Parents of 2025’s upcoming primary school leavers may already be starting to think ahead, about which secondary school might be the right fit for their child.
It’s not long now until we know how secondary schools and their pupils across England performed in the most recent exam season - although the government has warned there has been a little delay with the official statistics this year. But in the meantime, there is still plenty of information out there for families weighing up the different secondary school options in their patch.
We’ve created a league table of state-funded secondary schools across the Derby and Derbyshire council areas, using their most recently-available ‘Progress 8’ scores (currently for the 2022/23 school year, until this year’s data has been finalised and published). This is a unique figure based on GCSE results and other student achievements, which helps determine how quickly students at any particular school are learning and progressing compared to peers from similar primary schools nationwide. Any score above 0 is positive, but we’ve selected only schools with ‘above average’ scores - or better.
All schools on the list also had an overall Ofsted rating of ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ before this measure was recently dropped. This means that the quality of education provided, student behaviour and attitudes, school leadership and management, and student safeguarding were all found to either meet or exceed government standards last time the school was inspected.
Here were the 12 schools from across Derbyshire that topped the chart:
5. St Mary's Catholic High School
St Mary’s is a Catholic secondary school and sixth form in Upper Newbold, Chesterfield. It was formerly rated ‘outstanding’ overall by Ofsted. In the 2022/23 school year, it had a Progress 8 score of 0.36 - or ‘above average’. | Google
6. The Ecclesbourne School
The Ecclesbourne School is a secondary school and sixth form in the village of Duffield, Derbyshire. It was formerly rated ‘good’ overall by Ofsted. In the 2022/23 school year, it had a Progress 8 score of 0.34 - or ‘above average’. | Google
7. Heanor Gate Spencer Academy
This is a secondary school and sixth form in Heanor, formerly rated ‘outstanding’ overall by Ofsted. In the 2022/23 school year, it had a Progress 8 score of 0.33 - also ‘above average’. | Google
8. West Park School
West Park is a secondary school in Spondon, Derby. It was formerly rated ‘good’ overall by Ofsted. In the 2022/23 school year, it had a Progress 8 score of 0.24 - putting it in the ‘above average’ band. | Google