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?

The 70% EAL is one of the reasons they do so well statistically.
They do some good work. But they have a very limited curriculum enabling them to spend a lot more time on English and Maths than most other schools.

Where we live the grammar schools don't pay any attention to the Y6 SATs results, so if you already have a place at GS there may be little motivation to do well in them.

Conversely the secondary moderns use them for setting purposes in Y7 so if it's important to you to start in top sets, it may be worth putting in maximum effort...

They don’t. It was a daft (and quite bitter) comment IMO.

My daughter did the 11 plus, cruised through year 6 with the pressure off, said the SATs were a piece of cake in comparison and scored 116+

None of us were particularly invested in the SATs but the school was very motivated, which motivated the kids to do their best no matter what.

JCOSS also has a disproportionate level of children with SEN and is a victim of its own success as a school to support children with SEN. Yet it still manages to achieve outstandingly

if you think any of the St Albans schools along with the Jewish schools are getting those results without tutoring then you’re sadly mistaken. It’s perfectly normal for some of the children to have 5 or 6 different tutors for GCSE and one of each of their A level subjects. It’s the same in the private schools.

Then add the GCSE A level workshops on top of that i.e an inspector calls workshop on Monday, a Macbeth workshop on Tuesday, A biology paper one revision workshop on Thursday. All run by local tutors and tutor agencies

That’s how the schools get the results. Parents are throwing money at this kind of thing as in their eyes “it’s cheaper than school fees so why not”

I don't know anyone who revised for SATs, even without the pressure of 11+ 🤔 Why on earth would you do that?

DS did Atom Learning SATS practise last year because (1) I wanted him to do well and (2) Some of the secondary school use SATS results to stream the class in Year 7 - I wanted to ensure we did everything we could to get him into top set in Year 7 (which he now is at a non selective state school very high on that list).

Lots of kids revise for Sats and it's actually really unhelpful to say "they don't matter" because as a PP said they are used in secondary to set not just class streams for maths for example but also general flight paths and targets.

The discussion was in the context of 11+ and SAT.
Super selective 11+ candidates don't have to revise for SAT as they're working at much higher level and would sail through to top sets in non selective state schools.

They have to though, don't they?

No, it's a choice. One that limits future options.

A choice that other schools get 'told off' by OFSTED for making.

I mean they have to because of their inner London intake. They're not focusing on uni admissions as their goal is to get children away from gangs. It's fine to have BTECs, go into blue collar jobs and have a decent life. Birbalsingh said she views this as much success as their pupils' uni admissions.

Their GCSE entries do not look limited though 🤔 https://www.compare-school-performance.service.gov.uk/school/140862/michaela-community-school/secondary/subjects-entered
Most pupils do double science but it happens in many other schools and it is clearly possible to take separate sciences.

They're not focusing on uni admissions as their goal is to get children away from gangs. It's fine to have BTECs, go into blue collar jobs and have a decent life. Birbalsingh said she views this as much success as their pupils' uni admissions.

There's a wacking great big sign outside visible to all passing on the tube "your pathway to Harvard" and another by the front gate "97% of our A level students go to Oxbridge and Russell Group".

That screams uni focus to me.

Just listen to what Birbalsingh says in her interviews about their GCSE.

EAL can actually be an advantage to getting good P8. You often have children who can't speak much English in primary but are bright- they get low SATS due to English language ability, not their intelligence, and therefore a low target for GCSE. The students then pick up the language as they talk more in English and therefore by GCSE have enough English language skills to show off their intellect.
It's not the case for everyone but can have an inflating effect on results.
Michaela isn't my cup of tea, I don't think the results are worth the methods - I'm in favour of food discipline and routines but think you can tone it down a bit and still do well.

And it is a limited curriculum. A very limited one. That other schools have been in trouble for. KB herself admits it's a limited one.

They do EBacc so all facilitating subjects needed, and 80% achieve grade 5+.

I'm not advocating for Michaela but I just cannot see how music, drama or other fancy MC GCSE can help a child from the slums surrounding the school. They need to make a living so have to be employable = be literate, numerate, responsible and sociable.

It's probably limiting that they don't offer CS, D&T or engineering but I don't know how useful these GCSE actually are. My STEM focused DC found CS incredibly dumbed down and having nothing to do with real programming. D&T may be gone from the curriculum soon anyway.

Wow! So Drama and Music aren't for the lower classes?
There are many academically rigorous subjects not included in the EBacc.
KB's comments on how Music isn't for her students are beyond disappointing - as is her comment on girls not choosing Physics because the Maths is too hard. Maybe if Physics was offered instead of Double Science?
The students who attend MS are not academically weak. They do not follow a broad and balanced curriculum in KS3. Instead they follow a limited curriculum that another school would (and has) been criticised by Ofsted for following. The limited subjects in KS3 is another way of gaming the GCSE system.

Wow! So Drama and Music aren't for the lower classes?

to be fair, careers in music and drama generally don’t lead to self sufficient careers whereas a career where you need to be articulate, can do math or science pay better.

It depends why they don't get them. P8 only looks at year 11 so if a student sits a GCSE early it doesn't count.

My STEM focused DC found CS incredibly dumbed down and having nothing to do with real programming.

Are you sure he wasn't studying IT?

You say so, I don't. But it's really really hard to make a living as a musician - DC is musical but I'd rather they focus on maths tbf as music is a dead end in the current economy. So yes, GCSE Music is useless even for middle classes. KB is just being very practical and down to earth for her students. BTW she also says the families are not interested - do you really want to force them?

Physics IS offered clearly as there are three students in the stats who've done separate sciences. Do you suggest they did a lab subject outside of school? 🤔

And schools game the system all the time @GrammarTeacher - they do easier exam boards etc yet they still cannot get the same results.

I get your point that Michaela got preferential treatment (no idea if this is true as KB also had huge problems establishing the school), but frankly parents are not that interested in what schools think about each other. I wouldn't send my DC to Michaela as mine are lazy and spoilt, other parents vote for the discipline and results by applying in droves. This tells the real story.

Re. CS it was a while back and may depend on the exam board. I worked in IT and pretty much every programmer I know learnt how to code in their spare time, just by coding when they were 12-13. You don't actually need GCSE CS for anything, even for A Level CS (which is not a must for CS at uni) you need maths, and for working in IT the more maths the better. Some linguistic aptitude helps a bit, but not a must have either. I don't really know if Michaela actually offers CS or not, it's just not on their GCSE stats but could be BTEC.

It depends why they don't get them. P8 only looks at year 11 so if a student sits a GCSE early it doesn't count.

Ah OK that may explain the strange stats @sashh

Not all schools are included. Out GD is at one of the top private schools in the country but they choose not to release their results for tables as they also concentrate on value-added and producing an all rounded person (as well getting the results).

Hi, I have a question regarding The Times list. Hope it's OK to jump on to this thread to ask.

There are two scores. A school gets one from the League Table and a different score for the National Rank.

Can anyone explain how and why these two scores differ? The school we have as first choice has wildly different scores.

Obviously identifiable which school I'm talking about if I give the exact score, so keeping it loose

E.g in the League table our school is ranked in the 400's

In the national rank it is ranked in the 200s

League table i think is purely results driven, but i can't find what the methodology is for the 'national ranking'