December 6, 2024
Withington Girls’ School is celebrating being named Independent School of the Year for Academic Excellence in the North West in the prestigious Sunday Times Parent Power Guide 2025. It is the sixth consecutive year the school has received an award from The Sunday Times, including being named as North West Independent Secondary School of the Decade in the 2021 edition of the Schools Guide.
“We never take academic success for granted. These superb outcomes are the result of the exceptional, empowering environment nurtured at Withington which sees our pupils achieve at the highest level and develop into the remarkable young people they become, inspired by our dedicated and expert staff, and supported by the whole Withington community,” says Headmistress, Mrs Sarah Haslam.
The award is based on academic performance in this year’s GCSE and A Level examinations, in which Withington’s A Level pupils achieved 76.8% of grades at A*-A, while over half of all GCSE grades (54.9%) were achieved at grade 9 and 81.5% at grade 8 or 9.
The Guide’s ranking of top performing secondary schools in the 2024 public examinations positions Withington 29th across all schools in the UK, both state and independent, and first in the North West. We are ranked 25th of all independent schools in the UK.
It is the eighth time Withington has earned a Sunday Times Schools Guide accolade; in addition to being named North West Independent Secondary School of the Decade for 2021, WGS was previously Independent Secondary School of the Year for 2009, North West Independent Secondary School of the Year for 2012, 2020 and 2023, and was named top ranking independent school for academic results in the North West for 2022 and 2024.
The UK’s highest-achieving primary and secondary schools are featured in the 32nd edition of The Sunday Times Parent Power Guide 2025, which is available online and in print in a 28-page supplement on Sunday, December 8.
The guide includes a fully searchable national database of over 2,000 schools by name, local authority, town and postcode. 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.
