Cumbria’s secondary schools have been ranked based on pupil performance – revealing the worst performing and best performing schools in the county.

A metric known as the ‘Progress 8’ score is used by the government to determine which schools are performing well in relation to the progress pupils make between certain pivotal points in their educational journey.

Pupils’ progress is measured between the end of key stage two, when children are around 11 years old, to the end of key stage four, when pupils are 16 years old and sitting their GCSEs.

The progress 8 score is based on results in up to eight qualification, including English, maths, the sciences, computer science, history, geography, languages, etc.

The Department for Education defines the scores like this: “A score above zero means pupils made more progress, on average, than pupils across England who got similar results at the end of key stage 2.

“A score below zero means pupils made less progress, on average, than pupils across England who got similar results at the end of key stage 2.

“A negative progress score does not mean pupils made no progress, or the school has failed, rather it means pupils in the school made leass progress than other pupils across England with similar results at the end of key stage 2.”

There are two caveats to the data: firstly, private schools like Sedbergh are not required to publish this data; and secondly, the data is weighted based on how likely it is that one or two exceptional pupils are skewing the overall results. This is more likely to happen with smaller schools, which have smaller data sets, therefore a smaller school with the same score as a larger school can appear further down the ranking.

The following list is every state-funded school in Cumbria, ranked from best to worst on progress 8 scores:

  • Cockermouth School 0.51
  • Cartmel Priory CofE School 0.5
  • Queen Elizabeth School 0.38
  • West Lakes Academy 0.26
  • Queen Elizabeth Grammar School Penrith 0.24
  • Ulverston Victoria High School 0.22
  • John Ruskin School 0.33
  • Samuel King’s School 0.29
  • Kirkbie Kendal School 0.22
  • Nelson Thomlinson School 0.17
  • Keswick School 0.17
  • Chetwynde School 0.09
  • The Queen Katherine School 0.02
  • Dowdales School -0.04
  • St Benedict’s Catholic High School -0.14
  • Millom School -0.16
  • The Lakes School -0.17
  • Dallam School -0.18
  • Settlebeck School -0.2
  • Appleby Grammar School -0.21
  • Kirkby Stephen Grammar School -0.27
  • Caldew School -0.21
  • St Bernard’s Catholic High School -0.27
  • St Joseph’s Catholic high School, Business and Enterprise College -0.28
  • Queen Elizabeth Studio School -0.31
  • William Howard School -0.33
  • Ullswater Community College -0.45
  • Workington Academy -0.47
  • Netherhall School -0.47
  • Furness Academy -0.47
  • Walney School -0.53
  • Whitehaven Academy -0.54
  • Trinity School -0.58
  • Solway Community School -0.61
  • Richard Rose Central Academy -0.71
  • Beacon Hill Community School -0.71
  • Richard Rose Morton Academy -0.72
  • Newman Catholic School -0.74
  • Energy Coast UTC -0.84