Sheffield schools: These are city's biggest, busiest secondary schools with thousands of pupils at a time

Sheffield's schools have never been busier and many are now caring for thousands of pupils at a time.

Figures obtained by The Star show how two-thirds of Sheffield's secondary schools were the busiest they've ever been in the 2022/23 academic year.

Out of the city's 12 busiest secondary schools, each of which looks after more than 1,000 students, last year saw their classrooms fuller than they've ever been.

They include Forge Valley School, which has grown its student population by 134 up to 1,249 pupils since 2018, and Westfield School, which has grown by 116 students to 1,245 in the same period,

The busiest school in Sheffield by far is Ecclesfield School, which last year saw 1,711 in its corridors. This, too, is the busiest it's ever been.

It comes even as Sheffield City Council has been warned it needs to build at least 580 new secondary school places by 2024/25 to meet demand. Creating even a single new secondary school place in Sheffield is estimated to cost £25,567.

Some areas are worse affected than others. Areas of the northeast Sheffield - covered by schools like Oasis Academy Don Valley, Sheffield Park Academy, and Sheffield Springs Academy - are expected to need another 600 secondary places by 2028/29 to keep up with demand.

And figures previously published by The Star already show how, for the 2022/23 academic year, only 18 out of Sheffield 121 schools were not oversubscribed, with as many as three children vying for every seat in the classroom and the most in-demand schools.

Below is a ranking of the busiest schools in Sheffield according to which had the biggest student cohorts in 2022/23, including if it is the busiest it has been in the past five years.