St. Mary’s College is Sefton’s top-performing GCSE school

9 Jan 2025

Our school is top of the class in Sefton in terms of three key GCSE performance league tables, according to new Government figures.

The recently published statistics from the Department for Education (DfE) show that St. Mary’s College achieved an Attainment 8 score of 58.9 in 2024’s summer exams, higher than all other state and independent schools in the borough, where the average figure was 41.7.

Attainment 8 measures students’ average grades across a range of eight GCSE-level qualifications. These are English and Maths, three English Baccalaureate (Ebacc) qualifications (including sciences, languages, History, Geography and ICT) and three additional qualifications approved by the DfE.

The aim of this Government measure is to encourage schools to offer their pupils a broad and well-balanced curriculum.

St. Mary’s was also the top-performing school in Sefton in terms of pupils’ English and Maths GCSE results in 2024.

73 per cent of pupils achieved Grade 5 or above in both English and Maths last summer, compared with a borough average of 37 per cent and a national average of 41 per cent.

In terms of achieving Grade 4 or above in both subjects the St. Mary’s figure was 89 per cent compared with a Sefton average of 58 per cent and 60 per cent across the country.

Meanwhile, St. Mary’s GCSE candidates also outperformed pupils in all other state and independent schools in Sefton by achieving an English Baccalaureate (Ebacc) average point score of 5.34. The borough average was 3.6 and the English average 3.89.

This score measures a pupil’s average best grades across five GCSE subject areas, the so-called ‘pillars’ of the English Baccalaureate.

Commenting on these successful figures St. Mary’s College Principal, Mike Kennedy, said: “Our policy has always been to offer students as much scope as possible at GCSE level in terms of both the number and variety of the subjects they choose to take.

“Against this background we are delighted to have once again achieved the best GCSE results in Sefton.

“This official top ranking across a range of key performance measures reflects the breadth and quality of our curriculum and, of course, the hard work and commitment of our GCSE candidates.

“I would like to congratulate all our students and staff on these outstanding figures,” added Mr Kennedy.