The North East is home to plenty of high-performing secondary schools, but some pulled ahead of the pack in the last school year.
The government’s brand new preliminary performance figures for state-funded secondary schools were released last week, with primary school and sixth form data expected to follow soon. These official league tables were initially delayed, due to what the government described as “quality issues” with the data.
We’ve ranked the North East’s highest-performing state secondary schools for the 2023/24 school year based on this new data, namely their latest Progress 8 scores. This is a unique figure based on GCSE results and other student achievements, which helps to determine how quickly students at any particular school are learning and progressing compared to peers from similar primary schools nationwide. Any score above 0 is positive, while any above 0.5 is considered ‘well above average’ - the highest band available.
All schools on the list also had an overall Ofsted rating of ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ before this measure was recently dropped, or, if they’ve been inspected more recently, had passing marks across the board. This means that the quality of education provided, student behaviour and attitudes, school leadership and management, and student safeguarding all met or exceeded government standards last time the school was inspected.
Here are the 18 schools from across the North East that made the cut:
9. Sacred Heart Catholic High School
Sacred Heart is a Catholic girls’ secondary school and sixth form in Newcastle. It was formerly rated ‘outstanding’ overall by Ofsted. In the 2023/24 school year, it had a Progress 8 score of 0.54 - or ‘well above average’. | Google
10. Ashington Academy
This is a secondary school and sixth form in Ashington, Northumberland, formerly rated ‘good’ overall by Ofsted. In the 2023/24 school year, it had a Progress 8 score of 0.46 - placing it in the ‘above average’ band. | Google
11. Marden High School
Marden is a secondary school in Cullercoats, North Shields, formerly rated ‘good’ overall by Ofsted. In the 2023/24 school year, it had a Progress 8 score of 0.41 - or ‘above average’. | Google
12. Carmel College
Carmel College is a Catholic secondary school and sixth form in Darlington. In its most recent Ofsted inspection, it was found to be ‘outstanding’ across the board. In the 2023/24 school year, it had a Progress 8 score of 0.38 - or ‘above average’. | Google