RGS named 'Top state school in the North' (Sunday Times 2024 Parent Power Guide)

Published: December, 2023

STUDENTS and staff at Ripon Grammar School are celebrating RGS being named the top-performing state school in the North by The Sunday Times for the eleventh year running.

The school has leapt seven places in the UK league table, to 65th out of more 1,000 schools ranked by the first true set of post-pandemic examination results.

"The North's selective grammar schools continue to shine nationally, with the state boarding school Ripon Grammar School bagging the North Secondary School of the Year for Academic Performance Prize, jumping from 72 to 65, and marking more than a decade of consistent Parent Power honours," says The Sunday Times.

Headmaster Jonathan Webb welcomed the accolade from the newspaper’s 31st annual edition of the Parent Power Guide, widely acknowledged as the most authoritative survey of the UK's top schools: “My congratulations to all our students on another very successful year and a huge thank you to RGS’s dedicated and conscientious teaching staff.”

Students this year saw their hard work pay off with a set of record A-level results despite falling grades nationally, with 149 A-level students achieving 82.7% grades A-B and 56.3% grades A*-A, with 98 A* grades in total.

Mr Webb said grades were among the best the school - which consistently tops Yorkshire's A-level league table - has seen: “I am absolutely delighted with this year’s results.

“Despite the national movement of grading down to 2019 levels, students at RGS have maintained overall results at last year's record of 82.7% of all grades graded at A*-B."

Mr Webb stressed that the school would continue to strive for excellence every day: "We offer an exceptional all-round, holistic education, with music, drama and sport also thriving.”

RGS has been praised by The Sunday Times for not taking part in pandemic grade inflation. Mr Webb pointed out: “While the national figure for A*-A has fallen from 36.4% to 27%, RGS has maintained its high percentage of A*-A grades, which I think reflects the integrity of our procedures in previous years.”

“More than 56% of results were at A*-A, which is a record result also in comparison with pre-pandemic results.”

A record 85% of students this year secured their first-choice university courses, three quarters at top Russell Group universities including Oxford and Cambridge with RGS’s 56.3% A*-A score well above the national average for independent schools (47.5%) and selective state schools (39%).

*Ripon Grammar School is opening its Sixth Form doors to prospective new students and families at an Open Afternoon on January 31, 2pm-3.45pm. RGS is offering 60 new sixth form places to students from other schools in 2024 and welcomes up to 25 lower sixth formers into boarding every year, where tuition comes free and students pay for accommodation only, making it an attractive alternative to the independent sector. Application deadline: February 5