“The best grammar school in England”

Queen Elizabeth’s School tops a new national league table from The Telegraph based on a range of performance data.

In its coverage comparing the country’s 163 grammar schools, the newspaper places QE firmly at the head of its rankings: “Queen Elizabeth’s School, Barnet is the best grammar school in England based on key academic data for both GCSE and A-level students,” writes Data Editor Ben Butcher.

The Telegraph assessed the selective schools according to eight separate criteria. While exam performance was the most heavily weighted factor, the league table awarded points in areas including Progress 8 (a Government measure that looks at pupils’ academic progress from primary school to GCSE), attendance, the proportion of pupils going on to university, and breadth of curriculum.

Publication of the league table comes less than a month after the latest Ofsted report on the School. This gave QE the highest ‘exceptional’ rating across all of the seven areas that the inspectors looked at when they visited last term – a rare accolade given to only a handful of schools nationwide.

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “It is very gratifying to read this data-driven recognition of the excellence of a QE education. This success is, of course, the fruit of a host of factors identified by the Ofsted team, such as my colleagues’ ‘extremely high expectations for behaviour, conduct and attitudes to learning’, our ‘remarkably ambitious’ curriculum, and our focus on equipping pupils with ‘knowledge, resilience and flexibility of thought’.”

While The Telegraph’s league table looked at QE’s very strong 2024–2025 A-level and GCSE results, this summer’s outcomes were even better. The top A* grade went to 63% of all A-levels taken at QE, with the proportion at A*–B reaching 98%. At GCSE, the results were the School’s best-ever, with more than two-thirds of exams awarded a level 9.