The 21 top-rated secondary schools in the East Midlands, based on Ofsted and student performance

The East Midlands is famous for its plentiful contributions to British cuisine, and for striking the perfect balance between access to city living and the countryside.

But perhaps it should also be recognised for its many superb secondary schools, which are scattered right across the region and provide a high quality education to the next generation of Britons. But with everything from selective grammar schools for high achievers, to faith-based institutions, from larger urban high schools in the likes of Leicester and Nottingham to smaller, local schools, parents can find themselves hard-pressed to find a secondary school that works for their child, and their family.

We’ve created a league table of the East Midlands’ state secondary schools, ranked by their ‘Progress 8’ scores for the 2022/23 academic year - the most recent currently available. These are based on GCSE results and a series of other student achievements, and help determine how quickly a school’s pupils are learning and progressing compared to a nationwide average. Any score above 0 is positive, but we’ve selected only those rated ‘above’ or ‘well above average’.

We’ve also whittled it down to only schools that have been given top marks in their Ofsted inspections, and have an ‘outstanding’ rating. This means that the quality of education provided, student behaviour and attitudes, school leadership and management, and student safeguarding have all been found to be excellent.

Here are the 21 secondary schools from across the East Midlands that made the top 21: