is under review in our schools reviews section.

We don't maintain the following types of schools:

Nursery schools

Nursery schools offer early education for eligible three and four year olds. We also offer nursery classes in primary schools. In addition we work with private and voluntary providers to guarantee the provision of early education places in Lancashire.

You can find out more about funded early education for three and four year olds and two year olds.

Primary and secondary schools

There is a mix of community, voluntary controlled, voluntary aided and foundation schools. We co-ordinate applications to schools but who determines the admissions arrangements depends on the type of school.

  • Community schools are controlled by the county council and not influenced by business or religious groups. We co-ordinate applications to the school and determine the admissions arrangements.
  • Voluntary controlled schools are set up by voluntary bodies such as churches or foundations. We co-ordinate applications to the school and determine the admissions arrangements.
  • Voluntary aided schools are set up by voluntary bodies such as churches or foundations. We co-ordinate applications to the school but the school determines the admissions arrangements.
  • Foundation schools have more freedom than community schools to change the way they do things. We co-ordinate applications to the school but the school determines the admissions arrangements.

Some of our secondary schools offer sixth form education. We propose and determine the admissions arrangements for sixth forms.

Grammar schools

These are schools that select children by academic ability. The grammar schools in Lancashire are academies. They co-ordinate the secondary transfer process with Lancashire County Council, and for this purpose tests are held in the Autumn Term of the academic year preceding that in which children are admitted to secondary school (i.e. in the Autumn Term of Year 6). Please contact the schools for more information about the tests.

Special schools

A special school is just for children with statements of special educational needs or education health and care plans. You can view a list of maintained special schools in Lancashire.

Mainstream schools also have extra resources to allow them to make provision for certain types of special educational needs.

You can find out about SEN and how children are assessed.

Short-stay schools

Short-stay schools are pupil referral units which provide education to pupils at risk of exclusion or who are permanently excluded from school.