Blackburn with Darwen is 9th in the list of most deprived local authority districts in England, with the highest proportion of neighbourhoods in the most deprived 10% of neighbourhoods nationally.
The local authority average of students entered for the English Baccalaureate at GCSE is 38% (2019 data).
This is below the national average for England. As such, over a third of students and apprentices enrol at the College without having achieved five GCSEs at grades 4-9, including English and mathematics.