South Yorkshire is home to plenty of excellent, high-performing secondary schools, and new data shows many of them are helping their pupils achieve especially well in their GCSEs last year.
The Department for Education has released its new preliminary 2024/25 key stage 4 performance figures for state-funded secondary schools - meaning the country’s best performing schools of most recent academic year can now be named. These look a little different from usual this year, too.
Schools have been sorted using their Attainment 8 score - a purely performance-based figure derived from learners’ results in up to eight GCSE subjects - rather than the usual improvement-based Progress 8 score. This couldn’t be calculated, due to pandemic disruptions this cohort of learners faced.
To help local parents out, we’ve taken a look at the schools across the Sheffield, Doncaster, Rotherham and Barnsley local authority areas with the highest Attainment 8 scores this year. These scores go up to 90 and loosely align with GCSE 9-1 number grades, and we’ve limited our list to those which surpassed 48.
Grades aren’t the only way to measure school success, so we’ve also made sure each one on our league table had a positive mark in its latest Ofsted inspection. These are soon set to change, but for now, we’ve only included schools with either a ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ overall grade before last September, or positive ratings across all categories if they’ve been inspected since. This means that quality of education, student behaviour and attitudes, school leadership and management, and safeguarding practices all met or exceeded official standards.
Here were the 19 schools in South Yorkshire that topped the table:
9. Darton Academy
This secondary academy in Darton, near Barnsley, was most recently rated 'good' overall by Ofsted. In the 2024/25 school year, it had an Attainment 8 score of 51.9 – compared to a local average of 43.8, and a national average of 45.9. | Google
10. King Edward VII School
This is a local authority maintained school in Sheffield, most recently rated 'good' overall by Ofsted. In the 2024/25 school year, it had an Attainment 8 score of 50.7 – compared to a local average of 43.1, and a national average of 45.9. | Google
11. The Laurel Academy
This secondary academy in Mexborough, in the Doncaster district, was most recently rated 'good' overall by Ofsted. In the 2024/25 school year, it had an Attainment 8 score of 50.1 – compared to a local average of 44.5, and a national average of 45.9. | Google
12. Horizon Community College
Horizon Community College is a secondary academy in Barnsley, most recently rated 'good' overall by Ofsted. In the 2024/25 school year, it had an Attainment 8 score of 49.7 – compared to a local average of 43.8, and a national average of 45.9. | Google