Tyne and Wear 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 the most recent academic year can now be named. These look a little different than 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 the pandemic disruptions this cohort of learners faced.
To help local parents out, we’ve taken a look at the schools across the Sunderland, South Tyneside, North Tyneside, Gateshead and Newcastle 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 47.
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 the quality of education, student behaviour and attitudes, school leadership and management, and safeguarding practices all met or exceeded official standards.
Here are the schools in Tyne and Wear that came out on top.
13. St Aidan's Catholic Academy
St Aidan's is a Roman Catholic secondary academy for boys in Ashbrooke, Sunderland. In a recent Ofsted inspection, it was found to be 'outstanding' across all four categories for secondary education, and 'good' for sixth form provision. In the 2024/25 school year, it had an Attainment 8 score of 51 – compared to a local average of 43.2, and a national average of 45.9. | Google
14. St Anthony's Girls' Catholic Academy
St Anthony's is a Roman Catholic secondary academy for girls in Thornhill, Sunderland. In a recent Ofsted inspection, it was found to be 'good' across all categories. In the 2024/25 school year, it had an Attainment 8 score of 50.4 – compared to a local average of 43.2, and a national average of 45.9. | Google
15. St Thomas More Catholic High School
This Roman Catholic secondary academy in North Shields, North Tyneside, was most recently rated 'good' overall by Ofsted. In the 2024/25 school year, it had an Attainment 8 score of 49.5 – compared to a local average of 45.8, and a national average of 45.9. | Google
16. St Cuthbert's High School
St Cuthbert's is a Roman Catholic secondary academy for boys in Newcastle, and was most recently rated 'good' overall by Ofsted. In the 2024/25 school year, it had an Attainment 8 score of 49 – compared to a local average of 43.8, and a national average of 45.9. | Google