The 19 best state sixth form schools and colleges in the North West - based on A Level performance and more

Students from across Britain are back at school now, many of them embarking on the very last chapter in their secondary education.

Sixth form makes up the final two years of a young person’s secondary schooling, and for many, it will be when they prepare for and sit their A Level exams. How they do in these can have a ripple effect on which universities or tertiary institutions they get into, and as such, their career prospects after graduation.

We’ve taken a look at some of the best-performing state secondary schools and sixth form colleges across the North West when it comes to A Level results - creating a league table for parents based on the most recent performance data currently available (from the 2022/23 school year). Many fees-free but still selective grammar schools have naturally excelled, but university-sponsored colleges and even non-selective academies have also proven to be strong performers.

We have ranked them by their A Level performance point score - a scaled score based on the average number of points students managed to achieve across all of the A Level exams they took. Sixty is the highest number possible, equivalent to an A*, but we’ve only selected schools with at at least a B average. All schools on the list also had an overall Ofsted rating of ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ before this measure was dropped last week, meaning the quality of education provided, student behaviour and attitudes, school leadership and management, and student safeguarding have all been found to either meet or exceed government standards.

Here are the 19 schools that came out on top: