Girls school on a high after A team excels

___________

League tables in full

Hear education correspondent John Roberts debate the issuesListen now

Or download to your MP3 player (right-click and choose Save Target As...)

More schools coverage from the Yorkshire Post

___________

The latest league tables show Wakefield Girls' High was one of four schools in the region to achieve this benchmark.

Success stories were spread across Yorkshire, with Ermysted's Grammar in Skipton, the Mount School in York and Hymers College in Hull also seeing an average point score equivalent to more than four top marks.

The region's top ten schools included Birkdale School in Sheffield, Heckmondwike Grammar, Greenhead College in Huddersfield, which had more than 800 students sitting A-levels last year, Skipton Girls' High School, and Bootham School in York. St Mary's Catholic School in Menston was the highest placed comprehensive school in the region.

All these schools featured in a table measuring the best performing 200 schools at A-level in the entire country.

Wakefield Girls High headmistress Gill Wallwork, who took up the post last September, said: "The level of success in these results is down to the quality of girls coming into our school and the quality of our teaching staff here. It is down to a mix of inspiration and perspiration and having both talented but also committed students."

The league tables also measure A-level success by education authority. As the Yorkshire Post revealed yesterday, Kirklees was again ranked highest in Yorkshire and seventh best of 149 councils across the country.

It was one of seven Yorkshire authorities in the top third of the country's 149 councils.

The others were North Yorkshire, York, Calderdale, Wakefield, Hull, which was ranked 34th in the country in contrast to its GCSE position of 148th, and North Lincolnshire.

The tables also highlight schools with the lowest A-level passes nationally. While Yorkshire features heavily in a list of the worst-performing schools based on GCSE results there are only a handful of secondaries from the region included in a list of the lowest A-level achievers.

Farnley Park in Leeds was ranked lowest in the region and 15th lowest in the country. Last summer it had 14 A-level students who achieved an average point score of less than two Cs.