Top state and independent schools at A-level and GCSE - interactive table

Eton College is the top-performing school in the country at A level for the first time in more than 13 years, according to the The Times table of leading schools this year.

The school’s success also illustrates another trend — the narrowing gap in overall achievement between boys and girls. Although girls continue to outperform boys nationally, the gap is closing and seven of the top ten schools in this year’s table of leading schools admit boys.

The highest-placed girls-only school is North London Collegiate School, in fourth position.

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Eton, like other boys’ private schools, tends to score the bulk of points on the scale operated by the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (Ucas) by entering its pupils for more exams than the girls’ schools, which earn more of their league table Ucas points from getting grade As.

But the table, which includes independent and state schools, is headed by two private schools that have abandoned A levels altogether in favour of the International Baccalaureate (IB). The return to top form of Eton, the nation’s most elite school and alma mater of princes William and Harry, comes under the headship of Tony Little.

Mr Little attributed his school’s A-level success to its studiously non-academic approach. “My belief is that if you set up a good pastoral structure and you provide rich extracurricular activities, such as music, sport and theatre, then the academic results will follow. It pleases me that this year of boys who have done so well at A level have also done well outside the classroom.” He added that the school’s rowing eight won the national schools championship this year, while the theatre group staged a festival of plays written by the boys themselves. “I would be very concerned if people thought we were the kind of institution concerned with academic performance only,” Mr Little said.

This approach is in keeping with the ethos of the school, which has never felt the need to be judged on its academic credentials, resting comfortably instead on the knowledge that its very name will bestow on its pupils a unique place in society unmatched by any other educational establishment.

The school’s top-performing student this year, however, is unashamedly academic in his approach. Marius Ostrowski, who set a school A-level record with ten A grades, said that he was primarily motivated by “love of the subjects” and “the fact I am good at them”.

Although his performance is exceptional, Mr Ostrowski, 18, neatly illustrates the phenomenon noted by exam board chiefs last week of a widening gulf in A-grade achievement between the independent and state sector.

Figures released by the Independent Schools Council (ISC) yesterday confirmed this trend, showing that this year for the first time half of all A-level entries in ISC member schools scored an A grade. This compares with 25 per cent nationally.

Sevenoaks School in Kent, which only eight years ago was placed 40th among private schools at A level, broke through the 600 mark on the Ucas points scale with 619.7.

It is followed by three other IB schools, headed by Hockerill Anglo-European College in Bishop’s Stortford, Hertfordshire, the top-performing state school in the table. Next are King’s College School in Wimbledon, with 529 points, and North London Collegiate for Girls, whose pupils take A levels and the IB, with 500 points.

The success of the IB schools will add pressure on other schools to introduce the qualification instead of or alongside A levels. Students taking the IB study six subjects as well as completing an extended essay and a course in the theory of knowledge.

The only other state school in the top ten is Queen Elizabeth’s School, Barnet, a grammar school that has remained with the A level. Despite immense government investment in state schools, for A-level entries in science, technology, maths and languages, the ISC data show the continued dominance of independent schools in these subjects.

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