A Reading school has been crowned the best secondary school in the South East in The Sunday Times Parent Power Guide 2024 for the second year running. 

Reading School, a grammar school that teaches pupils aged 11 to 18 has taken home the title ranking the best in the southeast and the eighth best across the country.

Kendrick School also narrowly missed out on a place in the top ten coming in at number 15 on the rankings.

The Sunday Times Parent Power Guide 2024 is a round-up of the UK’s highest-achieving secondary schools.

This year's ranking is said to be the "first true set of post-pandemic examination results" and can be found in the 32nd edition of The Sunday Times Parent Power Guide.

The guide is widely acknowledged as the most authoritative survey of the country’s top schools.

The fully searchable national database found here and it has over 1,000 schools by name, local authority, town and postcode and can also be found as a print supplement with The Sunday Times.

As well as an assessment of all academic results on a school-by-school basis, Parent Power enables parents to compare the performance of a given school with other schools in the same town, local authority or nationally.

There are also live links to school websites and schools’ most recent inspection reports.

Helen Davies, Editor of Parent Power, said: “The educational landscape continues to be challenging across both the state and independent sectors, and this is the first true assessment of post-pandemic exam results. We believe these rankings – and all the additional information on offer in Parent Power – provide parents with a more reliable guide to academic achievement in schools today.

“The guide showcases academic excellence but also celebrates schools who may not be right at the top but are rising, innovating and helping pupils flourish. Being a teenager is hard enough, and the past few years since Covid have made life even harder. It is heartening to highlight the achievements of so many students and schools across the UK.

“This year Parent Power includes details on extracurricular clubs, wellbeing initiatives and school lunch menus – chicken katsu seems to be the dish of the day.”