The school which once taught royalty named the best in Essex

Mel King

7 June 2024 at 4:58 am·2-min read

When it comes to picking a school, parents often look at a number of factors, from progression to success and exam results. Essex is lucky to have a number of brilliant schools, with many providing key education for children.

But for one Essex school, it has been named the best in the county - and it even once taught royalty. In a newly released survey, it revealed the top 10 performing schools in Essex.

Non-Stop Kids and Online Marketing Surgery have created their School Attainment Report, taken from government data, which help rank secondary schools in Essex based on their average progress 8 score. This score is a way of measuring the progress that pupils make from the end of key stage 2 to the end of key stage 4.

Brentwood Ursuline Convent High School has been named the best school in Essex, according to they survey, with the school having the highest progress 8 score in Essex with 1.04 above the average of 0. The girls-only school first opened in 1900 as a Catholic girls' school, which until the 1990s had boarders.

Until the Education Act 1918, there were two schools, St Mary's for ladies and St Philomena's for tradesmen's daughters. These schools then merged. It was a direct grant grammar school for girls, with the Brentwood School being a similar school for boys. It became a comprehensive in 1979.

In September 1999 the school became a specialist Arts College. It converted to academy status in 2012. Back in the summer of 1946, the last Queen of Italy, Marie Jose of Belgium, who was the Princess of Belgium before becoming Queen of Italy, was taught here.

She attended the school after being evacuated to England during the First World War. But it's not just royalty the school taught, they also have actors, musicians and authors as famous alumni.

Top 10 schools in Essex with the highest progress 8 score average

School	Number of pupils at end of key stage 4	Progress 8 score
Brentwood Ursuline Convent High School	169	1.04
Colchester County High School for Girls	160	0.99
Colchester Royal Grammar School	119	0.93
Chelmsford County High School for Girls	154	0.90
King Edward VI Grammar School, Chelmsford	149	0.82
Moulsham High School	263	0.49
Davenant Foundation School	179	0.48
Becket Keys Church of England Free School	161	0.48
St Benedict's Catholic College	176	0.39
The Gilberd School	327	0.33

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Top 10 schools in Essex with the highest progress 8 score average

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