The Sunday Times Top Schools List 2025

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What are your thoughts? Any surprises? Any experience of the schools that feature? Will it influence any schooling decisions for your DC?

If you look at the Stats for Prior attainment for a school, it tells you how many got 110 or higher.

For St Olaves as an example... only one boy didn't get 110 or higher. Also any from prep schools don't have that score.

The government publishes the Progress scores for low, middle and higher attaibers, and girls vs boys, and I think FSM pupils. It is more than the headline data if you are interested.

There is a misalignment between the SAT and the 11+ test for various reasons. One can not simply assume by default all those who pass the highly selective grammar exams to have super prior high attainment, vice versa.

Err... no. 105 out of 106 had SAT 110 or above, one had SAT between 100 and 110, which confirms what I'm saying.

Another 20 out of 126 were not included as came from private and didn't do SAT.

@TickingAlongNicely sorry misread your comment - you are correct, only one boy was a middle attainer.

The reality and stats disprove this as shown above.

Disprove what? Using one school’s data from one year? Which still includes student who passed 11+ but were not at high attainment based on Ks2?

If you’re referring to Beaumont in St Albans I believe the following are factors as to why their results are good but not stellar:

1. they have a huge number of SEND kids - maybe double the national/local average? I’m definitely not suggesting that SEND always means poor academic achievement/progress. However, according to the school itself (in their appeal statement when parents appeal not getting a place), their SEND department is absolutely on its knees and unable to provide anywhere near the required support. That must have an impact on results. I have also heard various reports from parents of SEND kids as to how disappointing/lacking the support is.
2. they have virtually zero interest in supporting and stretching high ability/achieving kids. There is no “Gifted and Talented” policy (or whatever these things are now called). They do not “allow” brighter kids to advance beyond the group. This honestly disgusts me - I understand with big classes and limited resources it can be difficult to differentiate but to feel you don’t even need to try is unforgivable and sadly all too common in state comprehensive schools. (My own kids are at a state primary where they do provide differentiation so thankfully it’s not universal).

I’ve also heard the Beaumont A Level results are as good as they are only because a high proportion of kids are tutored. The latest stats for those haven’t been published I don’t think.

So it’s a good school for the average child but anyone else should think twice and maybe not spend £1-2m+ on an in catchment house.

Sandringham, in contrast, has much higher results, a Gifted and Talented policy (I believe) and a reputation for being less SEND-friendly, so is supporting/failing to support fewer SEND kids. I believe it has a slightly more mixed catchment than Beaumont (all relative though).

It's not one school, HBS and QEB have 100% over SAT 110.
It's illogical to say that highly tutored and naturally bright children that get into top grammars would have lower scores on much easier SAT tests.

Yes, the tests are different, but cognitive ability is the same. So you can have high SAT and "low" 11+ if you're not tutored for 11+ format, but it would be strange to pass 11+ for super selectives (that often include maths and English at deeper/higher level than standard curriculum), but "fail" very basic curriculum tests. And the stats prove exactly this point.

@Ubertomusic

It's not one school, HBS and QEB have 100% over SAT 110.

I'm not sure where you find this information. But personally I know of a girl who is in HBS now she didn't get 110 in the maths SAT.

Interesting thanks..my dh had a colleague who sent her kids to those schools (also read an article about HKers spending top dollar on the catchment). Dh works for banks so his colleagues do have means to invest in education. We were in our 20s then and buying our first property in London..dh always had a vague aim to send our future only child (fertility issues) to private school so we wanted to arrange our finances accordingly in line with that aka Iive in a modest flat.. If we couldn't afford it, they could go to Jewish state schools like dh did.

Remember his colleague said it wasn't worth it, she sends her children to St Albans schools and they have amazing results.

If you are referring to the government statistics on prior high attainment data for Year 11 students, you can look back 2022-2023 for these two schools. You will see that there are also students who were not classified as high attainment but still gained entry.

Does anyone have a share token for the East Anglia listing - this page: Best schools in East Anglia 2025

Thanks in advance!

Best schools in East Anglia 2025

www.thetimes.com/article/763b75fd-f51a-4395-8de1-b4c1db36da5f?shareToken=90ced9cc2c044bf5f1fc785f407b7eaa

Here www.compare-school-performance.service.gov.uk/school/136290/queen-elizabeth%27s-school%2c-barnet/secondary/results-by-pupil-characteristics?accordionstate=1

If you are referring to the government statistics on prior high attainment data for Year 11 students, you can look back 2022-2023 for these two schools. You will see that there are also students who were not classified as high attainment but still gained entry.

Private school pupils don't have to sit SAT so they are excluded from the previous attainment data.

I'm not that interested in all that and the initial question was "what is the meaning of high Progress 8 measure if the intake has very high SAT already".

@BarqsHasBite thanks very much

Getting a bit specific here - i disagree with the comment above about Beaumont - they do stretch very able students. I know lots who went to top unis like Cambridge, med school etc. Plenty get As at GCSE and A level. However it is non selective (it is selective in sixth form) and siblings all go so you have a huge range of academic ability compared to a selective private school. IMO this is a good thing - siblings stay together and it seems like many do very well. Yes I am sure more money his needed for send - and that is true of many schools.

It’s a big school and as ever there will be a range of experiences, and I’m sure some teachers make more of an effort than others.

But it’s a fact that they don’t have a “gifted and talented” policy in contrast with other schools.

And I’ve heard from a number of parents whose bright children have been let down (eg expected to stare at the walls for 20 minutes of a lesson because the child had finished all the work, and had been told they couldn’t have any additional work, and had been explicitly banned from even reading for the rest of the lesson).

Another friend has an academically average child there and she gushes about the school “It’s wonderful, they ensure all the children move forward as a group, no-one is allowed to get ahead of the others!”. Yeah, that’s not so wonderful for all kids, is it?!

It’s non-selective but so are Sandringham, STAGS and the Harpenden secondaries, all of which do better with a comparable demographic (and sibling rule, though that’s irrelevant when they’re academically non-selective in the first place surely). I’ve been comparing it only with other non-selective state schools in the area.

Yes, they do well at A level but how much of that is due to tutoring? And as you note they are selective in 6th form.

I should say I was actually really impressed when I went on an open evening at the school and I do know a lot of happy parents there, but the above put me off a lot. At one point we seriously considered moving into catchment and I’m now so glad we didn’t.

I'm not referring to privste school pupils who do not take the SAT. I'm talking about state school pupils that has SAT data. The gov UK data indicates that the specific schools you mentioned still enroll students (small number) with non high attainment number in year 2022-2023.

Same!

I think that’s why it’s important to visit schools and choose what will work best for your child. The catchment is bad enough so it’s great if you prefer your kids to go elsewhere!

To be fair, heavily tutored kids that have sat the 11+ have probably burnt out by the time June of Year 6 comes along, they don't care and just write anything on the SATS paper which has little relevance to them.

@roses2 I think it's very unlikely that many kids that sat the 11 plus in September would 'burn out' and 'don't care and just write anything' in their SATs 8 months later.

Given the Michaela school is non selective and has 30% free school meals/ 70% EASL their GCSE maths and english results are astonishing