Fifth of private pupils set for top A-level grades

PRIVATE schools in Yorkshire have seen as many as one in five A-level exam papers this summer graded at the top A*, as thousands of students across the region discover their results today.

Pupils in the independent sector look set to have outperformed state school students in Yorkshire in the numbers achieving the top mark which is being awarded for the first time this year.

The disparity between the performance of schools in the public and private sector comes as Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg warned that Britain was suffering from an “educational apartheid” which prevented large numbers of poorer young people getting to university.

The Independent Schools Council (ISC) predicted that privately educated students would be three times as likely to achieve an A* as pupils in publicly funded schools.

Its research revealed that 16.5 per cent of A-level exam entries from ISC schools last year would have resulted in A*s compared with just five per cent of state school entries.

However several independent schools in Yorkshire have seen an even higher success rate in today’s results.

Bradford Grammar has seen more than one-in-five of its A-level entries result in a A* while at Sheffield High School for Girls

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