West 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.
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 West Yorkshire 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 50.
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 26 schools in West Yorkshire that topped the table:
5. Cardinal Heenan Catholic High School
Cardinal Heenan is a maintained Catholic secondary school in Leeds. It was most recently rated ‘good’ overall by Ofsted. In the 2024/25 school year, it had an Attainment 8 score of 58 – compared to a local average of 45.4, and a national average of 45.9 | Google
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6. Horsforth School
This is a secondary academy in Horsforth, Leeds. It was most recently rated ‘good’ overall by Ofsted. In the 2024/25 school year, it had an Attainment 8 score of 57.2 – compared to a local average of 45.4, and a national average of 45.9. | Glen Minikin/SWNS
7. Ilkley Grammar School
Despite what its name might suggest, this is actually a non-selective secondary academy in Ilkley, in the Bradford borough. In a recent Ofsted inspection, it was found to be ‘outstanding’ in all categories. In the 2024/25 school year, it had an Attainment 8 score of 56.3 – compared to a local average of 40.7, and a national average of 45.9. | Google
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8. Abbey Grange Church of England Academy
Abbey Grange is an Anglican secondary academy in Leeds. It was most recently rated ‘good’ overall by Ofsted. In the 2024/25 school year, it had an Attainment 8 score of 55.8 – compared to a local average of 45.4, and a national average of 45.9. | Google