Celebrating a Standout Year at Teesside High School – Head’s Blog

Friday 12 December 2025 | By Samantha Hockney

As 2025 draws to a close, it feels timely to reflect on a standout year that has brought Teesside High School and its pupils a remarkable level of success. It is a sentence I could not have imagined writing 18 months ago.

Let us not overlook the reality – this has been a year of significant challenge. We have seen a 20% increase in school fees through VAT, the loss of business rates relief, rises in the national living wage and changes to the national insurance threshold. Each of these, individually, would require thoughtful adaptation. Combined, they have created a landscape unlike anything we have experienced in recent memory.

In such a climate, schools like ours must be more flexible, more innovative and more scrupulous. Never have we had to examine our business model with such precision, or act with such determination to ensure we protect what matters most: the education and wellbeing of our students.

History teaches us that times of extreme challenge are also times of opportunity and reinvention. The last challenge of comparable scale was, of course, the Covid pandemic. It demanded agility, courage and creativity. During those months and years, THS not only adapted – we excelled. Our success was not accidental. It came from a shared belief that no challenge is too great when we remain united behind our purpose.

That same belief carries us now.

This year, Teesside High School became the only independent school in Teesside to be acknowledged at the highest level by our inspectorate, ISI. We were judged to meet all inspection standards – an exceptional achievement in itself – but to also meet the ‘significant strength’ benchmark. Only around 15% of private schools nationally receive such recognition.

In February 2025, the Department for Education named Teesside High School the best school or college in Teesside for the progress students make at A-level. The league table placed THS in the top 2% of providers nationally and inside the top 100 schools or colleges in the UK for this measure.

In performing arts, we proudly maintain a 100% Distinction rate in LAMDA examinations. In sport, our pupils are delivering results which will write their names in the Teesside High School history books. Through Duke of Edinburgh, 40 pupils earned their prestigious Bronze and Silver awards – and so inspired by their outdoor education pursuits, four Year 13 pupils completed the Coast to Coast challenge.

We remain committed to academic excellence, but also to kindness. To high standards, but also to understanding. To the belief that every single child can flourish when they are challenged appropriately and supported wholeheartedly. We are so incredibly proud of our students and the thoughtful, curious, resilient, independent and ambitious young people they are becoming.

My warmest thanks go to all parents and families for your support this year. None of what we have accomplished would be possible without you.

I hope you enjoy a peaceful and restorative Christmas break, and I look forward to welcoming you back for what I hope will be an equally exceptional 2026.

Read our final newsletter of 2025 here.

Mrs Mackenzie, Head