Some of Sussex's highest-performing secondary schools have held their ground in the latest performance tables, while others have risen up the ranks.
The Government released its brand new preliminary performance figures for state-funded secondary schools last month, covering the 2023 to 2024 school year. Using this data, we’ve created a league table ranking the top state secondary schools across East and West Sussex, plus Brighton and Hove, based on their latest Progress 8 scores.
This is a unique figure based on GCSE results and other student achievements, which shows how well a secondary school’s pupils progressed academically over their first years at secondary school - when compared to peers starting from similar primary schools nationwide. Any score above 0 is positive, but we’ve selected only those above with scores of 0.4 and up - considered to be above or well above average.
We’ve also made sure that all schools included on the list also had an overall Ofsted rating of ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ before this measure was recently dropped, or, if they’ve been inspected more recently, had passing marks across the board. This means that the quality of education, student behaviour and attitudes, school leadership and management, and safeguarding all met or exceeded government standards the last time the school was inspected.
Many of these schools will be familiar names to Sussex families who followed last year’s regional secondary school rankings, although some had stronger or slightly weaker performances in the last school year.
Here are the 15 secondary schools that topped this year’s chart:
1. St Oscar Romero Catholic School
At the top of the list for a second year running, St Oscar Romero is a Catholic secondary school and sixth form in Goring-By-Sea, Worthing, West Sussex. It was formerly rated ‘good’ overall by Ofsted. In the 2023/24 school year, it had a fantastic Progress 8 score of 0.89, marking it as ‘well above average’ - the highest band available. | Google
2. King's School, Hove
King’s is a Christian secondary school and sixth form in Hangleton, Brighton and Hove. It was formerly rated ‘good’ overall by Ofsted. In the 2023/24 school year, it had an exceptional Progress 8 score of 0.84 - also considered ‘well above average’. | Google
3. St Philip Howard Catholic School
St Philip Howard is a Catholic secondary school and sixth form in Barnham, West Sussex. It was formerly rated ‘outstanding’ overall by Ofsted. In the 2023/24 school year, it had another exceptional Progress 8 score of 0.68 - or ‘well above average’. | Google
4. St Richard's Catholic College
St Richard’s is a Catholic secondary school in Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex. It was formerly rated ‘good’ overall by Ofsted. In the 2023/24 school year, it had an impressive Progress 8 score of 0.65 - in the ‘well above average’ band. | Google