And the top secondary school in London is…. the St Paul’s Girls’ School (again)! The second place goes to Westminster School, followed by the North London Collegiate School (as always, it seems). Girls Day School trust (GDST) schools are well presented with two out of the top 20 schools in the ranking (Putney High and SHHS would be the third and fourth GDST schools narrowly missing out on rank 21 and 22 respectively). Other selective state schools such as Tiffin Girls’ School, Henrietta Barnett and Queen Elizabeth School, London’s highly selective grammar schools, also feature near the top of the league tables.
Certainly, one major observation that has to be made is that the league tables probably reflect the level of selectivity of a school more than anything. It is less clear what the value add of each school is, but at least you know which school will attract the highest share of ambitious, hard working and smart children, which is of course also useful information to have.
One school to watch that is not yet in the top 20 is the Kings College Maths School London, a selective new free school in South London that offers children A-levels in Maths, Further Maths, Physics, Computer Science and Economics only. 40% of its students are girls. 30% of their leavers got offers to study at King’s College last year, with a further 15-20% getting into Oxbridge. The school has not published the percentage of entries at A*, which is why it is not included here, but 100% of Maths A-Levels were marked A/A* (83% A*), and 77% of Further Maths A-Level entries were marked A/A*.
Top 20 London schools ranked by % of A*’s at 2016 A-levels
| A* | ||||
| 1 | SPGS | private | Girls | 56% |
| 2 | Westminster | private | Co-ed | 56% |
| 3 | NLCS | private | Girls | 46% |
| 4 | St Paul’s | private | Boys | 45% |
| 5 | Habs | private | Boys | 40% |
| 6 | Henrietta Barnett School | state | Girls | 40% |
| 7 | Queen Elizabeth School, Barnet | state | Boys | 38% |
| 8 | JAGS | private | Girls | 38% |
| 9 | Tiffin Girls | state | Girls | 35% |
| 10 | Godolphin & Latymer School | private | Girls | 35% |
| 11 | Habs Girls | private | Girls | 34% |
| 12 | Alleyn’s | private | co-ed | 33% |
| 13 | Notting Hill & Ealing High | private | girls | 32% |
| 14 | CLSG | private | Girls | 32% |
| 15 | Latymer Upper | private | Co-ed | 31% |
| 16 | City of London | private | Boys | 31% |
| 17 | Lady Eleanor Holles | private | Girls | 30% |
| 18 | King’s College Wimbledon | private | Co-ed | 30% |
| 19 | Hampton School | private | Boys | 30% |
| 20 | Highgate | private | Co-ed | 28% |
GCSE results 2016 will be released on Thursday 25th August, which will provide potentially more up to date info on the ranking of London secondary schools. Since some schools (such as NLCS, King’s College and Godolphin & Latymer, for example) offer their pupils a choice of A-Levels and IB Diploma and many schools accept external candidates into their Sixth Form, GCSE results tend to reflect the quality of a senior school more accurately.