Bedfordshire continues to be home to some truly excellent, powerhouse secondary schools, new data shows.
The government’s brand new preliminary performance figures for state-funded secondary schools were released last month, after initially facing delays. Using this data, we’ve created a league table ranking the top state secondary schools across the Central Bedfordshire, Bedford, and Luton council areas for the 2023/24 school year.
It’s based on their latest Progress 8 scores, a unique figure based on GCSE results and other student achievements which helps to determine how quickly a school’s pupils are learning and progressing compared to peers arriving from similar primary schools nationwide. Any score above 0 is considered positive, and we’ve made sure all of those included in the list had at least a positive score.
Bedfordshire families who keep track of the latest performance data will spot quite a few familiar names from last year’s Bedfordshire secondary school rankings - although some have had notable rises or dips in performance over the last academic year.
We’ve also made sure that all schools included had an overall Ofsted rating of ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ before this measure was recently dropped, or, if they’ve been inspected more recently, had passing marks across the board. This means that the quality of education, student behaviour and attitudes, school leadership and management, and safeguarding all met or exceeded government standards the last time the school was inspected.
Here are the 16 schools from across Bedfordshire that came out on top:
1. Bedford Free School
The top-scoring school on the list for a second year running is Bedford Free School, a secondary school in Bedford that was formerly rated ‘outstanding’ overall by Ofsted. In the 2023/24 school year, it had an extraordinary Progress 8 score of 1.11, putting it in the ‘well above average’ band - the highest available. | Google
2. Goldington Academy
Goldington Academy is another secondary school in Bedford. It was formerly rated ‘good’ overall by Ofsted. In the 2023/24 school year, it had a fantastic Progress 8 score of 0.85 - or ‘well above average’. | Google
3. Denbigh High School
Denbigh is a secondary school in Luton, formerly rated ‘outstanding’ overall by Ofsted. In the 2023/24 school year, it had a wonderful Progress 8 score of 0.80 - again ‘well above average’. | Google
4. Challney High School for Girls
Challney is a girls’ secondary school in Luton, formerly rated ‘outstanding’ overall by Ofsted. In the 2023/24 school year, it had a strong Progress 8 score of 0.74 - marking it too as ‘well above average’. | Google