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:
9. Chellaston Academy
This is a secondary school and sixth form in the Chellaston area, to the south of Derby. It was formerly rated ‘good’ overall by Ofsted. In the 2022/23 school year, it had a Progress 8 score of 0.22 - or ‘above average’. | Google
10. Derby Moor Spencer Academy
This is a secondary school and sixth form in Derby’s Littleover area. It was formerly rated ‘good’ overall by Ofsted. In the 2022/23 school year, it had a Progress 8 score of 0.21 - or ‘above average’. | Google
11. Outwood Academy Newbold
Outwood is a secondary school and sixth form in Newbold, Chesterfield, formerly rated ‘good’ overall by Ofsted. In the 2022/23 school year, it too had a Progress 8 score of 0.21. While this would usually make it ‘above average’, the school is in the ‘average’ band - as its confidence interval spans both above and below zero. | Google
12. John Port Spencer Academy
Rounding out the list is the John Port Spencer Academy, a secondary school and sixth form in the Etwall, to the southwest of Derby. It was formerly rated ‘good’ overall by Ofsted. In the 2022/23 school year, it had a Progress 8 score of 0.20 - just earning it a spot in the ‘above average’ band. | Google