Congratulations to Pates who have been awarded the Sunday Times state school of the year again. Details in this Sunday’s paper. I think other Gloucestershire school have also been commended which is great for our county. Well done to all the hardworking staff and students in our schools.

Well done Pates. I can see they top the board of schools for the South West region. However I can’t find reference to top school nationally is that also Pates?

I’m not sure the top school nationally has been announced yet? The Regional winners were issued to local press yesterday, but maybe Pates have been told they are number one nationally, early?

The top secondary school in South West is Denmark Road


Parents had emails from both schools on Friday afternoon!

It is slightly complicated - I haven't looked at the full list yet but, for example, KES Stratford ranks number 1 in the West Midlands, 12th Nationally, but I believe another school has been award "Top School in West Midlands" as it has made progress (KES were ranked number 1 last year as well).

I suspect Pates are similar - ie top ranking school for the region again but Denmark Road is formerly top as it has made more progress?

Interesting. OP based on school newsletters. Perhaps misleading? Haven’t had a chance to look at papers today!

The Times website does have Pate’s as top state secondary of the year

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/stat ... -09v7gn03t

Well done to Pates - I'm not from the area but Denmark Road have improved significantly in the rankings, which is possibly more impressive.

For a long time I use to look at these type of rankings and based my judgements on these but I have started to move away from this, as not only do these have much variation but are dependent on the criteria used, for example the times schools ranking list (not to be confused with this school of the year awards) allocates double weighting to A-Level results and single weighting to GCSE results.

I also had to revise my thoughts as I always thought low class sizes were important but with the great results all the grammars get in Gloucestershire I had to go away from that thought process, otherwise why wasn't St Edwards senior school on top of every ranking GCSE based ranking system (...hehehe)

Having said that it's always good when our local area (i.e. Gloucestershire) is perceived to be doing well. There is no doubt from a numbers perspective Pates is very good, and of the children I know who go there they really like and enjoy it. The irony of this is that it's located in the area which locals will say is the "roughest" part of Cheltenham...(rough...hahaha).

A couple of months back I did do a pure numbers check on Pates, STRS and Crypt - GCSE points over a 3 year period where for 8 subjects you take the most popular result for each course. It worked out that Pates got 69 points, STRS 59 points and Crypt 55 points...(back in my day I was happy to just get a B how things have changed now). But I'd imagine the criteria for school of the year is much more subjective.