St Cuthbert's High School

About St Cuthbert's High School

St Cuthbert's High School is a Roman Catholic boys' secondary in Newcastle upon Tyne, sitting fifth out of eleven schools of its type in the local authority. That puts it in the upper half of the LA's state secondaries, though it trails the three top-ranked peers nearby: Gosforth Junior High Academy, St Mary's Catholic School, and Sacred Heart Catholic High School. Sacred Heart, the nearest school rated Outstanding, lies just 1.1 km away, so competition for Catholic families in this part of Newcastle is tight. St Cuthbert's itself holds a Good rating from its most recent Ofsted inspection in 2024, a notable improvement from its previous Requires Improvement grade in 2021. The school is significantly oversubscribed: for 2025/26 entry, it received 467 applications for 219 places, with 238 first-preference applications and 190 first-preference offers. With 40.2 per cent of pupils eligible for free school meals, it serves a community with above-average disadvantage, yet demand remains strong.

Academically, St Cuthbert's delivers solid, if not spectacular, results. Its Progress 8 score is exactly zero, meaning pupils achieve GCSE outcomes in line with the national average. That's a strong performance given the LA average Progress 8 sits at -0.4, so the school comfortably outperforms its local peers. Attainment 8 stands at 46.9, and 65.7 per cent of pupils achieved a grade 4 or above in English and maths. The EBacc entry rate is high at 61.1 per cent, though only 24.7 per cent achieved the full EBacc at grade 5 or above. At A-level, the picture is brighter: the school's value-added score of 0.3 is rated Above average, and the average points per entry (35.58) equates to a B- grade. The best three A-levels average out at B-, and 28.4 per cent of entries achieved AAB or higher. The sixth form is rated Good by Ofsted, and with 103 pupils in the cohort, it's a sizeable and well-subscribed provision.

The school offers a broad range of facilities, including science labs, an ICT suite, a sixth form centre, art studios, a theatre, and a chapel. Sports provision covers tennis, football, badminton, cross country, martial arts, netball, swimming, and dance, while extracurricular clubs include drama, Model UN, choir, coding, Young Enterprise, and film club. SEND support is comprehensive, covering specific learning difficulties like dyslexia, moderate learning difficulties, social and emotional mental health needs, speech and language communication needs, hearing and visual impairments, multi-sensory impairment, physical disability, and autistic spectrum disorder. For Catholic families in Newcastle, particularly those prioritising a boys-only environment with a strong sixth form and a track record of improvement, St Cuthbert's is a realistic and popular choice. Its oversubscription rate of 2.13 confirms that many local families see it the same way.

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