"We are absolutely delighted" - Sunderland primary school celebrates being named top in North East by Sunday Times Parent Power guide

St Joseph's RC Primary School in Sunderland has been ranked the top primary school in the North East by The Sunday Times Schools Guide 2022.

The 29th edition of Parent Power, by The Sunday Times identifies the highest-achieving schools in the UK, ranked by their examination results from 2017-19.

Headteacher Stephanie Brown says it was an ‘amazing surprise’ to find out the school had been awarded top marks.

Several scaled scores are included in the data where 100 indicates the standard which children are expected to achieve aged 11 – for reading; grammar, punctuation and spelling; and maths in each of the three years.

St Joseph's RC Primary School rated 110.0 for Reading, 114.7 for Grammar and 111.0 for Maths, making the Sunderland primary school top across the region.

Ms Brown said: “We are absolutely delighted to hear that we’ve ranked as the top school across the region, it was an amazing surprise.

"We have a fantastic school, with amazing students and our extremely high standards and better than the best stance has truly paid off.”

New data revealed today, Friday December 2 is designed to help parents compare the performance of a school with other schools in the same town, local authority or nationally.

The Primary school rankings are based on the average outcomes achieved by schools in Standard Assessment Tests (SATs) in the three years between 2017 and 2019.

St Joseph’s also placed in the national list of top schools at number 24.

Stephanie added: "Our school has such a wide range of different ethnic groups and we have strong family and parish links along with staff that are committed to teaching, we work to our very best so it’s fabulous to hear that this has been recognised.

“We are so proud of this school, and we are committed to our values – all the students, staff and parents strive to work with our local parish to deliver some amazing work, it’s absolutely phenomenal news!”

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