Private schools leaping ahead in race for results

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Schools in London and the South- East - where more children are privately educated than elsewhere - achieved the best A-level results in the country.

Grades have improved fastest over the past seven years in independent schools, which even beat academically selective grammars, according to an analysis by exam boards.

The results showed:

More than 50 per cent of A-levels taken by pupils in private schools were awarded A-grades, while more than three-quarters were given Bs or better.

In state comprehensives, the A-grade pass rate was just over 20 per cent.

In state grammar schools, fewer than 40 per cent of exams were awarded the top grade.

In London and the South-East, 30 per cent of all A-level exams were awarded grade A this year, compared with 22 per cent in the North-East. The average across England, Wales and Northern Ireland was for 26.7 per cent of exams to be awarded an A.

Mike Cresswell, director general of the AQA exam board, said it was not possible to put all the variations in results down to different abilities of pupils in different schools.

He said the differences in results were based on variations in "quality of teaching, environment and parental engagement" between state and private schools.