Marden High School

About Marden High School

Marden High School is a Good-rated secondary in North Tyneside, and its most recent Ofsted inspection in 2022 confirmed that the school remains Good. The inspection also rated leadership and management as Outstanding, a notable upgrade from the previous inspection in 2013, when the school was judged to require improvement overall. The most telling exam metric is Progress 8, which measures how much pupils improve between Key Stage 2 and GCSEs compared with the national average. Marden’s Progress 8 score is 0.41, placing it in the above-average banding nationally. That score is the second highest among all 11 state secondaries in North Tyneside, putting it ahead of all but one local school. It also ranks 12th out of 142 schools in the North East region, and in the top 25 per cent of schools nationally. For context, the average Progress 8 score across North Tyneside is -0.06, so Marden is performing well above its local peers.

Digging into the GCSE results from 2023/24, Marden’s Attainment 8 score sits at 53.7, meaning the average pupil achieves the equivalent of a strong pass across eight subjects. The basics measure shows that 80.8 per cent of pupils achieved a grade 4 or above in both English and maths, while 60.5 per cent managed a grade 5 or above. English is a particular strength: the Progress 8 score for English is 0.66, well above the school’s overall score, while maths Progress 8 is 0.18. The EBacc entry rate is low at 9 per cent, and only 5.6 per cent of pupils achieved the full EBacc at grade 4 or above, which suggests the school does not push the full suite of EBacc subjects heavily. The open element of Progress 8, which covers other GCSEs, is 0.43, indicating strong performance across the wider curriculum. With 16.4 per cent of pupils eligible for free school meals, the school serves a fairly typical mix of disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged students.

Marden is a popular school: for 2025/26 entry, it received 374 applications for 189 places, with 214 first-preference applications and 182 first-preference offers, making it oversubscribed by nearly two to one. The school caters for pupils aged 11 to 16 and has no sixth form, so students move on elsewhere after Year 11. Facilities include art studios, a theatre, music rooms, science labs, a library and a gymnasium, and the sports offering is broad, with football, rugby, netball, hockey, swimming and athletics among the options. Clubs range from drama and orchestra to Model UN and science club. SEND provision is well developed, covering dyslexia, moderate learning difficulties, speech and language needs, hearing and visual impairments, physical disabilities, autism and social, emotional and mental health needs. For families prioritising strong academic progress in a supportive, well-led environment, Marden is a strong contender, especially given its above-average Progress 8 and Outstanding leadership rating.

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