Sheffield's highest performing secondary schools revealed

The tables, published on February 6, are based on how teenagers in England performed in their GCSE’s at the end of the 2019 academic year.

They provide a snapshot of how well each school in the country is performing by tracking pupils’ progress since they left primary education.

In Sheffield, King Ecgbert School came out on top when compared to the 30 other secondary schools, including academies, maintained and special schools, in the city which provided data to the DfE.

The school in Dore ranked ‘well above average’ in Progress 8 – a government benchmark which calculates how far pupils advance between Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 4 when compared to the national expected standard – gaining a score of 0.68.

Headteacher Paul Haigh said: “On seeing that our results place us not only at the top of the league table for the city of Sheffield but for the whole region my overall feeling is one of pride in our students and the staff who supported them with their great achievements.

“The Progress 8 score recognises not just the grades of the brightest but more importantly the progress all students have made since joining the school in Year 7 across all subjects. We see that students of all abilities in all subjects make great progress which shows the very high quality of education we offer our students right across the curriculum.

“Our Progress 8 this year was a record for the school. Ever since I become a headteacher in 2016 it has incrementally gone up year on year and it is personally very satisfying to see the work of our staff and students recognised by taking the ‘top spot’ this year.”

The data aims to hold schools to account and give parents a way of comparing schools in their areas.

Silverdale School ranked second with a Progress 8 score of 0.58, putting it ‘well above average’, and Tapton School came in third with an ‘above average’ score of 0.46.