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Hull schools are ranked second bottom in a table of 149 education authorities today, as just over a third of the city's pupils achieved five GCSE A* to C grades, including English and maths.

The bottom 20 authorities in the country also include Barnsley, Bradford and Doncaster.

New figures published today by the Department for Children Schools and Families (DCSF) reveal that 11 out of the 15 councils in the Yorkshire region have less than 50 per cent of pupils who make the grade.

Only North Yorkshire, York, the East Riding and Calderdale saw more than half their students achieve five A* to C grades including English and maths or better.

Today's tables also show Leeds had four of the worst five performing schools in Yorkshire in last year's GCSEs.

City of Leeds, Wortley High, Primrose and South Leeds High, which closed last summer, were all among the bottom 20 secondary schools in the country last year along with Fartown High, in Huddersfield.

Education chiefs in Kirklees, however, also have reason to celebrate today's tables as the area is Yorkshire's strongest performer at A-levels.

Yorkshire has only three councils in the bottom 50 in the country for A-level grades, Barnsley, Bradford and Sheffield.

The average point score for A-level students in Kirklees was the equivalent of almost three A grades.

North Yorkshire and York again finished among the region's strongest performers.

Sheffield's GCSE performance will see the city ranked 24th from bottom in a league table of education authorities.

But council leaders say today's league tables show the city's schools are on track to close the gap with the national average. The rate of improvement at Sheffield's secondary schools is now four per cent compared with a national average of under three per cent.

Sheffield Council's Cabinet member for children's services and lifelong learning, Andrew Sangar, said: "I am very pleased to see the figures for our schools, and the improvements in standards they reflect.

"We said that raising aspirations and outcomes in Sheffield schools was our number one priority, now we can see that the extra effort is beginning to make a difference."

"There's still a lot to do to reach the level where the city should be but I think today's results show we have put the bad old days of education in Sheffield behind us."

The statistics produced by the DCSF not only measure GCSE and A-level pass rates but also aim to show what impact secondary schools are having on their pupils during the course of their education. Value added tables compare pupils' performance with that of their peers and the standards they achieved at an earlier age.

Using this measure tables will show Yorkshire has four schools among the 20 secondaries which made the least impact on their students' performance across the country.