The Sunday Times Parent Power 2024: Hull comprehensive named best in the country and other Yorkshire state schools in north's top list

The annual Parent Power supplement includes accolades for a number of Yorkshire schools in both the state and independent sectors.

St Mary’s College in Hull, a Roman Catholic comprehensive and sixth form, took the Comprehensive School of the Year title. Now co-educational, it has a long history in the city and was founded from an amalgamation of a girls’ convent school and a boys’ grammar.

The original St Mary’s Grammar School, run by the nuns of the Sisters of Mercy, was destroyed in the Hull Blitz and moved to a new site in 1960 close to the Marist College for Boys, established in 1926 by the Marist Fathers, a Catholic order. The schools merged in 1988 and academy status was granted in 2017. The catchment area now includes the whole city as well as the East Riding, and former pupils include a number of Hull FC and Hull Kingston Rovers rugby league players.

In the north, Heckmondwike Grammar School took the Secondary School of the Year award, while Ripon Grammar was given the title for academic performance. Both are state-funded but selective.

In the fee-paying sector, The Grammar School at Leeds was named Independent School of the Year (North), with Queen Ethelburga’s College near York receiving the accolade for academic performance.

Other state schools in Yorkshire’s top 10 were; Archbishop Holgate’s, York; Fulford, York; High Storrs, Sheffield; Silverdale, Sheffield; St Mary’s, Menston; Ilkley Grammar; and Tapton, Sheffield.

Private schools making up the top 10 were; Sheffield High School for Girls; Bradford Grammar; St Peter’s, York; The Mount, York; Birkdale, Sheffield; Harrogate Ladies’ College; and Hill House, Doncaster.

The full Parent Power rankings can be read here.