New Mills School

What New Mills School does

New Mills School is a UK state-funded secondary academy located in New Mills, High Peak, Derbyshire, serving students aged 11 to 16 across Key Stages 3 and 4. It operates under the Department for Education framework and is funded through the Education Funding Agency, with no tuition fees charged to families. The school delivers the standard English secondary curriculum — core GCSE subjects (English, Mathematics, Sciences), an extended core (History, Geography, or Modern Foreign Languages), and a broad optional range including vocational and BTEC qualifications in Engineering, Construction, Food and Cookery, Sport, Media Studies, and Health and Social Care. Beyond academics, the school operates a careers programme aligned to the Gatsby Benchmarks, a structured student leadership pathway, safeguarding and SEND support, and an extensive extracurricular and residential programme including the Duke of Edinburgh Award. The March 2025 Ofsted inspection rated the school Good across all four areas (quality of education, behaviour and attitudes, personal development, and leadership and management).

The school's technology infrastructure is composed entirely of third-party, off-the-shelf educational tools rather than any proprietary platform. Operational systems include Class Charts for behaviour and homework tracking, ParentPay for meal and fee payments, School Cloud for parent-teacher consultations, Unifrog for careers guidance, Sparx Reader and NGRT for reading instruction and assessment, The Day for current-affairs literacy, Lexonik plus Reading Box for literacy intervention, and Google Analytics on the public-facing website. The school's own digital presence is built on the FSE Design CMS, with WCAG 2.2 accessibility features and UK GDPR compliance via the Derbyshire County Council Education Data Hub serving as DPO. Headcount in the disclosed dataset is 30, though this likely underrepresents total staff given typical secondary school staffing profiles.

New Mills School does not operate a commercial revenue model. As a state-funded academy, its income derives from per-pupil government allocations, with nominal ancillary charges for meals, uniforms (via Headmasters Schoolwear), optional trips, and certain clubs. The school is governed by a board of governors, holds ICO registration Z6159224, and has no parent company, subsidiaries, or external equity backing. Its addressable market is bounded by the local Derbyshire catchment feeding through the national secondary transfer admissions process.

Name

New Mills School

Legal name

New Mills School

Website

https://newmillsschool.co.uk

Company type

Private

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

New Mills School is a UK state-funded secondary academy in High Peak, Derbyshire, serving students aged 11 to 16 with a broad GCSE and vocational curriculum, careers guidance, and extracurricular programmes under Department for Education funding.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

New Mills

HQ country

United Kingdom

HQ region

Europe

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Infrastructure, Marketing or Sales, Technology or R&D

Distribution channels1 record

Marketing channels4 records

Core offering

New Mills School is a UK state-funded secondary academy delivering comprehensive education for students aged 11-16 across Key Stages 3 and 4 in New Mills, High Peak, Derbyshire. It provides a broad academic curriculum leading to GCSE qualifications across core, extended core, and optional subjects, alongside BTEC vocational pathways, a Student Leadership programme, Careers Education and Guidance aligned with Gatsby Benchmarks, a Literacy Support Programme, and an extensive extracurricular offer of clubs, trips, Duke of Edinburgh Award, and residentials. The school is rated Good in all areas by Ofsted (March 2025) and is funded by the UK Education Funding Agency with no tuition fees.

Product overview

New Mills School operates as a single unified secondary education institution providing comprehensive schooling for students aged 11-16. The core offering is the academic curriculum encompassing mandatory core subjects (English, Mathematics, Sciences) at Key Stage 4, alongside the extended core (History, Geography, or Languages), and a broad optional curriculum including vocational BTEC qualifications. The portfolio includes specialized programs such as Technology vocational courses (Engineering, Construction, Food and Cookery), BTEC Sport Science, BTEC Media Studies, and BTEC Health and Social Care. Supporting modules include the Literacy Support Program with intervention tools (Lexonik Phonics, Reading Box, H4L Fluency Training), a structured Student Leadership Program, the Careers Education and Guidance module aligned with Gatsby Benchmarks, and the Extracurricular Clubs and Activities program spanning Creative Arts, STEM, and sports. The Beyond the Classroom trips and residentials component rounds out the educational offering with experiential learning opportunities.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Secondary School Education

Quantifiable outcome

• Ofsted Good rating across all four areas (quality of education, behaviour and attitudes, personal development, leadership and management)

Segments2 records

Ideal customer profiles1 record

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration9 records

Scale indicators1 record

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Others

• Unifrog: EdTech provider of the careers and further-education platform used by New Mills School's CEIAG programme. Comparable as a supporting technology supplier in the school-to-careers pathway, not a peer educational institution.
• Sparx Learning: EdTech supplier of the Sparx Reader platform used by New Mills School for Key Stage 3 independent reading. Comparable as an enabling technology vendor to the school's literacy intervention stack rather than a peer institution.
• ParentPay: Online payment platform used by New Mills School for school meals and fee collection. Comparable as a back-office infrastructure provider serving UK schools rather than a peer institution.
• Class Charts: EdTech vendor providing the student behaviour, homework tracking, and parent engagement platform that New Mills School uses. Comparable as a key supplier ecosystem participant, not a direct competitor.

Broad incumbents

• Ormiston Academies Trust: UK multi-academy trust running a portfolio of secondary academies with shared central governance and curriculum frameworks. Comparable as a broader incumbent in the state secondary school category, even though it does not operate a single-site small-town school like New Mills.
• Greenwood Academies Trust: Multi-academy trust operating multiple secondary academies across the East Midlands and other English regions. Comparable in category (UK state secondary education) but at a wider geographic and operational scale than New Mills School.
• Outwood Grange Academies Trust: Large UK multi-academy trust operating dozens of secondary academies across the country. Comparable as a wider incumbent in the same UK state secondary education category, though at materially greater scale and geographic breadth than New Mills School.

Direct peers

• Glossopdale School & Sixth Form: State secondary school located a few miles from New Mills in Glossop, Derbyshire, serving a similar semi-rural High Peak catchment with overlapping feeder primary schools. Directly comparable on student age range, geographic context, and admissions process.
• Chapel-en-le-Frith High School: Co-located secondary school within the High Peak area of Derbyshire, serving a similar 11-16 cohort from neighbouring feeder primaries. Closest geographic competitor for student enrollment in the same catchment region.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat3 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Facebookfacebook.com/newmillsschool
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/new-mills-school

Compliance2 records

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles3 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about New Mills School