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Making the jump from primary to secondary school is a pretty major leap in every kids’ life. No more having all your lessons in the same classroom, no more sticking and cutting sessions, no more mornings singing ‘He’s Got the Whole World In His Hands’, you’re at big school now – this is the real deal. Naturally, parents want to make that jump as easy as possible and send their child to the best school around.
To do that, parents may look at Ofsted reports or check out the ranking by the Fairer Schools Index. Or, they could take direction from the Telegraph. The paper has done some digging into public data from 3,500 state sector schools to come up with its new ranking of the top 100 secondary schools in England.
It ranked each score according to 10 different criteria: English Baccalaureate score, attainment, progress, performance by disadvantaged pupils, comparison with local authority, pupil destinations, GCSE subject options, class sizes, truancy rates and whether or not they’re oversubscribed. So, all that considered, how did London’s high schools do?
With a perfect score of 40 out of 40, St Michael’s Catholic Grammar School in North Finchley was named the second best secondary school in the country and number one for London. The school is all-girls up to age 16 and welcomes boys in sixth form. An impressive 72 percent of its students meet the English Baccalaureate GCSE standard with 5s or above (for anyone who went to school before 2017, that’s equivalent to a high C or low B).
It was beaten to the number one spot for all of England by King Edward VI Grammar School in Chelmsford, where 96 percent of students earned 5s or above in their exams.
The other London schools to make the Telegraph’s top 20 were all grammar schools. Wilson’s School in Sutton placed fifth, Kingsdale Foundation School in Southwark ranked 16th and Gunnersbury Catholic School in Hounslow came in at number 17.
When it comes to non-selective secondary schools, London’s St Marylebone CofE School was the crowned best in the city and second best in the UK. It ranked 44th overall with a ‘very good’ score of 39 out of 40 and a GCSE 5+ rate of 33.1 percent.
Of course, the options for your kids secondary school are limited by your catchment area. But you can go and put your postcode in on the Telegraph website to find out which ones near you are the highest rated.
The Telegraph has also named two London private schools the best in the UK.
The best (and worst) universities in London have been named by the Daily Mail.
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