Secondary school league tables: Search for the top schools for GCSE results

Thousands of secondary schools across the country have their GCSE results figures published by the Department for Education on an annual basis. 

This year's results are for exams taken in the summer of 2017 and have been ranked in our searchable league table according to the percentage of students achieving five A*-Cs (including grades 9-4 in English and maths). 

Find your school

Our interactive tool allows you to search school results in your area and compare schools of your choice against one another.

Clicking on an individual school's name brings up more detailed information, including, the percentage of pupils achieving five or more A*-C/ 9-4 grades and the school's Progress 8 score.

Individual school pages also display the school's location, as well as the total number of pupils sitting exams last year.

The top 100 schools

The table includes the percentage of pupils achieving 5 or more A*-C/9-4 grades and the school's Progress 8 score. 

It also shows the number of students entered for the exams. 

The Telegraph has ranked schools according to the percentage of pupils achieving five or more A*-C/9-4 grades, and how they fared in the DfE's new Progress 8 measure. 

Based on these categories, The Tiffin Girls' School, Kingston upon Thames, performed the best of any state school in the country in 2017, followed by Upton Court Grammar in Slough, a close second. 

Nine out the 10 top schools are sponsored academies. 

What has changed? 

This year's league tables also include the new 9 - 1 grading system for maths, English language, and English literature.

The new scale will be phased in to all other GCSEs over the next two years. 

The new scale is a shift away from the A*- G system that students, parents, and teachers have been familiar with for decades, but exam boards say it is “anchored” in the old A* - G system.

The bottom of a grade 7 is equivalent to the bottom of a grade A, for example, and the bottom of grade 4 is equivalent to the bottom of a grade C. The bottom of a 1 is aligned to the bottom of a G.

Because of these changes, it is not possible to accurately compare 2017's results with those of previous years. 

Progress 8 

Last year the Government have introduced Progress 8, an indicator which show show a school is performing nationally in terms of seeing students' progress in eight core subjects from primary school to secondary. 

Whilst the process of calculating Progress 8 is rather complex, the main thing parents need to know is that a minus score (below 0) means the school is performing below the national average, a neutral score (0) means the school is performing at the national average, and a positive score (above 0) means the school is performing above the national average. The higher or lower the score, the better or worse your child's school is performing. 

What is the Ebacc?

The English Baccalaureate (Ebacc) is a performance measure which shows how many pupils get a grade C or above in the core academic subjects: maths, English, the sciences, a language and history or geography - at GCSE.

The Government introduced the EBacc in 2010, and announced plans for all pupils who start Year 7 in September 2015 to take the EBacc subjects at GCSE in 2020. 

Analysis - Camilla Turner, Education Editor

Pupils who speak English as a second language are now outperforming native speakers at GCSEs for the first time, official figures show.

Data released today by the Department for Education (DfE) shows that children who grow up speaking a language other than English now have a higher attainment score than their native-speaking peers by the time they are 16.

The figures also showed that rising numbers of secondary schools are considered under-performing, meaning they fall below the “floor standard”.

One in eight of England's mainstream secondaries - 365 in total - fell below the government's minimum standards in 2017.This is up from 282 schools, just under one in 10 - the year before.

The DfE suggested that the rise in under-performing schools is because of technical changes to the points system used by government statisticians to calculate a school's performance.

In previous years, schools have been ranked according to the proportion of pupils achieving at least five grade A* to Cs at GCSE, including English and maths.

This measure was scrapped last year in favour of Attainment 8, with a score based on eight GCSE subjects, with a double weighting given to english and maths.

This year, the average Attainment 8 score of children who speak English as a second language was 46.8, compared to 46.3 for native speakers.

Meanwhile, the previous year native speakers were narrowly ahead, with an average score of 50.0 compared to 49.9 for non-native speakers.

Last year was also the first time that schools were measured for progress as well as attainment. Progress 8, which measures progress of each pupil from the end of primary school up to GCSEs.

It compares pupils' results with the achievements of other pupils that have the same prior attainment and measures performance across eight "core" qualifications.

Both this year and last, children with English as a second language made better progress on average than native speakers, although this year the gap widened between the two.

The data, which covers every secondary in England, shows that London has the lowest proportion of under-performing schools while the North East had the highest.

For the first time this year, the data includes English and maths GCSE results awarded under the new 9-1 grading system.

The figures also show that the attainment gap between rich and poor pupils has narrowed by 3.2 per cent since 2016.

Schools Minister Nick Gibb said: "The attainment gap between the most disadvantaged pupils and their peers has narrowed by 10 per cent since 2011, and more disadvantaged pupils are studying the core academic subjects, ensuring they have the knowledge and skills they need to make the most of their lives."

Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders said that the new grading system for English and maths has complicated the way in which school performance measures are calculated.

"Our message to the DfE, trust boards, governors and inspectors is to avoid leaping to judgement on the basis of these performance tables," he said.

"They only tell us a limited amount about the true quality of a school."

Note: Schools may not have data in the tables for several reasons, including: small numbers of pupils (which risks an individual pupil’s results being identified); investigations into maladministration of tests; or for other reasons beyond the school's control. Many independent and state schools score zero (or very low scores) if they enter all or most pupils for alternative qualifications that are not accredited by the Government.