The Sunday Times has revealed its Parent Power Schools Guide 2022 and several Berkshire schools have made the list

The 29th edition of the guide reveals the highest-achieving schools across the UK and ranks them based on their examination results from 2017-19.

The guide breaks down the best performing independent and state secondaries as well as the best primary and preparatory schools in the country.

Alastair McCall, the editor of Parent Power, said: “The need for clarity about school examination performance has never been greater after two years of teacher assessed grades, during which for completely understandable reasons, the numbers of top grades increased dramatically.

Reading Chronicle: A student filling out a worksheet. Credit: CanvaA student filling out a worksheet. Credit: Canva

“We felt it was important to go back to the last sets of moderated public examination outcomes from 2019, 2018 and 2017 to get the most accurate and current view of school academic achievement. By taking a three-year average, we mitigated against relatively poor performance in a one-off year.

“At a time when some schools are making hard to substantiate claims of academic prowess based on outcomes from 2021 and 2020, we believe these rankings – and all the additional information on offer in Parent Power – provide parents with a more reliable guide to academic achievement in schools today.”

The top 20 state secondary schools in the UK

Reading School has made the top ten of the best performing secondary schools in the UK. 

The school, founded by Reading Abbey in 1125, came in seventh place on the list with 91.4 percent of its A levels results between A* and B and 86.3 percent of its GCSE scores between A*/A/9/8/7.

The top 10 state secondary schools in the South East

The Sunday Times also revealed how schools in Berkshire compared with others in the South East.

  1. Reading School
  2. Tonbridge Grammar School
  3. Kendrick School
  4. Dartford Grammar School
  5. The Judd School
  6. Dame Alice Owen's School
  7. Hockerill Anglo-European College
  8. Dr Challoner's Grammar School
  9. Tunbridge Wells Girls' Grammar School
  10. Sir William Borlase's Grammar School

The top 20 independent secondaries in the UK

Wycombe Abbey School came in third place in the top independent secondary school list with 96.7 percent in both A levels between A* and B and A*/A/9/8/7 at GCSE.

It beat Magdalen College school in Oxford which came in at fourth place.

While King's College School in Wimbledon ranked in second place and St Paul's Girls' School topped the list with 97.8 percent and 99.4 percent respectively.

Eton College in Windsor came in the eleventh spot with 94.6 percent of its A level results between A* and B and 95% of its GCSE results recorded at A*/A/9/8/7.

Also making the top 20 was St Mary's School in Ascot which came in at 17th place.

The top 10 independent secondary schools in the Southeast

The Sunday Times list also revealed how Berkshire's schools compared to others in the South East.

  1. Wycombe Abbey School
  2. Magdalen College School
  3. Guildford High School
  4. Guildford High School
  5. Sevenoaks School
  6. Eton College
  7. Haberdashers' Girls' School
  8. The Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School
  9. St Mary's School Ascot
  10. Royal Grammar School

The top 20 performing primary schools in the UK

Lowbrook Academy has been recognised in this year's rankings of the best performing primary schools in the UK. 

Unlike the secondary schools list, the primary school equivalent is not based on A level and GCSE results but rather through the average outcomes achieved by schools in Standard Assessment Tests (SATs) in the three years, 2017-19.

The Sunday Times aggregated the scaled scores – where 100 indicates the reading, grammar, spelling, punctuation and maths standards that children are expected to achieve by the age of 11.

The data was collected from each of the three years and the schools were ranked accordingly.

The top 20 performing preparatory schools in the UK

St Bernard's Preparatory School in Slough has performed incredibly this year, coming in seventh on the list.

It's overall scaled score was 333.7 which is broken down to 114.3 in grammar and 112.3 in maths.