Five Sunderland schools included in the Sunday Times top-performing schools tables

Of the five Sunderland schools to make the list, four are primary schools and one is secondary.

The list, which includes both state and independent schools, is the 29th edition of the prestigious publication which ranks schools based on their academic attainment.

For primary schools this is based on the on the average outcomes achieved by schools in Standard Assessment Tests (SATs) taken in Year 6. Average scores are given to each school for reading, grammar, punctuation and spelling and maths with a score of 100 indicating the level where children in that age group are expected to be working at.

For secondary schools, the rankings are based on the percentage of pupils entering exams who achieved A* to B grades at A-level or grades 9 to 7 at GCSE. To reflect the proportionate level of difficulty, A-level results are give a ‘double weighting’ for the purpose of ranking.

Due to the disruption caused by the Covid pandemic, and the replacement of examinations with teacher assessed grades, it is impossible to make a like for like comparison to pre-pandemic year groups. For this reason, the Sunday Times has used the most recent public examination results from 2017 to 2019 to attain average exam performance over this three year period.

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It is for this reason that the Government has not produced comparative league tables for the last two years. Unlike the Sunday Times rankings, Government tables are based on a statistical calculation showing progress made by pupils rather than raw attainment.

The Sunday Times Parent Power School Guide also only includes rankings for schools who either published their results during this period or have since disclosed them to the Times.

Below is a list of where the five schools ranked and their performance data.

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