Oxbridge success for Yorkshire’s schools

Silverdale School in Sheffield had the region’s highest proportion, with six per cent of its pupils going on to study at the prestigious universities.

High Storrs School, also in Sheffield, Fulford School in York and St Mary’s Catholic High in Menston, West Yorkshire, were close behind at five per cent each.

The school with the highest proportion of Oxbridge admissions, at 10 per cent, was Dame Alice Owen’s in Hertfordshire.

The figures also reveal 53 per cent of Yorkshire’s pupils went on to higher education, with Sheffield Springs Academy ranking in the top ten non-selective schools for overall university admissions.

Yorkshire was second only to the north west in admissions to Russell Group universities. Ten per cent of the region’s pupils went on to the respected establishments, which include Oxbridge and “red-bricks” such as the Universities of Leeds and Sheffield.

The Department for Education said it released the figures, from schools and colleges in England in 2009/10, as part of a Government drive for transparency and to give parents more information.

Schools Minister Lord Hill said: “It is interesting to see how well some local authorities in more deprived areas, and some schools and colleges, do in terms of students going to our best universities, compared to those in other parts of the country.”