South Yorkshire has held onto its title as home to some of the highest performing state secondary schools in the country, in the latest school year’s performance data.
The government’s brand new preliminary performance figures for state-funded secondary schools were released last month, after initially facing delays. Using this data, we’ve created a league table ranking the top state secondary schools across South Yorkshire’s four major local authority areas - Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham, and Sheffield - for the 2023/24 school year.
It’s based on their latest Progress 8 scores, a unique figure based on GCSE results and other student achievements which helps to determine how quickly a school’s pupils are learning and progressing compared to peers arriving from similar primary schools nationwide. Any score above 0 is positive, but we’ve selected only those above 0.2, which are considered ‘above average’.
Some of the schools featured also made the overall league table for the whole of Yorkshire, while families who check in on the latest performance data regularly will spot quite a few familiar names from last year’s South Yorkshire rankings - plus a few new ones.
We’ve also made sure that all schools included 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, student behaviour and attitudes, school leadership and management, and safeguarding all met or exceeded government standards the last time the school was inspected.
Here are the 16 schools from across South Yorkshire that dominated the performance charts in 2024:

1. Mercia School
At the top of the South Yorkshire list for another year running, Mercia is a non-selective secondary school in Sheffield. It is known for having incredibly high standards and rules for pupil behaviour. It was formerly rated ‘outstanding’ overall by Ofsted. In the 2023/24 school year, it had an excellent Progress 8 score of 2.09, putting it in the ‘well above average’ band - the highest rank available. | Google

2. High Storrs School
Another high achieving Sheffield-based secondary school and sixth form, High Storrs was formerly rated ‘good’ overall by Ofsted. In the 2023/24 school year, it had a great Progress 8 score of 0.88 - placing it in the ‘well above average’ band. | Google

3. King Ecgbert School
King Ecgbert is a secondary school and sixth form in Dore, near Sheffield, rated ‘outstanding’ in all categories in a recent Ofsted inspection. In the 2023/24 school year, it had a fantastic Progress 8 score of 0.81 - or ‘well above average’. | Google

4. Notre Dame High School
Notre Dame is a Catholic secondary school and sixth form, again in Sheffield. It was formerly rated ‘good’ overall by Ofsted. In the 2023/24 school year, it had a strong Progress 8 score of 0.69 - in the ‘well above average’ band. | Google