Some 15 thousand young people across South Yorkshire will be heading off to a new secondary school in the coming weeks.
This can be a tough transition, especially for recent primary school leavers, as pupils move on to a whole new world of exams, important qualifications, and making big decisions about their future. There is now only about a fortnight left until the summer holidays end and the new 2025/26 school year begins, meaning the day their children take that leap is almost here for local families.
With this in mind, we’ve revisited the top performing state secondary schools across South Yorkshire’s four major local authority areas - Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham, and Sheffield - based on our own unique metric. The key figure we’ve used is their latest Progress 8 scores, an official figure based on GCSE results and other student achievements which helps to determine how quickly a school’s pupils progressed compared to peers from similar primary schools nationwide.
Any score above 0 is positive, but we’ve only included those above 0.1, or towards the high end of the ‘average’ band. It is worth noting that this data has now been finalised, so results and placings may differ slightly from earlier reports based on interim results.
But exam results aren’t the only thing that matters, nor the only measure of a school’s environment. We’ve also made sure all schools on our list had positive ratings in their latest Ofsted inspections. These are undergoing some changes at the moment, but we’ve only included those with a ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ overall grade under the previous system, or positive ratings across all categories under the current one. This means that quality of education, student behaviour and attitudes, school leadership and management, and safeguarding practices all met or exceeded Government standards.
Here are the 18 schools from across South Yorkshire that made the list:
13. Penistone Grammar School
Despite its name, Penistone Grammar is actually a non-selective maintained secondary school and sixth form in Penistone, in the Barnsley borough. It was most recently rated ‘good’ overall by Ofsted. In the 2023/24 school year, it had an ‘above average’ Progress 8 score of 0.33. | Google
14. St Bernard's Catholic High School
St Bernard’s is a Catholic secondary academy in Rotherham, most recently rated ‘good’ overall by Ofsted. In the 2023/24 school year, it had an ‘above average’ Progress 8 score of 0.32. | Google
15. De Warenne Academy
De Warenne is a secondary academy in Conisbrough, in the Doncaster borough, most recently rated ‘good’ overall by Ofsted. In the 2023/24 school year, it had an ‘above average’ Progress 8 score of 0.31. | Google
16. Ash Hill Academy
Ash Hill is a secondary academy in Hatfield, in the Doncaster borough, most recently rated ‘good’ overall by Ofsted. In the 2023/24 school year, it had an ‘above average’ Progress 8 score of 0.25. | Google