EARLS High School was the best performing school on the Halesowen News’ patch for last year’s GCSEs according to figures released by the Department for Education.

The eight main secondary schools covered by the News are Earls, Leasowes, Windsor, Ormiston Forge, Bristnall Hall, St Michael’s, Oldbury Academy and Perryfields.

Of those eight, Earls achieved the best ‘Attainment 8’ score in the 2018 national schools rankings.

‘Attainment 8’ is a score based on how well pupils have performed in up to eight GCSE qualifications that include English, maths and several other core subjects.

Earls topped the Halesowen area rankings with a score of 48.9, making it the fifth-best performing school out of 31 in the Dudley Local Authority.

Windsor High School was second with 46.9, with Bristnall Hall – which was the third-best performing mainstream school in the neighbouring Sandwell Local Authority – next (43.3).

They are followed jointly by Perryfields and St Michael’s, which both recorded scores of 42.4, with Leasowes next on 42, Ormiston Forge on 41.8 and Oldbury Academy bringing up the rear on 39.9.

Earls and Windsor were the only two schools in the News’ area that scored above the national average of 46.4.

The other key performance indicator in the results is ‘Progress 8’ which measures the progress pupils have made between the end of Key Stage 2 (entering secondary education) and the end of Key Stage 4 (post-GCSEs).

‘Progress 8’ is a type of value-added score measuring how much students have progressed during those five years compared to pupils across England who got similar results at the end of Key Stage 2.

Again, Earls topped the ‘Progress 8’ standings for our area with a 0.19 score, ranking its performance ‘above average’ – meaning its pupils made more progress than similar students nationally on average. That figure ranked Earls second in the Dudley borough.

Not far behind was Bristnall Hall Academy on 0.18, putting the school joint top of the Sandwell Local Authority standings for ‘Progress 8’.

Windsor High, Ormiston Forge, St Michael’s all recorded scores in the ‘average’ bracket – but Leasowes (-0.28) and Oldbury Academy (-0.43) were ‘below average’ and Perryfields (-0.53) was ‘well below average’.

Here are the rankings:

School ^^ Attainment 8 ^^ Progress 8

Earls High School ^^ 48.9 ^^ 0.19

Windsor High ^^ 46.9 ^^ 0.1

Bristnall Hall ^^ 43.3 ^^ 0.18

St Michael’s ^^ 42.4 ^^ -0.12

Perryfields ^^ 42.4 ^^ -0.53

Leasowes ^^ 42 ^^ -0.28

Ormiston Forge ^^ 41.8 ^^ 0.01

Oldbury Academy ^^ 39.9 ^^ -0.43

The maximum Attainment 8 score for a pupil is 90 – if they achieve two grade 9s in English and maths and six other grade 9s across other core subjects.

You can check out the full data here - https://www.compare-school-performance.service.gov.uk/